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 PUBLISHED AND FOR SALE BY 
 
 ALBERT HOBART, Rockland, Mass. 
 
 __ . PRICE 25 OENTS 
 
POLITICAL 
 THUNDERBOLTS 
 
 SEARCH-LIGHTS TURNED ON 
 WITHOUT FEAR OR FAVOR 
 
 A TWO YEARS' TRIP 
 
 \v 
 
 l()\i:ring every state in the ^ 
 
 UNION 
 ASTONISHING FACTS 
 
 rockland, mass. 
 
 Albert Hobakt, Publisher 
 
 1900 
 
XWO COPIES RECEiVexJ, 
 
 Libnry of e^fii^eliii 
 
 Uif\Q& 9f till 
 
 M«v 2 ' 1900 
 
 E~7/i 
 
 61465 
 
 Copyright, 1900 
 
 BY 
 ALBERT HOBART 
 
 StCOND COPY, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The author is solicitous in offering this book to the 
 public to awaken the American people, if possible, to 
 the fact that they are drifting along, unconsciously, into the 
 same channels and into the same conditions as exist among 
 the old countries of Europe, and get them to realize that 
 millionaires are in full control of the law-making power. 
 And so long as they allow them to make the laws they must 
 expect them to make such laws as will be for their mutual 
 benefit, and against the interest of the working class. 
 
 It is the wish of the author that they realize the fact 
 that the annexation of Hawaii, the war with Spain, and the 
 effort now being made to annex Porto Rico and the PhiJ- 
 ippine Islands, is the work of our American millionaires, 
 that they may secure a reservoir of cheap labor in the 
 United States, and get control of the sugar, hemp, and 
 tobacco business. 
 
 It is his desire that they realize that thousands of our 
 American boys have been sacrificed in Cuba and the Philip- 
 pines for the benefit of trust companies and corporations. 
 
 It is also his desire to show the American people that 
 whenever they compete with the foreigner, who comes to 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 our country, or with the products of the cheap labor of for- 
 eigners, they must work as cheaply as they or not at all. 
 
 It is his wish to awaken the young American to the 
 realization of the fact that in half the States in the Union 
 foreigners, who cannot speak or read the English language, 
 can vote in six months after they land, while they are 
 obliged to wait until they arrive to the age of twenty-one 
 years. The facts as given in this little book and conditions 
 named are just as the author found them in every State in 
 the Union. He cares nothing for criticism, but offers the 
 book without fear or favor. 
 
 The Author. 
 
CHAPTER L 
 
 AMERICA AS WE FIND IT IN 1897. 
 
 HURRAH for Fourth of July, 1897! The 
 grand procession has just passed. Every 
 flag has been flung to the breeze, and Old Glory 
 rules the town. Over ten thousand men in line. 
 The old veterans with their gray locks marched 
 proudly in front, then came the State Guards, the 
 Firemen, tlie Boys Brigade, and many more that 
 could not be classed. Behind, sitting proudly in 
 his barouche, came the orator of the day. It was 
 enough to thrill the heart of any American. 
 
 Let us follow them to the grand park, and learn 
 something more about this magnificent country in 
 which we live, our free American institutions, and 
 our independent and happy people ; where the 
 laboring man owns his own home, is the best paid, 
 the best housed, and the best clothed of any peo- 
 ple under God's shining sun. Everybody cheered. 
 The band played "America," and the speaker was 
 introduced as the Hon. Jas. P. Stockwell, member 
 of Congress from Stebbinsville. He told us about 
 this grand, splendid country, the great plains, the 
 
6 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 sublime mountains, the great, rushing, roaring 
 rivers, and shores lashed by two oceans; about 
 the declaration of independence, and that every 
 man was born free and equal. He told us about 
 liberty, fraternity, and equality. He told us about 
 the magnificent statue of Liberty, bearing upon its 
 forehead the glittering and shining star of progress ; 
 about a united and happy people. He told us 
 about the American homes being filled with sun- 
 shine and joy ; of the prosperity and patriotism of 
 our people ; about a country where the withered 
 hand of want was never known ; and I said the 
 Hon. Jas. P. Stockwell, member of Congress from 
 Stebbinsville, has lied. The withered hand of 
 want is known in America by millions of American 
 people, and the year 1897 has seen more suffering 
 and want throughout this country than ever before 
 in all her history. 
 
 For proof of this assertion let us note the clip- 
 pings from our own American papers. The fol- 
 lowing is from the Chicago Chronicle of January 
 26, 1897: 
 
 "Fifty thousand persons are in want in the city 
 of Chicago. Three hundred thousand are pinched 
 through lack of steady employment. These figures 
 are estimated as the result of one day's relief work 
 by the police force, and are believed to be con- 
 servative. There is a wide difference between the 
 two classes represented. The 50,000 named are 
 those who are suffering from the want of fuel and 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 7 
 
 food ; in the 300,000 are embraced those of the 
 working classes who have little or no work through 
 the stagnation in business and manufacturing 
 lines." 
 
 Here is a report from New York, headed 
 "Thousands out of work," "Tramps on the in- 
 crease." I will give it to you word for word as 
 taken from the paper dated June 20, 1897: 
 
 "Reports collected from every section of the 
 country show that there is now a vast army of 
 tramps spread over the United States. In almost 
 every instance the increase in the number of wan- 
 derers has been due to the non-appearance of Mc- 
 Kinley's promised prosperity. The total number 
 of tramps at present in the United States, accord- 
 ing to the most conservative estimates, is fixed at 
 336.250. Of these, by far the larger portion are 
 men honestly looking for work. The greater num- 
 ber seem to center about New York and Illinois. 
 The summary by States is as follows: 
 
 Maine 800 
 
 New Hampshire. ... i ,000 
 
 X'ermont 500 
 
 Massachusetts 3,000 
 
 Rhode Island 200 
 
 Connecticut 2,500 
 
 Indiana 33,000 
 
 Ohio 5,000 
 
 Tennessee 3,000 
 
 Kentucky 4,000 
 
 Mississippi i ,500 
 
 Alabama 200 
 
 New York i 10,000 1 Iowa 400 
 
 New Jersey 10,000 j Missouri 12,000 
 
 Pennsylvania 10,000 1 Louisiana 1,000 
 
 Maryland i ,000 Texas i ,400 
 
 Delaware 900 1 North Dakota i ,000 
 
 Virginia i ,203 | Nebraska 5,000 
 
 West Virginia 700 Kansas 10,000 
 
 North Carolina 3,000 ' Montana 2,000 
 
8 
 
 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 South Carolina. 
 
 Georgia 
 
 Florida 
 
 Wisconsin 
 
 Michigan 
 
 Illinois 
 
 loo 
 3,000 
 4,000 
 5,000 
 3,000 
 58, 000 
 
 Idaho 
 
 Wyoming. . 
 
 Utah 
 
 Colorado 
 
 Washington 
 California . . 
 
 2,000 
 1,000 
 250 
 600 
 1,000 
 5,000 
 
 One deplorable feature of the reports received 
 is that crime has been greatly increased, because 
 so many men are without employment. In this 
 State, as an illustration, police officials and author- 
 ities of penal institutions declare that the number 
 of tramps has doubled since last year. Conserva- 
 tive estimates based on official figures show that 
 this year New York State has 110,000 tramps. 
 Records from all over the country show that the 
 offenses usually committed by tramps, such as 
 petit larceny and vagrancy, have doubled this year 
 over figures of last year. 
 
 William McMahon, for eighteen years superin- 
 tendent of the Pittsburg Bethel Association of the 
 Western Seamen's Friend Society, said to-day at 
 Pittsburg : 
 
 " I am satisfied the increase in crime can be 
 traced to the increasing number of unemployed, 
 hungry men, not only here, but all over the coun- 
 try. The recent gathering in Buffalo is an omi- 
 nous cloud that will break and cause much trouble 
 in this country in a few years. 
 
 " It is estimated that tramps in Pennsylvania 
 number at least 60,000. 
 
 " There has been such a marked increase in 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 9 
 
 crime of all kinds, especially theft, forgery and 
 burglary in West Virginia, in most cases traceable 
 to the inability of the people to make both ends 
 meet, that the directors of the State penitentiary 
 have asked for bids for cell-rooms to accommo- 
 date 100 more prisoners. 
 
 ** Of the 3000 tramps in North Carolina most of 
 them are said to have come from the West and 
 North. Robust men, laborers, and tradesmen, 
 daily plod along the streets of the cities seeking 
 employment, and are willing to work at almost any 
 price. J. W. S. Hervey, painter and contractor, 
 says that first-class workmen of his trade at Wil- 
 mington would be glad to get employment at fifty 
 cents a day. Disheartened men, many of whom 
 have dependent families, are forced to become 
 tramps, and are leaving the cities to seek employ- 
 ment elsewhere to get bread." 
 
 This is not all. We find the following from Mil- 
 waukee, Wis., under the same day (June 20th) : 
 
 "At least ten per cent, of the adult male popu- 
 lation of Milwaukee is idle, and thousands of men 
 walk the streets daily in search of work. The sit- 
 uation has been relieved somewhat, during the past 
 six weeks, through the usual resumption of build- 
 ing operations in the spring; but there are still 
 about 12,000 persons receiving aid from the 
 county. Tramps were never so numerous in Mil- 
 waukee and throughout the State as during the 
 past winter, when they swarmed nightly to the jails 
 
10 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 and police stations in search of lodgings. The 
 warm weather, however, has enabled these way- 
 farers to sleep in open air, and every night the 
 parks in the neighborhood of Milwaukee furnished 
 lodgings for hundreds of idle men. 
 
 "There have been only a few instances of riot- 
 ous demonstrations on the part of tramps in Wis- 
 consin towns. This is attributed by the police to 
 the good character of most of the men. Inspector 
 Miller of the Central Police Station says that the 
 majority of men provided with lodgings in the 
 various police stations of Milwaukee were all able- 
 bodied and intelligent mechanics, who had been 
 out of employment for a long time, and had 
 tramped over a large portion of the country look- 
 ing for work. He says that among their number 
 were included a surprisingly large number of 
 farmers and farm laborers. 
 
 " Reports from the mining districts of Lake Su- 
 perior reveal a similar story of suffering among 
 people who are willing and anxious to work. That 
 there have been so few depredations in the absence 
 of any measures for the relief of this vast traveling 
 army of the unemployed is surprising." 
 
 That is what they said in Wisconsin on June 20, 
 1897. But this is not all. Here is an article from 
 Michigan, headed, " Thousands Idle in Detroit," and 
 this is dated Detroit, Mich., June 20th. It says: 
 
 " Michigan tramps are a well-behaved lot. 
 There are something like 3,000 of these gentry 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. n 
 
 scattered through the 600 towns and villages in the 
 State. They commit the petty depredations gen- 
 erally credited to tramps the country over. In the 
 country hen-roosts suffer as they do in the vicinity 
 of camp meetings, when the colored brother is 
 worshiping his God by shouting and prayer. De- 
 troit is unusually free from the pest. There are 
 several thousand men in this town out of work. 
 
 ''There is no denying the question that the 
 times, despite the promises of protection and pros- 
 perity, are hard. The other day a down-town 
 street was torn up preparatory to repaving. The 
 applicants for work outnumbered the lucky few 
 forty to one." 
 
 Only think of it ! forty applicants for every job 
 in the State of Michigan; and it is the same all 
 over the country. 
 
 Here is another from St. Louis under the same 
 date : 
 
 " Statistics of the Provident Association and 
 other benevolent societies here show that never be- 
 fore has there been such widespread destitution as 
 at the present time. This want was, of course, 
 more acute during the winter months, but it exists 
 now, although it is scattered over a greater terri- 
 tory, and is not so intrusive. Thousands of men 
 who eked out a miserable existence with the assist- 
 ance of organized charity during the winter, are 
 now scattered over the country adjacent to St. 
 Louis. With the advent of warm weather they 
 
12 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 have taken to the fields, where they may manage 
 to shift for themselves by dint of depredation and 
 petty robbery. 
 
 " Reports from the interior of Missouri indicate 
 that the country is infested with tramps to a de- 
 gree unknown heretofore. Farmers complain that 
 their meager possessions are no longer safe unless 
 unceasing watch is kept, and in some cases the 
 wandering mendicants do not hesitate to resort to 
 violence. In fact, the tramps have put on a bold 
 front this year, and demand what they were for- 
 merly wont to beg. Some murders, and numerous 
 minor outrages, have been reported since the 
 tramping season set in. 
 
 "It is a matter of statistical record that the des- 
 titution in St. Louis during the winter just ended 
 was unprecedented. The organized charities dis- 
 bursed more than double the usual sum, and re- 
 cently issued an urgent call for additional funds to 
 keep pace with increasing want. During the cold 
 weather the number of hold-ups was alarming, but 
 the advent of summer has relieved the situation 
 somewhat in the city." 
 
 That was the condition in Missouri, and that is 
 not as bad as the reports from some other points. 
 Here is one from Spring Valley, Illinois. After 
 you read it I think you will agree with me in say- 
 ing that the Hon. Jas. P. Stockwell, from Stebbins- 
 ville, lied when he told us this was the best coun- 
 try in the world, and that her working people were 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I 3 
 
 the best clothed, best fed, and best housed. Here 
 is the report : 
 
 ''There is no work for tramps, even for their 
 board, as fully one-half of regular labor employed 
 in this section is to-day idle, and the other half 
 working at half wages on half time. The condi- 
 tions at present are deplorable; worse, in fact, than 
 ever experienced in this section. There is much 
 suffering among the poor, and county aid is doled 
 out very sparingly; families of four, five, and six, 
 getting but from four to eight dollars a month to 
 live on. Many of the miners who were earning 
 fair wages here a year ago have gone back to Eu- 
 rope to remain there until the expected good 
 times arrive. In this locality alone fully 500 men 
 have returned to the old country, most of them to 
 Italy." 
 
 That was the situation on June 20, 1897, at 
 Spring Valley, Illinois. Men going back to Eu- 
 rope to better their condition. If times improve 
 in the next few years they will all return in time to 
 vote for Bryan in 1900. 
 
 Here is one from the New York World on the 
 condition of workwomen at Paterson. It says : 
 
 "There are women in the flax mills at Paterson 
 who work ten hours a day ankle deep in dirty 
 water, and breathe an atmosphere like that of a 
 Turkish bath. They receive $5.70 a week. There 
 are other women in these same mills who work 
 ten hours a day, and with every breath take into 
 
14 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 their lungs a fine dust that breeds early death, as 
 as surely as do germs. They receive $4.50 a 
 week." 
 
 This is not all. Here is another on the homes 
 of the New York poor : 
 
 "The alleged home of a New York tenement 
 house worker consists, usually, of two small rooms 
 poorly lighted, the sanitary conditions of which is 
 a mockery and disgrace to our modern civilization. 
 The family live, eat, sleep, and make cigars in these 
 pest-holes called ** homes." Little children are 
 compelled to eke out an existence in the midst of 
 such surroundings, living in an atmosphere reeking 
 with foul air and the fumes of tobacco in its vari- 
 ous stages of preparation, and a moral atmosphere 
 which appeals to humanity for redress." 
 
 Here is one from St. Louis, sent as a special to 
 the Chicago Re cord y]\xw& 23, 1897. This caps the 
 climax: 
 
 "So weak from starvation that she was unable 
 to walk Mrs. Kate Haffner, aged sixty-three years, 
 was taken to the hospital to-day. She had been 
 trying to earn her living by making jean trousers 
 at fifteen cents a dozen. She could only earn 
 eight cents a day, and was starving when discov- 
 ered by the neighbors." 
 
 The "Song of the Shirt" was written in 1857. 
 Cannot some one give us the song of the breeches 
 for 1897? Go where you may in this land of the 
 free and home of the brave, east, west, north or 
 

 - yS^J^Qp'TU-DLBVUfL.— 
 
 COMPETING FOR THE MARKETS OF THE WORLD BY MAKING PANTS 
 AT 15 CTS. PER DOZEN. 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I 5 
 
 south, and you find the laboring people in nearly 
 the same condition as this St. Louis woman. A 
 thousand volumes of this size could be filled, giv- 
 ing the sad conditions of working men and work- 
 ing women in the United States, and then the half 
 would not be told. 
 
 Let me give you a letter written by Secretary 
 Ryan of the United Mine Workers of Braidwood, 
 Illinois, to Senator Mason. The labor man ap- 
 peals to the senator to abandon his war with 
 Spain over Cuba, and turn to the misery at home. 
 He says : 
 
 " Allow me to call your attention to the fact 
 that 40,000 of your constituents are waging an 
 unequal contest in their battle for bread. I allude 
 to the coal miners of the State of Illinois, who are 
 now in a state of semi-starvation, brought about 
 by a series of circumstances over which they have 
 no control. The insane system of competition in- 
 augurated by the coal operators — many of whom 
 occupy front pews in our leading churches — has 
 brought about a condition of suffering and desti- 
 tution among the miners which has never been 
 equalled in the world. 
 
 "We have been forced to accept reduction after 
 reduction in the price of mining until the price 
 now being paid is so low that miners cannot earn 
 over seventy-five cents a day on an average, and 
 then the miners work only about half the time. 
 Supposing we put the average wage at $1.00 per 
 
1 6 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 day, and the miners work three days per week, 
 this would give the miners about $12.00 a month, 
 which is a fair average. 
 
 '•Taking a family of five, the good housewife 
 must furnish fifteen single meals or 450 meals per 
 month. Dividing $12.00 by 450 we find that the 
 miner's wife has the magnificent sum of 2 and f^cts. 
 per meal. This is not taking into consideration the 
 fact that people in mining communities wear 
 clothes, pay house rents, doctor bills, and several 
 other items of expense too numerous to mention. 
 
 " There is no laboring man on earth who works 
 harder or who needs more good, substantial food 
 than the miner, and we find he is compelled to 
 labor all day, sometimes in mud and water, on 
 food furnished at less than eight cents per meal. 
 The Cuban patriot who is battling for his freedom 
 is not exposed to any more hardships or danger 
 than is the man who goes down into the bowels of 
 the earth in search of the black diamonds ; and I 
 doubt if there have been any more lives lost or 
 soldiers wounded in the Cuban army than there 
 have been miners killed or injured in the mines of 
 Illinois since the insurrection commenced. 
 
 " I am certain there are no more women or chil- 
 dren hungry in Cuba at this moment than you will 
 find among the miners' families in Illinois. 
 
 '* The officials of the United Mine Workers of 
 Illinois have made four unsuccessful attempts to 
 interview Governor Tanner on this question. Each 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 1/ 
 
 time he was too busy. Between Allen bills, gas 
 bills, and apportionment bills, his time was all 
 taken up. He has already forgotten the pledges 
 he made last fall when threshing around after votes. 
 Hoping this appeal to you may not fall on deaf 
 ears." 
 
 How is it possible for men all over this country 
 like the Hon. Jas. P. Stockwell, from Stebbinsville, 
 to come before the people with such swash ; it 
 seems mockery. 
 
 Even in the Southern States where the people 
 ought to be prosperous if anywhere, living as they 
 do in a climate that requires so little to keep them 
 at least comfortable, we find it no better. The 
 small farmers who rent land are is debt. 
 4f Two years ago with the largest cotton crop ever 
 raised not one in ten paid out at the end of the 
 year. Where land can be bought at from one tc 
 five dollars per acre it is impossible for men rent 
 ing land ever to accumulate enough to own a farm 
 of their own, unless the conditions are change^^ 
 The over production of cotton has brought tn- 
 price to a point where it is no longer profitable to 
 raise it. The cry over the South for the past four 
 years has been, " Reduce the acreage of cotton." 
 Every paper in the Southern States has been 
 urging this plan, and asking the farmer to diversify 
 his crops. Conventions have been held in nearly 
 every cotton State to devise plans for this reduc- 
 tion in acreage of cotton. But what can they do 
 
1 8 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 to reduce it? the South is not a corn country, or a 
 wheat country. The average crop of corn per 
 acre throughout the South is only a little above 
 twelve bushels, while the average in Kansas, Iowa, 
 Illinois, and Nebraska is over forty bushels. How 
 can the South compete with these States in the 
 markets ! Simply impossible ; yet the South has 
 been compelled to increase their acreage of corn 
 in order to have bread. Not one renter of land in 
 ten in the Southern States have wheat bread more 
 than once a week ; corn bread is their staple. 
 Notwithstanding their yield is only thirteen bushels 
 per acre they are forced by the low price of sugar 
 and cotton to raise corn, and we find the prediction 
 already made that the cotton and sugar States will 
 produce this year the enormous amount of 500,- 
 000,000 bushels; thus showing the large increase 
 in corn acreage in the cotton and sugar States. 
 
 The Western States are in as bad conditions as 
 the South. Corn brings only about twelve to four- 
 teen cents per bushel at the farms in Kansas, Iowa, 
 or Nebraska. The crop of 1896 was the largest 
 ever raised. The yield was enormous, yet the en- 
 tire crops on thousands of farms in these States 
 did not sell for enough to pay the rent. This is 
 no dream. I have the names of many of them. 
 Can you tell me how it is possible for a farmer 
 renting land in these States to ever own a farm, 
 when with the largest crops ever raised on the land 
 would not sell for enough money to pay the rent? 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 1 9 
 
 If you can, I will be greatly obliged. The farmer 
 who sells his milk to the creameries has not re- 
 ceived enough out of it to pay fair wages for milk- 
 ing. Only think of a farmer getting out of bed at 
 two o'clock in the morning with the thermometer 
 fifteen degrees below zero, milk his cows and then 
 cart it from eight to ten miles for seven cents per 
 gallon ! Can you tell me how long it will take 
 that man to pay for a farm? 
 
 The Chicago Chronicle has told you about the 
 conditions in the North. They tell you that one- 
 fourth of the entire population of Chicago are 
 unable to earn bread where they are willing to 
 work. God knows it is as bad as it can be ! 
 
 In the East it is just the same, The New York 
 World XgWs you 1 10,000 men are out of work, and 
 on the tramp ; factories closed, and wages cut. 
 
 You must not think that these times are only 
 effecting those who labor with their hands. The 
 wages of all clerks in every city and town in this 
 country have been cut so low that it is impossible 
 for them to save a dollar. They are obliged to 
 dress well in order to hold their positions, and in 
 ninety-nine cases out of every hundred it is all 
 they can do to keep up. The average pay of the 
 clerks in the United States is not more than ninety 
 cents a day. Young men are working from six 
 o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock at night 
 in thousands of stores all over this land for from 
 fifteen to twenty dollars per month. If they should 
 
20 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 quit there would be fifty applications to every job. 
 The traveling men everywhere have been cut 
 nearly one-half, and thousands of old men are 
 without a job of any kind. Young men out of 
 work at the factories are bidding for the places of 
 the old men. They are bright, well-educated, and 
 know the business. They are out of work, and 
 they take what they can get. It is the same in 
 every branch of trade. It is worse with the man- 
 ufacturers. I am confident that seventy-five per 
 cent, of all the manufacturers of this country have 
 lost money the past three years, and fully one-half 
 of the balance have not more than kept even. 
 Thousands of mechanics have left the shops, and 
 taken to the fields. More corn has been raised in 
 New England than ever before, notwithstanding 
 the low price. Land that had not been turned for 
 forty years has been planted with corn. You 
 don't know why, do you ? Well ! I can tell you. 
 Because the poor fellows were out of work, and 
 could not get a job at any price. This forced 
 them to raise corn. 
 
 The same may be said of the South. The 
 Southern people could not make a living raising 
 cotton and sugar, and were forced to raise corn 
 and wheat in order to live. Carpenters, brick- 
 masons, clerks, railroad men, traveling men, 
 school-teachers, and men from every conceivable 
 occupation have been forced into the fields to raise 
 corn and wheat, and still there are men who won- 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 21 
 
 der why the price of corn, wheat, and cotton is at 
 a low figure. I am surprised that corn will bring 
 ten cents in Kansas. I am surprised that cotton 
 brings four to five cents per pound in the South. 
 I am surprised that there is any market for it at 
 all. And when the corn, wheat, and cotton plant- 
 ers of this country learn some sense the price 
 may advance, and not till then. 
 
 Interest on deposits at the banks have been re- 
 duced frcm five and six per cent, to four per cent., 
 and the banks are full of money in every county in 
 this land. No one wants to build anything. No 
 one wants to buy land. No one wants to do busi- 
 ness if he can get out, and it would have been 
 better for thousands of merchants if they had 
 stopped business four years ago, and lived off their 
 capital. They would have had more money to- 
 day. Thus we have summed up the conditions 
 of this country as it has been the past four years, 
 and the Hon. Jas. P. Stockwell lied when he told 
 us that this was the best country in the world. 
 Thus endeth the first lesson. 
 
CHAPTER IL 
 
 A VISIT AMONG THE TOILERS. 
 
 LET us now talk with the hard-handed sons of 
 toil of this country, and learn from them 
 about the trouble and hard times. We will go in- 
 to the cotton fields of Georgia and Mississippi, 
 out among the sugar growers of Louisiana and 
 Texas, into the mines of Pennsylvania and the 
 workshops of New England, out among the corn 
 fields of Illinois and Iowa. We will visit the 
 wheat growers of Minnesota and the Dakotas. 
 We will talk with the men who run the trains, and 
 the men who forge the iron and steel ; with the 
 clerks and porters in the stores and warehouses. 
 We will meet the traveling men on the trains, and 
 we will talk with the leaders of the labor organiza- 
 tions. Let us learn from their own lips about this 
 trouble and the remedy. 
 
 Listen for a moment to Eugene V. Debs. He 
 says: 
 
 "It is to change existing conditions, and to find 
 work for the unemployed that our new movement 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 23 
 
 has been started. The crisis is supreme. Some- 
 thing must be done, and that at once. There is 
 no hope of relief from Congress. The American 
 Railway Union will move on peaceful and patriotic 
 lines to solve the problem. To find labor and 
 food for tens of thousands now in distress is our 
 aim. There is room for all in the West, and we 
 propose to get them there. That tramps are un- 
 usually numerous this year is the direct result of 
 the protective tariff system. So long as this coun- 
 try fosters unhealthy over-production by means of 
 the tariff, we will have the tramp issue in ever in- 
 creasing force to wrestle with." 
 
 That is what Eugene V. Debs says, and remem- 
 ber he is President of the "American Railway 
 Union." 
 
 Now I wish to give you the explanation, as 
 made by Joseph Greenhut, City Statistician, for 
 the remarkable army of tramps that is sweeping 
 over the Western country this year. He says : 
 
 "Factory hands and mechanics must face an es- 
 tablished condition of affairs which is well under- 
 stood by all thinking men who have studied the 
 situation. Under a protective tariff factories, and 
 other places where labor is employed, have in- 
 creased in number until their product is larger 
 than the demand. The result is these workshops 
 cannot be kept running on full time. Hours are 
 shortened, and in many places employment is 
 given for only seven or eight months in the year. 
 
24 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 Those who are provident may be able to tide 
 themselves over this idle season. Those who are 
 not must get out and seek new fields of labor. 
 Thus we have the tramp, not the chronic, idling 
 vagabond, but honest mechanics on the hunt for 
 work. These are unusually numerous this year 
 from the cause given, and the conditions will grow 
 worse instead of better, until a radical remedy is 
 applied. This remedy, I think, lies in free trade, 
 and the narrowing of production to meet actual 
 demands." 
 
 This is the cause and the remedy as given by 
 Joseph Greenhut, and I advise you to read it the 
 second time. Do not forget that he tells you the 
 tramps are honest mechanics on the hunt for 
 work. 
 
 We will now go out among the farmers of Kan- 
 sas, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. 
 The question I asked them was: "What do you 
 want to bring you prosperity?" The answer was 
 prompt and decided, ''We want a higher price for 
 our corn and wheat." *' Well, then, if you could 
 get the prices for your corn, wheat, and other 
 produce you did a few years ago, you would be all 
 right, would you ? " " Yes," they said ; " we could 
 then live and save something. A few years ago 
 I have known men to buy a farm in this State and 
 pay for it in six or seven years ; now we could not 
 raise money enough to pay interest on the mort- 
 gage." " Yes, my friends," I said, ** but interest is 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 25 
 
 lower now, and everything you buy is low." ''We 
 know it is, but not in proportion to what we pro- 
 duce." " Well ; what do you think is the matter ? " 
 I asked. " Why," they said ; " the monetary sys- 
 tem of our Government is against the working 
 people. We need more money, and with free 
 coinage of silver, on a ratio of sixteen to one, it 
 would give us more money. There would be more 
 money in circulation, and we could get more 
 for our grain. The laws of this country are all 
 made by the rich men for the rich men. They 
 are taking the life's blood from the poor. They 
 are buying up all the land, and hold it at prices 
 they know a man can never pay. The manu- 
 facturers with their tariff for protection dictate to 
 us the prices we shall pay. Wall Street together 
 with the trusts and railroads run the country." 
 This is the substance taken from sixty-four con- 
 versations with farmers in the above States. 
 
 Now let us go East and talk with the employees 
 of the factories. On my arrival in Boston there 
 was to be a meeting of Union Labor, and thinking 
 we might learn something new we walked overto the 
 hall. That big fellow with the plug hat smoking 
 that cigar is the speaker. " But," says my friend, 
 "that man is not a laboring man is he?" "Oh, 
 no ; he is the President of the Union. He has 
 $5,000 a year to tell them when they shall strike, 
 and make a speech once in a while." " The time 
 has come," replied my friend, "when no man can 
 
26 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 become a senator or congressman in this country 
 unless he be a millionaire. They buy the office at 
 ten times its value, and make millions by the pur- 
 chase. They demonetized our silver — the poor 
 man's money — in 1873, and they are not even 
 now satisfied. They cut our wages, and if we 
 strike they then turn the guns of the country upon 
 us, and shoot us down like dogs. They impose a 
 duty upon us on everything we eat or wear. It is 
 time to take matters into our own hands, and fight 
 for our rights." 
 
 We visited a number of the factory towns in New 
 England, and found many out of employment en- 
 tirely, and others working on half time. We 
 saw a man coming out of one of the factories, and 
 as he looked like a sensible fellow we interviewed 
 him. "I see you have just come out of that fac- 
 tory, do you work there? " *• Yes; I have worked 
 there over fifteen years. I do not have work but 
 three days a week now." ** How is your wages 
 compared with four years ago?" "I can only 
 earn $1.25 a day now, while four years ago I could 
 earn $2.50 a day. I work by the piece, and if 
 they keep on cutting the price every month there 
 is no telling what they will want us to work for 
 after a while." "Well, what do you think is the 
 trouble?" "Why; the bosses want to make more 
 money, and every time they cut our wages that is 
 so much in their pocket." " But I see that factory 
 across the street is closed, what is the matter with 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 2/ 
 
 them?" '*Oh, they failed about a year ago, and 
 have not started up." ** Do you think they will 
 start up soon?" "No; the owner committed sui- 
 cide soon after he failed." " Well, I have noticed 
 several factories closed about the town." "Yes; 
 they all failed." "Do you think the Dingley Tar- 
 iff Bill will help business?" "No; it will only 
 make things higher, and make it still harder for 
 the working man. The rich have it their own way. 
 They can make us work for whatever they please." 
 "Why don't you strike?" "That would do no 
 good ; half the town is idle and waiting for a job 
 at any price." " Do you think the free and unlim- 
 ited coinage of silver would help you?" "Yes; 
 if we had more money we would make these fac- 
 tory bosses give us what we wanted." 
 
 We next visited the States of Pennsylvania, In- 
 diana, and Illinois. The great strike of the coal 
 miners was on, and we had the opportunity of 
 witnessing the great battle of the poor for a chance 
 to exist. Three hundred thousand men on a 
 strike, and that, too, without the least chance to 
 get their demands. We noticed a crowd of miners 
 standing on the street corner, and started in at 
 once to interview them. We introduced ourselves 
 to the one who seemed to be the leader (and, by 
 the way, about the only one who could speak the 
 English language), and asked him what wages 
 they had been receiving. He told us the amount, 
 and through him we got the wages of each man. 
 
28 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 There were thirty-nine in the group, so we made 
 an average of the whole, and found it to be $5.74 
 per week. And taking into consideration the time 
 lost by the closing of the mines the past year we 
 found the average pay they had received for the 
 year was just $203.90. 
 
 Think of this, ye men of America, and think 
 also that these very men worked hundreds of feet 
 below the surface of the earth, where the sunlight 
 of God has never reached. Think, also, that some of 
 these men had families of from five to six looking 
 to them for support. Then swing to the breeze 
 the American flag with its forty-four shining stars 
 and shout: *♦ Liberty, Fraternity, Equality ! " All 
 the languages of the world could not describe the 
 agonies suffered by the working men of this coun- 
 try the past four years. As I stood at Sandy 
 Creek Valley on the 14th day of July, 1897, and 
 looked at these poor, ignorant miners, I said again 
 that the Hon. Jas. P. Stockwell, of Stebbinsville, 
 had lied. 
 
 I asked these men if they thought they would 
 win in this strike. They said they were sure to 
 win if they could prevent new men from taking 
 their places. I asked if the men who were taking 
 their places came from other mines. They said 
 very few came from other mines ; that they were 
 mostly men out of work, tramping around the 
 country hunting for a job. I asked if they thought 
 there was any legislation needed to benefit the 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 29 
 
 miners. They said Congress should pass laws 
 compelling the mine owners to pay the men fair 
 wages. They said the mine owners were forming 
 trusts to make slaves of the men. 
 
 We took the train at Spring Valley for a two 
 weeks' trip through the South. We met many 
 traveling men along the route, and questioned 
 them closely in regard to their trade. We wish to 
 say right here that the traveling men are the best 
 posted, the most intelligent of any class in the 
 world. They come in contact with every class of 
 people. They know the standing of nearly every 
 man in their territory, whether he is making or 
 losing money, and the reasons why. They know 
 the condition of the crops, and the prices received. 
 They read more than any other class of men. 
 They meet at the hotels and on the trains, and 
 discuss every topic of the day, every law of the 
 country. 
 
 We learned from them that hardly a merchant 
 as far as they knew had made anything the past 
 four years. They gave me the name of a clothing 
 merchant living in a town of 25,000 inhabitants 
 who had plenty of money to run his business, and 
 in past years had made money; but that during 
 the past four years had lost over a thousand dol- 
 lars a year, and he was considered one of the best 
 business men in their territory. They went on to 
 explain the cause. When the hard times came on 
 the smaller dealers began to cut their prices. This 
 
30 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 they were obliged to do in order to sell goods 
 enough to meet their bills. After a while many 
 went to the wall. Their goods were thrown on the 
 market and sold at less than half their cost. This 
 of course kept the others from making anything, 
 and finally they too were forced to fail. Not one 
 of all the traveling men we met knew of a single 
 merchant who had made any money the past three 
 years. 
 
 One gentleman gave me a full statement of his 
 factory for each year for the past five years, and 
 here it is : For the year ending Jan. i , 1 893 , profits 
 $12,000. For the year ending Jan. i, 1894, 
 loss $1 ,169.50. For the year ending Jan. i , 1 895, 
 loss 4,620. For the year ending Jan. i, 1896, loss 
 $2,140. For the year ending Jan. i, 1897, 
 loss $1,725. This factory is incorporated, and 
 under the laws of the State is obliged to make a 
 full statement of the business each year. This 
 is a fine showing for a factory, with a capital of 
 $50,000, and one, too, that had been in business 
 over twenty years; and up to Jan. i, 1893 had 
 never failed to declare a dividend. 
 
 Among all these traveling men not one was re- 
 ceiving as much salary as in 1893. I asked them 
 what they thought was the cause of these hard 
 times. Most of them contended it was caused by 
 the Wilson Bill and over production. I asked 
 them if they thought the Dingley Bill would give 
 relief. Many of them thought it would in time, 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 3 I 
 
 but not to the extent they claimed. Most of 
 them expected to see times improve, but never 
 expected the good times and high wages of years 
 past. None were in favor of the free and unHm- 
 ited coinage of silver on a ratio of sixteen to one. 
 
 STATE OF MISSISSIPPI. 
 
 We are now in the State of Mississippi, and it 
 is intensely hot. It seems as if the sun was with- 
 in a few feet of our head. There is an old col- 
 ored man working out there in the field ; we will 
 interview him. He has with him his wife, four 
 boys, aged four, eight, nine, and thirteen years, 
 and seven girls, aged one, two, seven, ten, eleven, 
 twelve, and fourteen years, 
 
 "Are these all the children you have, uncle?" I 
 asked, "This is all I got left, boss. The chim- 
 ney fell down and killed a whole raft of them. 
 Yes, this is all I got left, boss. Yes, it is mighty 
 late cropping cotton, boss ; but the big flood come 
 in de spring and just ruined us. Des whole coun- 
 try was under water when de planting time come 
 on. Big boats come right cross that big field 
 yonder." "Do you expect to make much cotton 
 this year, uncle?" "Well, boss, you can't tell. 
 If de frost holds off till late spects we will make a 
 big crop. The big rise helped des land mightily." 
 "How long have you lived on this land, uncle?" 
 
32 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 " Boss, Ise ben right here since de war." '* Do you 
 own this land?" *'No, boss, Massa Hamilton he 
 own all des land just as far as you can see, and 
 more too." "How is it, uncle, you do not own a 
 farm, you say you have been working here ever 
 since the war?" " Well, boss, you see it takes all 
 the crop to pay de rent and de 'vances." '* What 
 rent do you pay for this land, uncle?" ** I pays 
 one-third de cotton and one-fourth de corn." 
 "Where do you live?" "I lives in dat ar cabin 
 you sees yonder." " I do not see how you get 
 along with your large family in that small cabin. 
 How many rooms are there in the house ? " *' Only 
 one, boss." Cotton five cents a pound, and pay- 
 ing one-third of the crop for the rent of the land, 
 when will that old darkey own a farm ? Can you 
 answer the question? 
 
 I asked if there were any white men on the 
 place and was told there were three white families 
 renting land from Mr. Hamilton. " I suppose, 
 uncle, they have a better house to live in than you 
 do." "'Bout de same, boss, 'bout de same." 
 
 Here was a family all working in the field with 
 not clothes enough on them all to made a good- 
 sized mop ; living in a little cabin not over eigh- 
 teen feet square ; not seeing a dollar from one 
 year's end to the other ; without any hope for the 
 future, and I wondered what he thought was the 
 matter. He was a citizen, and a voter in this grand 
 Union with its Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality. 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 33 
 
 I asked him what he thought was the reason we 
 had such hard times, and if he thought we needed 
 any legislation to help the people. ** 'Fore God, 
 boss, I think des world is too wicked. De people 
 ought to pray more." " I am not talking about 
 religion, uncle. I want to know if you think a 
 protective tariff would help this country, or do 
 you think free trade or free silver would help 
 more?" " Free silver, boss, free silver, dat's what 
 we want. Money what de rats can't chaw." "Did 
 you vote for McKinley or Bryan last fall?" "I 
 votes for Bryan. I votes for Bryan every time." 
 "Then you are not a Republican, uncle." "Yes, 
 Ise a 'Publican. I votes 'Publican all de time." 
 "Why, you just told me you voted for Mr. Bryan. 
 Now you say you are a Republican. How about 
 that? You did not vote for McKinley and Bryan 
 both, did you?" "Yes, I did, boss, voted Mc- 
 Kinley and Bryan too." "Who made out your 
 ticket you voted last fall?" " Massa Hamilton he 
 makes out all de tickets on de place." 
 
 We then rode over to Mr. Hamilton's house, the 
 owner of the plantation. We found him sitting out in 
 front on what they call in that country the gallery, 
 — or piazza as we call it, — reading a paper. Col. 
 Hamilton, as he is called in that country, was a man 
 about sixty-five years of age, rather tall, iron-gray 
 hair, keen black eyes, smooth shaven, and I should 
 judged weighed about one hundred and sixty-five 
 pounds. He called out to us to light, as soon as 
 
34 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 we drove up to the gate. He was very cordial, 
 and called a little colored boy to get the gentle- 
 men a cool drink. 
 
 I started in on my errand at once by stating to 
 Col. Hamilton that I was from Pennsylvania, and 
 that I was out trying to get at the true conditions 
 of the country, and to learn from the people in 
 every section, and from all classes outside of the 
 politician, what we needed to better the conditions 
 of things in this country; what was best for their 
 immediate section, and what legislation was needed 
 to benefit them individually. I wished to hear 
 from him in regard to the conditions in this sec- 
 tion, and what legislation was needed. 
 
 The old gentleman became interested at once, 
 and I found I had met a man who was educated 
 and well informed in the history of this country, 
 both political and historical. I asked him first to 
 give me the condition in his county. 
 
 ''Well," he says, "we will begin right on my 
 place. When the war ended I came home ragged 
 and without a dollar. I found everything had 
 been swept almost clean from the plantation. The 
 house had been burned, and my family were living, 
 or rather staying in that old cabin you passed 
 coming down the hill, near that little branch, back 
 about a mile. Most of the niggers were still here 
 or near here, half-starved, and with no clothes. I 
 called them all up, and told them they were free ; 
 that I had no claims on them, and that they could 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 35 
 
 go wherever they wished. But if they wanted to 
 remain I would do the best I could for them. 
 They all remained except two. 
 
 "We went to work and fixed up the fences and 
 put in a crop, and I wish to say that no men ever 
 worked better than my niggers did that year. We 
 made a good crop of corn and cotton. Prices 
 were high, and the next fall we found ourselves 
 very comfortable. We repaired the cabins, for 
 the hands got themselves well fixed for the winter 
 with clothing and shoes, so that things began to 
 look brighter. 
 
 "The next year I rented each one on the place 
 what land he could cultivate, furnished them with a 
 mule and farming implements, and also what they 
 needed to eat until the crop was gathered. That 
 year in the greater part of the South the crop was 
 short, owing to the drought; but we were blessed 
 with showers through July and August so our crop 
 averaged very well. The price was high, so the 
 niggers all had money of their own. Some as 
 much as one hundred and fifty and two hundred 
 dollars. I tried to talk them into the idea of sav- 
 ing something for the time when prices would be 
 low, but it seemed the more I talked the more 
 eager they were to get to town to spend it. They 
 bought everything, except something to eat and 
 wear, and they have continued in this same way 
 ever since. Soon the price of cotton began to get 
 lower, and it has been going lower every year, 
 
36 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 until the past few years the hands have been get- 
 ting in debt to me for provisions. I have made 
 nothing, they have made nothing; and I see no 
 way to help them, from the fact I have nothing to 
 help them with. With the prices of cotton there 
 is not a living in the crops. 
 
 "Oh, yes; we raise corn, lots of corn ; but corn 
 will bring us no money, and hogs seem to all die, 
 so it don't pay to raise them. We have very little 
 pasture land for cattle in this country. It would 
 pay those who had large tracts of land to raise 
 cattle perhaps ; but there are so many renters, and 
 it would be impossible for them to rent cattle with 
 land. I really cannot see any prospects ahead for 
 men who labor in this country. They will no 
 doubt manage to exist, but that is about all ; in 
 fact, that is all that can be said of them now. 
 
 " There is nothing for the young men to do. 
 There are more lawyers and doctors than can get 
 a living. The wages paid for clerks in the towns 
 would not more than pay board. The merchants 
 I do not believe are making both ends meet. The 
 outlook to me is very gloomy." 
 
 "What legislation do you think is needed. 
 Colonel, to help this country? " 
 
 "Well, I am of the opinion that the free and 
 unlimited coinage of silver, on a ratio of sixteen 
 to one would give us more money. People would 
 then have money in which they would in some way 
 invest. I think it would be the means of starting 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 3/ 
 
 factories in the South. It would also give us a 
 value on our land. As it is now land has no real 
 value. I doubt if I could raise one dollar cash on 
 my land per acre. I doubt, even, if I could raise 
 fifty cents on a mortgage. Every one who has 
 money is holding on to it, and those who have none 
 will never get any unless something is done to 
 change the condition." 
 
 ''What do you think of the Dingley Bill now 
 before Congress?" "I think it the greatest out- 
 rage ever perpetrated upon the American people. 
 That bill was made for the manufacturers and 
 trusts, and not for the masses. We want the priv- 
 ilege of buying where we can buy the cheapest, 
 and selling where we can get the best price." 
 
 STATES OF ARKANSAS AND TEXAS. 
 
 We traveled through the States of Arkansas 
 and Texas. Stopping at Little Rock we took a 
 team and drove through the country to Fort 
 Worth, Texas. This gave us a chance to note the 
 conditions among the farmers, and learn their 
 mode of living; also giving us an opportunity to 
 learn what their views were- upon political ques- 
 tions. The people were kind and obliging; noth- 
 ing they had was too good for us. It was no 
 trouble to get their political views, and they also 
 wanted ours, which we declined to give ; but as 
 
38 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 we took the names of some six hundred we met 
 and talked with in the Southern States they will 
 likely get our views as we shall mail to each one a 
 copy of this book. 
 
 All along the line we heard the same story, 
 whether they were Democrats or Populists. We 
 also found it was hard to distinguish between the 
 two ; both dislike the Dingley Bill, and believe in 
 free and unlimited coinage of silver on a ratio of 
 sixteen to one. They believe the railroads are a 
 trust that makes millions out of the poor by ex- 
 cessive rates. They believe Wall Street controls 
 all the money of the country, and that none is ever 
 allowed to be sent to any part of the world with- 
 out their consent. They look upon William J. 
 Bryan as the only man that can bring them out of 
 their trouble in 1900. 
 
 I found in Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, 
 Iowa, and Illinois hundreds who voted for McKin- 
 ley that swore by all that was great and holy 
 that they would never do so again. We have 
 now summed up the conditions of the country, 
 and we have learned the sentiment of the laboring 
 people. 
 
 The trip to me has been a surprise, and as I sit 
 here in Philadelphia this beautiful August morning 
 reading over the notes I have made and the con- 
 versations I had with three hundred and forty 
 persons in every part of this country who labor, I 
 can do nothing but sit, think, and wonder. It 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 39 
 
 does not seem possible that it can be true. Thou- 
 sands upon thousands of men and women in free 
 America working from ten to sixteen hours twelve 
 months of the year, with scant meals^ little or, you 
 might say, no clothing, living in rough board 
 houses, no paint, no pictures, no carpets, no music, 
 no books, no education, and no future. This is 
 what I found, and I believe the trip has done me 
 no good. I cannot stop thinking. I cannot rest. 
 I lie down at night, and begin to think. I see the 
 little pale white women in the South with her hoe 
 out in the hot sun helping her husband in the 
 field ; the little children sitting in the shade of a 
 tree near by playing. I see the little cabin 
 where they live on the hill in a grove of oaks. I 
 think of the time when they will market the cot- 
 ton. The landlord is there at the sale. The 
 amount is figured, and he takes the money. They 
 go home. I think I hear the conversation when 
 the settlement is made at the landlord's house. 
 
 "Well, Lem, the five bales brought $115.50. 
 The third of that for rent is $38.50, and your ac- 
 count at Jones & Brown's that I stood for is $82.- 
 40; that makes $120.90. You owe me $5.40. 
 Well, Lem, you done pretty well. You know 
 cotton is low. Now you may have a little more 
 cotton on that lower patch if the frost holds off, 
 and I propose to let you have that. If you do 
 not get anything off the patch, long about Jan- 
 uary I will fix it so you can get a little at Jones 
 
40 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 & Brown's on the next crop. You can give me 
 your note for the $5.40, and we will let that go 
 until next year, may be cotton will be worth some- 
 thing then." 
 
 I think I see the little pale woman standing out 
 by the fence waiting for Lem to come from town. 
 Lem told her he would bring her something. She 
 had given him a list of a few things that morning 
 for the children : a pair of shoes for each, and 
 some cotton jean to make them pants. She had 
 measured each foot with a stick, and given the 
 sticks to Lem. I think I see them meet at the 
 gate, and I see the children climb into the wagon 
 to see what their father had brought from town, 
 and the surprised look when they found the wagon 
 empty. I think I see the tears roll down the little 
 pale woman's cheek when Lem tells her the cotton 
 did not pay out. 
 
 I see again the tow-headed boys I saw working 
 in the field in Nebraska. I see the perspiration 
 roll down their faces and drop off their sunburned 
 noses. I hear them talking of what they are going 
 to have when father sells the corn. Of the new 
 sled, the new suit of clothes, the skates that he had 
 promised them if they would work well, and about 
 the French harp they would get when they went 
 to town with father. I heard them talk about the 
 price of corn, and hoped it would bring twenty- 
 five cents a bushel. About how much money 
 father would get for the crop, and what father was 
 
FOUND THE WAGON EMPTY. 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 41 
 
 going to buy for mother. I saw them getting out 
 at the dawn of day rubbing their sleepy eyes as 
 they went running through the wet grass feeding 
 the horses. 
 
 I saw the mother at work in the little shed- 
 kitchen getting their breakfast. I saw how tired 
 she looked as she moved slowly around the little 
 room. 
 
 I saw the father come out and look at the red 
 eastern sky, and heard him tell the boys we would 
 have another hot day. 
 
 I saw the frail little daughter come out to the 
 little wood-pile, and get a few sticks to replenish 
 the fire for her mother. I saw how tired and 
 sleepy she looked. I saw the already tired horses 
 stretch themselves as they were led out to be har- 
 nessed. 
 
 I saw again the same little company gathering 
 the corn in the fall. The frost was heavy on the 
 ground. I saw the red cold feet of the boys, and 
 saw them unloading at the bin. I saw the owner 
 when he came out to see about his rent. I hear 
 him tell the father that it was the largest crop ever 
 raised on the farm, but it would not bring enough 
 to pay the rent. I heard the father when he told 
 him to take it all and release him. I saw the little 
 tow-headed boys slip away to tell mother what 
 Mr. Roach had said. I heard her tell the boys it 
 was just what she had expected. I saw her go 
 into the little kitchen, and I heard her sobs. I 
 
42 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 saw the father sign the whole crop away for a re- 
 lease for the rent. 
 
 I look once more, I see a man walking slowly 
 home from the factory in a little New England 
 town. I saw him enter the door and set his dinner- 
 pail on the little table, take a seat, and fold his 
 hands across his knees. I heard his wife ask him 
 what was the matter. I heard his answer : ** Shop 
 is closed." I heard the question : ** What shall we 
 do?" I heard the reply: " I don't know." 
 
 I saw again the tears of a mother. I heard 
 again the question: **Do you think Mr. Brown 
 will let us stay here? you know we owe him for 
 five months' rent, and you know, John, we have 
 very little to eat in the house, even if he will wait 
 on us. What are we to do? Where shall we go?" 
 Liberty, Fraternity, Equality ! I say, *' Hell and 
 damnation ! " 
 
 * 
 
 "PEOPLE SHOULD BE ABLE TO ENJOY THE 
 BLESSINGS OF THE WORLD/' 
 
 Every man who works ten hours a day ten 
 months in the year should be able to live in a nice 
 cottage of his own, with a lawn in front covered 
 with trees and flowers. He should be able to 
 have carpets on the floors, pictures on the walls, 
 papers, books, and music for his children. He 
 should be able to dress his wife and children well, 
 and in the fashion of the day, and should dress 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 43 
 
 well himself. He should be able to send his chil- 
 dren to school with warm comfortable clothing, and 
 plenty to eat — the best in the land. He should 
 be able to have two months in each year when he 
 could visit the woods, lakes, and hills with his fam- 
 ily, and visit among his fellow-men. He should 
 be able to see, and feel, what God had done. 
 There is no reason why this should not be. 
 
 This is the condition I would have for the work- 
 ing people of this country. This is the condition 
 that ought to exist here. This is the condition 
 that might exist. And until that time comes I am 
 in favor of taking down the statue now standing 
 in New York Harbor, and cut from it the lie, "Lib- 
 erty Enlightening the World," and throw the whole 
 thing into the sea. 
 
 There is no civilized country on the face of the 
 globe where you can find 380,000 men, who are 
 willing to work, tramping over the land hunting 
 any kind of a job that they may live, except in 
 our own land of Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality. 
 No city on the face of the globe with a million and 
 a half of population with one-fourth of its inhab- 
 itants hungry and cold, and no employment at any 
 price, as the Chicago Chronicle tells us was the 
 case in that city last winter. No country on the 
 globe where a woman made pants for fifteen cents 
 a dozen. No country on the globe where the 
 people have suffered more for the past four years 
 than right here in free America. If you can find 
 
44 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 a country where their papers tell of such misery 
 and woe, as do the clippings I have shown you, it 
 ought to be wiped off the face of the earth. And 
 remember, too, this suffering in a year when the 
 ground had belched forth the largest and grandest 
 crops ever known in this country. 
 
CHAPTER IIL 
 
 ** WHERE THE RESPONSIBILITY LIES.^ 
 
 YOU ask me who is to blame for this trouble 
 and hard times, and I will answer your ques- 
 tion, by saying, The laboring people themselves 
 and no one else. I will go further, and say that 
 all the ills this country has ever had was brought 
 about by the poorer classes of our people. There 
 are in the South a million ignorant black men, and 
 half as many ignorant whites. There are twice as 
 many more throughout the remaining portion of 
 our land. In New York city alone there are fully 
 a hundred thousand ignorant foreigners, one-half 
 of whom cannot speak our language, and never 
 will. It is into this lawless, Godless hordes we 
 have placed the priceless jewel, the free man's bal- 
 lot. The ballot bought with our richest blood, 
 and paid for with thousands of millions of gold. 
 The ballot, consecrated with untold suffering, sac- 
 rifices, and tears. This costly safeguard of our 
 nation's life we have bartered away for less than a 
 mess of pottage. What the future has in store 
 for us God only knows. Attila with his wild horde 
 
46 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS 
 
 of savage Huns was not more fatal to the life of 
 Rome than are the ignorant battalions led on to 
 destroy the American ballot. 
 
 Attend one of our labor Conventions if you 
 would learn something. Hear them denounce the 
 men who are at the head of our Government — 
 State and national. Hear them tell about the rich 
 who buy up votes, and put themselves into ofhce 
 and power. And, mind you, I do not deny the 
 statement, for it is a fact. I wish to ask the ques- 
 tion : Who do they buy? I will tell you. These 
 very men who make these charges, they themselves 
 are the ones who sell their votes. The laboring 
 people have three votes to the middle and rich 
 classes one, so there is no chance for the rich to 
 get into power except through the help of the 
 poor man's vote. Whoever heard of a politician 
 going out among the business and professional 
 men to buy votes. They buy in the market 
 where they can buy the cheapest. For what 
 purpose do they employ ward heelers in our large 
 cities? Not to round up the business and pro- 
 fessional men, but to buy up the poor, hard-handed 
 sons of toil. And by the eternal gods they do 
 not work in vain. 
 
 You can hardly go into a city or town but you 
 will hear the poor cursing the rich. You hear 
 them complain about the laws being made for the 
 rich, and the poor man has no justice. I believe 
 it is so. I do not deny a single statement. It is 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 47 
 
 a fact, that all the city offices of this country that 
 pay a good fat salary are held by men who are 
 well-to-do. They never worked, never will ; but 
 they are in with the clique, and they get there. 
 Now who is to blame for this? The working peo- 
 ple have three votes to the rich and middle classes 
 one, and I ask. Who put them there? Who makes 
 the laws? You say, "The rich man." And I say. 
 It is a lie. You voted for him, and he is your 
 representative ; and there is not a law on the 
 statute books you did not make yourselves. You 
 stand by and let these little two by four lawyers in 
 your county with a few of their henchmen meet 
 in Convention, with a slate already made out in 
 advance for their candidate for the Legislature, 
 whom the rich men know they can control, and you 
 vote for him, and send him as your representative 
 to make the laws for you. These same brainless 
 little devils you send to the Legislature are your 
 representatives, and they elect your senators for 
 you. It is the same with your congressmen. You 
 are the ones who do the voting. Three votes to 
 the other class one, and you never get a smell ; 
 and you do not deserve any. 
 
 If you should nominate a working man you 
 know as well as I that he could not be elected. 
 When one of your fellow workmen asked you why 
 you do not vote for the candidate of the working 
 people, you would tell him to go to the devil. 
 You would tell him you did not ask anyone to tell 
 
48 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 you how to vote, but you go out and march in the 
 mud and shout and hold up the banner on which 
 is written, *' Vote for Col. John P. Jones, the 
 working man's friend." You are full of Col. John 
 P. Jones' whiskey, and you feel as though you was 
 worth a mfllion, when you are not worth the powder 
 that it would take to blow your little thimbleful 
 of brains out. You go to the hall and hear Col. 
 Jones speak, and he will tell you what he is going 
 to do for the working man. You will cheer and 
 throw your hat, and stand on benches with the 
 froth running out of your mouth like a mad dog. 
 You will keep up the lick all through the cam- 
 paign, and when it is over you will meet in Con- 
 vention, and curse the country, the Government, 
 the laws, and the whole business. You will then 
 start a new party, and at the next election you will 
 be found again splitting the mud shouting for Col. 
 Jones. 
 
 There are thousands upon thousands of working 
 people who are not only honest, but are educated 
 and refined. They are capable of making laws 
 and would make good ones, too ; but they seldom 
 meet in the Conventions to formulate new parties 
 and new plans. They know full well the needs of 
 a change, but they also know there is no con- 
 fidence to be placed in you, when it comes to an 
 election. 
 
 The working people have it in their own hands 
 to make this country a land of joy. They have 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 49 
 
 it in their own hands to dictate to manufacturers 
 and trusts the wages they shall be paid. They 
 have it in their own hands to live as Americans 
 should live. They have it in their power to be- 
 come happy, and make their families happy. The 
 question is, Will they do it? And as I read over 
 my notes and conversations from every State in 
 this Union I answer, No ! 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE REMEDY. 
 
 A^/ELL," you say, "what is the remedy?" 
 ^ ^ And I will tell you, "A higher protective 
 tariff^ Nothing else can help the working peo- 
 ple in the United States. When the tariff is low 
 the working people suffer; when it is high they 
 are prosperous. The higher you get it the better 
 the working people will live. The money ques- 
 tion does not concern the working people. The 
 talk about the free coinage of silver helping the 
 working people is nonsense. The talk about hav- 
 ing a gold standard is nonsense. The whole 
 money question itself is nonsense, from beginning 
 to end, and there is nothing in it, as I will show you 
 before you finish this little book. What we want 
 is to have the working people in America live 
 better, and not become the slaves of the rich ; and 
 I take it for granted that you will admit that the 
 working people of the United States have been 
 but little better than slaves the past four years. 
 If the clippings taking from our own American 
 papers are true, they have been worse than slaves. 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 5 I 
 
 ** Pooh ! Pooh ! " you say, and your nose turns 
 up as if you had a piece of limburger under it; 
 **I am going to vote for Bryan in 1900, I do not 
 care what you say." Well, my friend, so am I ; 
 so you have none the better of me. 
 
 You say you do not believe in free coinage of 
 silver, and you believe in a high protective tariff; 
 you say you will vote for Bryan in 1900, when 
 you know he is a free trader, and believes in a free 
 and unlimited coinage of silver on a ratio of six- 
 teen to one. You are a strange man to believe 
 one thing and vote another. Why do you do it? 
 Well, my friend, I will tell you why. You have 
 seen in the past four years thousands of men with- 
 out a job. You have seen men working ten hours 
 a day hundreds of feet under ground for $470 a 
 week. You have seen Western farmers raise the 
 largest crops ever known, and yet not able to pay 
 the rent. You have seen the Southern cotton 
 planter sell his cotton for four and five cents per 
 pound, which would not give him a mere living. 
 You have seen the wheat raiser sell his wheat at 
 the farm for forty-five cents per bushel. You have 
 seen the wool grower sell his wool for twelve cents 
 per pound, which would not pay for the feed. You 
 have seen mechanics turned out of house and 
 home. You have seen 380,000 men on the tramp 
 looking for work at any price. You have seen 
 women making pants for fifteen cents a dozen, that 
 were starving to death. You have seen one-fourth 
 
52 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 of the inhabitants of the second largest city in the 
 United States hungry and cold, with no chance to 
 earn a penny ; and you yourself have had no pic- 
 nic. You have seen all this under the Wilson low 
 tariff bill. And if you are not satisfied with this, 
 I propose to help you get the medicine you so 
 much desire. 
 
 ''Well," you say, **you have the Dingley Tariff 
 Bill, what are you kicking about? " Yes ; we have 
 the Dingley Tariff Bill, and it is better than the 
 Wilson Bill, but it is not what it should be. It is 
 not what I desire. The Republicans when out on 
 the stump hunting votes promised they would give 
 us a tariff that would protect the working people. 
 They have not given us what they promised. The 
 fact is, they do not care one straw about the work- 
 ing people. The moment they were elected they 
 began talking about a conservative tariff. They 
 said it would not do to increase the tariff too much, 
 and after the House sent in their bill with an in- 
 crease of less than four per cent, over the Wilson 
 Bill, our old gray-headed senators, who talked so 
 earnestly to the working people and told them 
 what they would do for them, worked nearly four 
 months trying to cut the House bill down. There 
 is no difference in the parties. 
 
 Did you ever know of a party that was not an 
 anti-poverty party? Did you ever know a poli- 
 tician out hunting for votes that his whole argu- 
 ment was not, "What I am going to do for the 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 53 
 
 working people?" Did you ever read a paper of 
 either party, but what the editor told you his 
 whole object in life was to help the poor, hard- 
 handed sons of toil? 
 
 Out in the West they tell the farmer that his 
 wheat will bring two dollars per bushel if their 
 party is elected. In the East they tell the me- 
 chanic that when they get in power he can buy his 
 flour at two dollars a barrel. The Democrats tell 
 him they will give him the markets of the world 
 so he can have work all the time at high wages, 
 and also give him free silver. The Republicans 
 tell him they will give him protection, reform the 
 currency, and make every silver dollar on earth 
 just as good as a gold dollar. 
 
 The fact is, working people never investigate 
 the condition of the country. They never look 
 ten miles away from home to see what the trouble 
 is. They listen to these politicians going about 
 the country hunting votes and telling them about 
 liberty, fraternity, and equality. They read these 
 party papers who are hired to support these very 
 chaps. They never reason about anything. 
 
 Let us take the Western farmer who raises corn 
 and wheat, and, mind you, I am not talking of the 
 man who owns several farms that he rents for a 
 large per cent., but I want to get at the man who 
 rents his farm, the poor laboring farmer. The 
 man who owns several hundred acres of land that 
 he bought years ago at three dollars per acre, 
 
54 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 which is now worth fifty dollars per acre, is not a 
 poor laboring man. He is the most independent 
 of all men. The poor renter, unless conditions 
 change, can never own a farm. Land is getting 
 higher every year, and, of course, will continue to 
 get higher at every decade. 
 
 The young man just starting out in life who de- 
 pends upon the wages he earns at the factory can 
 never have a home until conditions change ; 
 neither can the laboring miner, the clerk, the rail- 
 road employee, or, in fact, any other man who 
 works by the day. 
 
 The raising of corn and wheat in the Western 
 States has been a profitable business in years past, 
 but the rent is all the time getting higher, and 
 corn and wheat is all the while getting lower. If the 
 price of corn last year had been thirty cents per 
 bushel at the farm, instead of ten to fifteen cents, 
 the corn planter would have made some money; 
 but as it was, most of them came out in debt. The 
 farm renters, instead of taking a business view of 
 the situation, and try to advance the price of corn 
 and wheat, do all they can to keep the price down. 
 It does not seem to me that it ought to take a 
 farmer very long to see why the price of corn is 
 getting lower ; but he does not. And if you ask 
 him why, he will give you the same answer that 
 every politician will give you, no matter to what 
 party he belongs. They will tell you about the 
 monetary system of the country. They want a 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 55 
 
 gold standard and a reform of the currency, or 
 they want a free and unlimited coinage of silver 
 on a ratio of sixteen to one. They will tell you 
 about the trusts and the money power, or about 
 the railroads and Wall Street money lenders. 
 They all have the same story. Every paper tells 
 the same tale of woe, it matters not what party 
 they represent; whether Republicans, Populist, 
 Democrats, or Socialist. It is all the same hash. 
 
 "SUPPLY AND DEMAND MAKE THE PRICE/' 
 
 Every man ought to know without being told 
 that the reason why wheat, corn, cotton, and other 
 products of the farm are low, is because there is 
 too much of it. He ought to know without being 
 told that supply and demand make the price of 
 everything in the world. There is corn enough in 
 this country to last until the harvest of 1898, if not 
 a bushel was raised in 1897. There are millions 
 of bushels of corn that has been lying in the bins 
 for three years waiting a higher price. It certainly 
 seems to me that the corn planters living in the 
 corn belt of this country would do all they could 
 to reduce the acreage of corn in other parts of the 
 United States. They certainly know that if this 
 could be done they would be able to get a fair 
 price for corn, and make some money. •* Yes," 
 you say, "that sounds well on paper, but how can 
 
56 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 it be done?" I answer by a protective tariff. Not 
 the tariff given us by the Wilson Bill; not the 
 tariff given us by the Dingley Bill, but one that 
 will protect the working man from the half civil- 
 ized countries of the world. Then you laugh and 
 say you have heard that same story before. It's 
 an old chestnut. Yet you will admit if the pro- 
 duction of corn could be reduced one-third you 
 would get a living price for it. If I were a West- 
 ern farmer I would take a look over this country 
 and see where all this corn was being raised ; why 
 so many of our people had gone into the business, 
 and what they want to induce them to raise some- 
 thing else. 
 
 Now take a look. In the South you find no less 
 than 500,000,000 bushels of corn have been raised 
 this year ; yet it is not a corn country, and their 
 yield is not fifteen bushels per acre on the average. 
 I would try to stop them from raising corn and buy 
 it from me. 
 
 Take another look at the little stony hills of 
 New England. They, too, will put upon the 
 market 10,000,000 bushels of corn to compete 
 with the Western corn planter. 
 
 Look again at New York and Pennsylvania, and 
 you find these two States will add 100,000,000 
 bushels of corn to give the Western corn planter 
 a push downward. 
 
 I should think you people in the West would 
 like to cut off this competition ; but instead you 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 57 
 
 vote for a policy that forces these people in the 
 South and East to raise corn, and you are not 
 having a very nice time of it, are you? I am glad 
 of it. It serves you right. You cannot expect 
 much of a rise in corn this year. If you do, you 
 will not get it. 
 
 Now your question is, why do they raise so 
 much corn in the East and South on land that 
 produces so little ? That is very easy to answer : 
 The price of cotton, sugar, rice, and wool is so low 
 in the South that the farmers could not raise these 
 things and buy your corn. 
 
 In the East one-half the factory hands are idle, 
 and to give you a case in point : 1 know of two 
 men in Massachusetts who had been out of work 
 a long time. Last year they rented ten acres of 
 old pasture land, and planted it in corn. They 
 had no money to pay for fertilizing It, so they 
 carted out what they call muck from an old 
 swamp, and they raised over 200 bushels of corn. 
 The old pasture had not been turned over for forty 
 years. This is not the worse feature about it: 
 Those two men used to earn from $2.50 to $3.00 
 a day, and bought Western corn. You stopped 
 them from buying your corn, and made them raise 
 corn which helped reduce your price, the same as 
 you did in the South. Now take your medicine. 
 
 The cotton planters of the South are nearly all 
 free traders, as are the sugar and wool growers. 
 Look at their condition to-day. Up to 1892 
 
58 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 Southern wool sold at from eighteen to twenty-five 
 cents per pound. One year after it went down to 
 ten and twelve cents, and 2,000,000 pounds sold 
 at San Antonio, Texas, last year for six cents a 
 pound. Cotton is selling there for four and a half 
 to five cents a pound, and no man can get a living 
 at these prices. 
 
 • 
 
 WHY THE FARMERS SHOULD VOTE FOR TARIFF 
 ON SUGAR. 
 
 What sort of a tariff would I have? Why, I 
 would begin by putting five cents a pound on 
 sugar ; nothing less, on every pound that was im- 
 ported into this country. When you tell this to 
 the Western farmer, or to a working man in the 
 East, he will look you square in the eye and tell 
 you he has not had twenty-five pounds of sugar in 
 his house the past year; and now he says you 
 want to make it higher. He does not know that 
 with a tariff of five cents a pound on sugar he 
 could have all he wanted. The lower the tariff on 
 sugar the less he will have. That is a cold hard 
 fact, but he will never find it out, so I shall vote 
 with him in 1900, and let him go without sugar. 
 
 We send away over $100,000,000 in gold every 
 year for sugar; $10,000,000 more than we get for 
 all the wheat we export. We put in corn, cotton, 
 and wheat on our sugar lands to keep the price of 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 59 
 
 what the American farmer produces at starvation 
 prices. Just think ! The crop of sugar raised in 
 the United States in 1895 ^^as no more than was 
 raised in 1850, about 130,000 tons, and the rice 
 crop was smaller by 35,000 tons;' yet we have the 
 best lands in the world for raising these crops. 
 
 How quickly with a tariff of five cents a pound 
 on sugar would the corn lands of Kansas, Ne- 
 braska, and other States be put into sugar beets ! 
 How quickly would a good part of the lands in 
 the South now growing cotton and corn be put in- 
 to cane ! How quickly the price of corn, wheat, 
 and cotton would advance, and give those people 
 a respectable living ! '* Very nice thing," you say, 
 "for the man who raises sugar, but what would 
 become of the POOR people who have no sugar 
 lands, or any other land?" If you will just hold 
 your breath a moment I will tell you how. " With 
 a protective tariff," the POOR people who work 
 in factories and in the stores, the men who build 
 the houses, forge the iron, build the railroads, mine 
 the coal, and work with the spade, will get his 
 sugar. I am now talking to the farmers of this 
 country. I will talk to the other men later, and it 
 will amount to just as much as talking to you. 
 Simply nothing. 
 
 If the man renting a farm and selling his corn 
 at from ten to fifteen cents a bushel at the farm, 
 does not know enough to get rid of his com- 
 petition and better his condition when he can, 
 
6o POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 does not deserve anything better than what he is 
 getting. 
 
 The man taking his wife and children out into 
 the fields to chop and pick cotton, which will 
 hardly give him enough to keep body and soul 
 together, ought to know enough to vote for a pol- 
 icy that will reduce the acreage and cut off the 
 supply. Holding Conventions and passing reso- 
 lutions will never do it. Raise the $i 20,000,000 
 worth of sugar that we buy of other countries at 
 home, and you will give the cotton grower, the 
 corn planter, and the wheat producer a chance to 
 live Keep this money at home ; then what cot- 
 ton, corn, and wheat you can spare for export 
 make them pay you for it. Work for your own 
 interest. Keep our mechanics at work in the fac- 
 tories; buy their products, and pay a fair price 
 for them, so they can live, and they in turn will 
 buy your products. Do not buy the products of 
 foreign countries, and force the American out of 
 the factory to compete with you in the fields. 
 '•Yes," you say, "but wheat is advancing in price 
 every day," and you believe it will go higher. So 
 do I ; and I would not be surprised to see it bring 
 $1.25 per bushel before next spring, and that is 
 low enough. When you see the cause of this rise 
 in wheat you ought to see that you cannot expect 
 this market to last long, and the price must soon 
 go down again. What made wheat go up? You 
 do not know, do you? 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 6 1 
 
 France raises 350,000,000 bushels of wheat every 
 year, India 300,000,000 bushels, Russia 325 ,000,000, 
 Austria 200,000,000, Germany 125,000,000, Italy 
 125,000,000, United Kingdom 80,000,000, Spain 
 100,000,000, Asia 100,000,000, Caucasus 80,000,- 
 000, South America 100,000,000, Australia 50,- 
 000,000, Canada 60,000,000, Africa 50,000,000, 
 Turkey 50,000,000, Belgium 25,000,000, Greece 
 12,000,000, Servia 10,000,000, Portugal 9,000,000, 
 Netherlands 7,000,000, Denmark 6,000,000, Swe- 
 den and Norway 5,000,000, Switzerland 4,000,000, 
 and Mexico 12,000,000. Do you not know that 
 there are 2,500,000,000 bushels of wheat raised 
 every year not grown in the United States? and 
 that there were 2,1 10,000 bushels of wheat shipped 
 into the United States and sold last year? Do 
 you not know that when you exported a bushel of 
 wheat you had to compete with all these countries, 
 and that in some of them you can get farm labor- 
 ers at ten cents a day? The only time you get a 
 rise on the wheat you export is when the crops 
 fail in these countries. The crops were short in 
 some of them this year, which caused you to get 
 a better price for your crop. 
 
 Let me give you a clipping from the ColtunbuSy 
 Ohio Press: 
 
 " For a time there was talk about taxing New 
 York Stock operations, but actuated by that fidelity 
 to the people always shown by the Republican 
 party since the days of Lincoln, the tax was 
 
62 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 placed on sugar. If there are any who seek to 
 lighten their taxes let them quit eating sugar." 
 
 You farmers who raise corn, wheat, and cotton 
 can take that with you into the fields and chew on 
 it. I would advise you to subscribe for this Co- 
 limibus, Ohio Press. It is just the paper you need. 
 
 Here is one from the New York World, — the 
 poor man's friend. It says: 
 
 "The Dingley Tariff Bill is an attempt to force 
 up the cost of living in the United States in the 
 expectation that it will be easier to get a dear liv- 
 ing than a cheap one. If that theory works Mr. 
 Dingley will be entitled to insert himself into 
 American history as a greater inventor than 
 Keeley." 
 
 You have had his cheap living for four years. 
 How did you like it? 
 
 Now here is another from the St. Louis Republic, 
 owned by the same Polish Jew that owns the New 
 York World, and he has made millions of dollars 
 in this country writing just such free trade litera- 
 ture for our American farmers. The Republic 
 say : 
 
 '• News of the failure of the wheat crop in a 
 large part of the European wheat belt and also in 
 Argentina and other parts of the South American 
 wheat-producing section is the first piece of good 
 fortune the American farmers have had for years. 
 His season has been all that could be asked, for 
 his yield is bountiful. One recognized authority 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 63 
 
 estimated the shortage, a month ago, at 144,000,- 
 000 bushels of wheat. Since then he has learned 
 of the failure of the crop in Russia, India, and 
 Argentina, and has more than doubled his esti- 
 mate." 
 
 This paper says this is the first good fortune the 
 American farmer has had for years. Why, does 
 he not say this is the first time the American farm- 
 ers has received a fair price for his wheat since the 
 Democrat party gave him the Wilson Bill? This 
 is what you depend upon for a rise in wheat, and 
 remember it does not come every year. Yes, these 
 are good papers for the American farmers. 
 
 I will now say to the farmers who raise corn, 
 wheat, and cotton in the United States, continue 
 to raise these staples ; force the wool growers out 
 of their business with a low tariff, and make them 
 put their lands into cotton, corn, and wheat. You 
 have done this, and you have done more. You 
 have forced the men out of the factories, out of 
 the mills, off the railroads, out of the stores; you 
 have taken them out of the sugar fields; you 
 have forced the boys to quit going to school in 
 order to help you raise corn, wheat, and cotton ; 
 and now comes Eugene V. Debs with his social 
 democracy and the Salvation Army all preparing 
 to move West to help you. You can then build 
 bins the whole length of all the railroads to store 
 your five cent corn, read your free trade papers 
 run by foreigners, vote for Bryan, or some other 
 
64 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 free trade fellow and when the poor devils who are 
 out of work, hungry and cold, come along beg- 
 ging for something to eat, get your gun and drive 
 them into the wilderness, for they are nothing but 
 American tramps and have no right to live anyway. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE MINE OWNER AND EMPLOYER* 
 
 T ET us now see what the coal miners need to 
 J—-/ help them out of their trouble. And right 
 here I want to give you an editorial clipped from 
 the Chicago Chronicle^ which is a free trade paper. 
 It says : 
 
 '* From the standpoint of wages paid and de- 
 manded there never was a more justifiable strike 
 than that of the coal miners which is now in prog- 
 ress. It is a strike for a living. It is a strike by 
 men whose ill-requited toil is peculiarly hazardous 
 and hard, directed at employers who, in the ma- 
 jority of cases, are pretentious frauds in respect 
 to their protestations of a high regard for labor. 
 It is a strike against the humbug of a Republican 
 tariff, and in the interest of decency, humanity, 
 and fair play. It is a strike which ought to win, 
 and which the Chronicle hopes will win. 
 
 *' Eminent coal operators find it comparatively 
 easy to meet in somebody's backroom and agree 
 upon an increase in the price of coal to consum- 
 ers. Such increases often without cause, save the 
 
66 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 greed of capital, are submitted to uncomplainingly. 
 There is nothing to prevent these gentlemen from 
 yielding to the just demands of the miners and, 
 if necessary, adding the increased wage to the 
 price of the product. The striking miners have 
 been wretchedly paid, as all 'protected' laborers 
 have been. Their wages have been cut below the 
 living point. They and their families are in dis- 
 tress. 
 
 "The strike has been peacefully conducted thus 
 far, showing that the men are law-abiding and 
 honest. Their leaders have borne themselves with 
 dignity and sincerity. They merit and will re- 
 ceive the sympathy, moral and financial, of all 
 Americans who hate injustice." 
 
 I agree with the Chronicle in its declaration, that 
 " there never was a more justifiable strike." It 
 surely is as the Chronicle says : •* a strike for a 
 living." And I also agree with the Chronicle in 
 saying, It is a strike against the humbug of a "pro- 
 tective " tariff. The Wilson Bill was a humbug, 
 and the Dingley Bill is not much better. 
 
 If we had had a tariff high enough to have shut 
 out the coal of other countries, and one that would 
 exclude the sugar, cotton, wool, and manufactured 
 goods from other countries, the coal miners could 
 have struck for three dollars a day, and their 
 demands would have been allowed. I should 
 like to see the miners win, and not a man be 
 obliged to go down into the earth for less than 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 6/ 
 
 three to four dollars a day. And he should re- 
 ceive this for eight hours' work. Half the time 
 these men work in mud and water not knowing 
 whether they will ever again see the light above. 
 This is what the miners want, and it is what they 
 should receive. Who is to blame for this in- 
 justice ? The Chronicle says, '* the coal operators." 
 I say it is the very fellows who write these free 
 trade editorials, and mislead the working people 
 by telling them they should have the markets of 
 the world. 
 
 Most of these miners are foreigners, and vote 
 for tariff, for revenue only ; and they got just what 
 they voted for, "starvation." I do not believe the 
 miners will win. How can they? Here are thou- 
 sands of men off the railroads, out of the fac- 
 tories and stores; mechanics of all kinds (380,000 
 of them) all on the tramp, hunting for bread. 
 They were driven from their homes by the com- 
 petition of the half-civilized countries of the world: 
 these are the men who will take the places at 
 prices that will hardly keep them out of the grave. 
 These men are hungry men, that are taking the 
 places of the miners to-day. What will the min- 
 ers do? They will arm themselves with guns and 
 pistols, and we will see poor hungry men, who are 
 trying to get an advance in their starvation wages, 
 meet the poor hungry men who have taken their 
 places to prevent starvation, and the fight begins. 
 Poor hungry men fighting poor hungry men. Then 
 
6S POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 you will see the soldiers on the march, and you 
 will see the blood of the poor hungry men begin 
 to flow. Liberty, Fraternity, Equality ! 
 
 Yes, the Chronicle is right. " Humbug of a 
 protective tariff." It should be $5.00 a ton. I 
 wonder if the coal miners know that we paid Can- 
 ada last year $3,1 18,746 for coal? I wonder if the 
 Chronicle knows that if the mine operators should 
 put the price of coal up to where they could pay 
 the miners $2.00 a day that hardly a mine could 
 be run in this country? Perhaps the Chronicle 
 does not know that there are 200,000 square miles 
 of coal fields in China and Japan, 35,000 square 
 miles in India, 27,000 in Russia, 9,000 in Great 
 Britian, 3,600 in France, and that if we imported 
 over $3,000,000 worth of coal, with the wages of 
 our miners at $4.70 a week, that with an advance 
 in price it would bring millions of tons more. The 
 Chronicle says it is in sympathy with the coal 
 miners. It does not look like it. 
 
 If I was a miner I would vote for men who 
 would protect me and my business. I would vote 
 for men who would put the tariff on coal high 
 enough so not a ton could be landed on our shores. 
 I would vote for men who would put a tariff high 
 enough on everything that can be grown or made 
 in the United States so none of it would ever 
 reach this country. I would not have the men 
 from the farms, the rice fields, the sugar planta- 
 tions, the sheep ranches, the factories, the iron 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 69 
 
 mines, the mills, and the mechanics and laborers 
 turned loose to compete with me in my business. 
 I would vote for men who would make a tariff high 
 enough so these men would be employed at good 
 wages, and the coal operators could not get them. 
 I would then work hand in hand with the mine 
 owners. I would ask them to form a trust. Yes, 
 a coal trust. Terrible, isn't it? I would ask them 
 to shut down every coal mine in this country. 
 That it was not advisable to run and give the own- 
 ers a per cent, of the profits of the trust, so they 
 could make just as much money as if they run the 
 mine. I would ask them to put the price of coal 
 high enough so they could afford to pay me wages 
 that would enable me to live well and save some- 
 thing, by working eight hours a day ten months 
 in the year. I would put men at the head of the 
 Miners* Union that had sense enough to work in 
 harmony with the mine owners, and I would have 
 a ''Great Big Trust." 
 
 " Well," you say, *' I have read enough of your 
 book if you are in favor of trusts." If you have 
 paid your twenty-five cents for the book it is all I 
 want of you. I have formed a trust with the Li- 
 brarian of Congress on this book, and do not ask 
 any odds of anybody. This is what the mine 
 owners and miners should do. And if you were 
 not willing to pay for the coal so the miners could 
 live, well, you might freeze to death. I would see 
 that you paid for it if you bought it from any 
 
yO POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 other country. I am in favor of trusts, because 
 they are paying their workmen better wages to- 
 day than the firms and corporations who are 
 obliged to meet the competion of the country. I 
 am in favor of anything that will raise the wages 
 of our working men and women so they can better 
 their condition. 
 
 You say the mine owners are a set of scoun- 
 drels, and would not be satisfied unless they made 
 every dollar possible. You are just one of those 
 kind of men who would buy your coal in China 
 or any other country if you could save fifteen 
 cents a ton, and let the miners of America starve. 
 You are one of those men who say, if our people 
 cannot manufacture goods or mine coal as cheap 
 as other countries, let them quit and go at some- 
 thing else. I have heard hundreds of farmers say 
 this very thing ; and thousands of miners and men 
 who worked in factories have quit, and are now 
 raising corn and wheat. I wonder how the farm- 
 ers like it ! 
 
 The Chronicle says: "Eminent coal operators 
 find it comparatively easy to meet in somebody's 
 back room and agree upon an increase in the 
 price of coal to consumers." Not so easy as the 
 Chronicle might suppose. I venture the assertion 
 that there is no coal mine in the United States 
 with the same amount of capital invested that has 
 made as much profit in the past two years as has 
 the Chronicle. The Chronicle also says : " There 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. /I 
 
 is nothing to prevent these gentlemen from yield- 
 ing to the just demands of the miners and, if nec- 
 essary, adding the increased wage to the price of 
 the product." 
 
 Let us see about that. When a coal operator 
 goes to New York or any other large city to get or- 
 ders for coal here is what he bumps up against : He 
 calls on some big iron manufacturer, or dealer in 
 coal, or railroad official, and says : " I want to sell 
 you 200,000 tons of coal." "All right, sir; I am 
 going to buy that amount of coal. What is your 
 price?" •*! will sell you that amount at $3-70 a 
 ton." "Well, sir, I do not want your coal." 
 " You say you are going to buy the coal, why 
 can't I sell it to you?" "Simply because I can 
 buy it cheaper. Why," he says, " I have had fifty 
 telegrams in the past twenty-four hours offering to 
 sell me coal for less than your price. Just as good 
 coal as yours ; and, more than that, I can buy for- 
 eign coal for less money than you offer it. Why 
 should I buy your coal?" 
 
 Let me ask you what you would have done un- 
 der the circumstances. No doubt you would have 
 told him the men at your mine struck and you 
 had to advance their wages, and that he ought to 
 be willing to pay you more. That is not what I 
 would have done. I should have done just 
 what the coal operators done : took the order at 
 $3.50 per ton, gone home and cut the wages of 
 the men where I could make ten cents per ton 
 
72 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 profit, or on the whole the neat little sum of $20,- 
 000. You might not have taken the order. Then 
 you would have to go back to your mine, let your 
 men go and close up business. Every man that 
 deals largely in coal in this country knows all the 
 time the exact price he can buy coal landed at his 
 yards from any part of the world. Just the 
 moment he can buy coal ten cents a ton cheaper 
 from other countries, the foreign coal will come. 
 All these dealers are in correspondence with every 
 mine in the country. They have hundreds of offers 
 every morning by wire, from as many different 
 mine owners, who are trying to place orders. They 
 cut and slash prices to a point where there is noth- 
 ing in it for them or the miner. Competition is 
 heartless. Competition starves men, women, and 
 children. Competition is not the life of trade, but 
 certain death; and I am in favor of TRUSTS. 
 
 All this talk about the mine owners being de- 
 mons is nonsense. It is worse, " it is a lie." They 
 are just as good men as the editor of the Chron- 
 icle, or the farmers, or the men who work in the 
 mines. I do not believe there is a coal mine in 
 operation to-day where the net profit being made 
 is over fifteen cents per ton ; and I believe more 
 are making less than are making more. This you 
 say sounds silly to you. 
 
 We will take a mine getting out 1500 tons a 
 day, and that is not a very large mine, at fifteen 
 cents per ton, is $225.00 a day, or $6,750.00 a 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 73 
 
 month, or $81,000.00 a year; some mines are 
 getting out five times this amount. You can figure 
 it, and see how silly it looks to you. 
 
 I will make another statement: If the mine 
 owners could sell their coal at an advance of $1.00 
 per ton, they would be glad to give ninety cents 
 of this to the miners. You say you do not believe 
 it, and I do not care a copper cent whether you do 
 or not. The condition of the miners will never be 
 changed. They will always be led by such men as 
 Eugene V. Debs, and vote for free trade. Perhaps 
 Mr. Debs is looking ahead to 1900, when we can 
 follow in the footsteps of W. P. Powderly. The 
 strike is on, 75,000 men out, as the sun goes down. 
 Strike, revolution, and disorder, and the sons of 
 men still crying out in mortal agony for enough to 
 sustain life. Delegates are now out from the Min- 
 ers' Union in every part of this land begging for 
 food and clothes. They voted for laws that brought 
 them to this condition, and they will do it again. 
 
CHAPTER VL 
 CONDITIONS OF THE EAST. 
 
 LET us now take a look at the East. Let us 
 go into the factories, and look at the work- 
 men, many of whom are drawn out of shape : one 
 shoulder lower than the other, and their hands 
 distorted by constant toil. 
 
 The wages in the cotton and woolen mills do not 
 average eighty cents a day; and even at these 
 wages the mills are losing money. One of the 
 largest cotton mills in the East lost $34,000 last 
 year. This is not all : the East are losing their 
 business; they cannot compete with the Southern 
 mills in the manufacturing of cotton goods, and 
 if you want to know why, visit the cotton mills 
 around Augusta, Ga., and you will find the average 
 wages much lower than in the East. Some will 
 tell you the reason the Southern mills can make 
 cotton goods cheaper is because the cotton is 
 grown there, and it is a saving in freight. But 
 stop and figure a little. The freight on cotton 
 from Georgia to the Eastern mills is sixty cents per 
 hundred, and on cotton goods to the East or West 
 over $2.00 per hundred ; yet these Southern mills 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 75 
 
 are driving the Eastern mills out of the market 
 right in their own territory on coarser made goods. 
 Simply wages, nothing else ; and the Eastern mills 
 must reduce wages or quit business. Competition, 
 which has been held was the life of trade for ages, 
 may be true, but it is just as true that it is death 
 to the poor laboring man. Thousands of men and 
 women working in these factories are in no better 
 condition than the coal miners. Thousands have 
 left to help the corn and wheat growers of the West 
 produce more cheap corn and wheat. Thousands 
 more must go. 
 
 In past years when business has been what they 
 call in the East quite fair, it has taken a man work- 
 ing in those factories many years to pay for his 
 little home with the most rigid economy. If things 
 remain as they are to-day and as they have been 
 for the last four years, a young man just started 
 out in life, if he should live to be sixty years old 
 could not accumulate money enough to buy a 
 home. The trouble is, they have been competing 
 for the markets of the world. 
 
 **HOW FREE TRADERS WOULD GET THE MAR- 
 KETS OF THE WORLD.'' 
 
 I would like to know, my reader, if you were 
 manufacturing, say cotton goods in New England, 
 allowing you had all the money needed for the 
 
T6 political thunderbolts. 
 
 business, how you would go to work to place your 
 goods in South America? England has that 
 country now, and sells them nearly all the goods 
 they buy. I would really like to know how some 
 of these free traders would manage to get the trade 
 away from England? I never heard them explain 
 it. They will begin by saying: •• Owing to the 
 intelligence of our workmen and our improved 
 facilities and natural advantages we can success- 
 fully compete with any foreign nation in the 
 markets of the world." 
 
 I have taken the above from the Democratic 
 platform of the State of Michigan. This is all the 
 explanation I ever heard from any man, but it is 
 quite different when you go into the markets of 
 the world to compete. 
 
 We grow in this country four-fifths of all the 
 cotton in the world. For four years we have had 
 free wool, yet we did not get the markets of the 
 world or even the South American markets ; nor 
 did we hold our own markets on woolen and cot- 
 ton goods ; but we find that England shipped 
 millions of dollars worth more into the United 
 States during that period than ever before in the 
 history of this country. 
 
 The Democrats told us when the Wilson Bill 
 passed that as soon as our people ** adapted them- 
 selves to the changed condition" it would be all 
 right. I agree with them that if we had free trade 
 for ten or fifteen years, England could not ship in 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. TJ 
 
 a dollar's worth of goods into this country, and we 
 might, perhaps, get a share of the markets of the 
 world, because the people would have ** adapted 
 themselves," as the Democrats say, "to the 
 changed condition" of things; and that condition 
 would, of course, be just the same condition for the- 
 working men and working women as it is in other 
 countries. When that time comes we would be a 
 great manufacturing nation. The rich richer, and 
 the poor would be far below the condition of the 
 slaves in the South in i860. 
 
 Now let us see how you would sell cotton goods 
 in South America, if you were manufacturing 
 them in the East. You would first start a man 
 down there with samples to get orders. The first 
 obstacle he would strike would be a man repre- 
 senting some English manufacture. You would 
 ask two cents and seven-eighths for your print 
 cloth, and the Englishman two and three-fourths 
 cents. If your agent dropped an eighth, the Eng- 
 lishman would also. How many sales would your 
 agent make, and what would he do about it? He 
 would, no doubt, come home and tell you that he 
 could not sell goods in South America at your 
 prices. You would take your books and show 
 him that the net cost of the goods was two and 
 three-fourths cents. What would he advise you to 
 do. His expenses down there was a dead loss to 
 you. Everything he sold was at a loss. You 
 would, no doubt, read over the Democratic plat- 
 
78 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 form: ** Owing to the intelligence of our work- 
 men and our improved facilities and natural ad- 
 vantages we can successfully compete with any- 
 foreign nation in the markets of the world." Then 
 you would start him out again. 
 
 Let me tell you, my friend, the results as I have 
 given you are results of my own trip in this line, 
 and I know they are correct. If I was the manu- 
 facturer competing for the trade in South America 
 I would put my wages at the same price that the 
 Englishman paid, and go down there and meet 
 him with prices that I could make sales. All you 
 have to do is to give the working people time to 
 adapt themselves to the changed condition of 
 things; and when the American people become 
 hungry enough to work for wages that would com- 
 pete with the Englishman, there would be no 
 trouble in selling goods in South America. 
 
 Foreign manufacturers are making goods cheaper 
 than we are, and can undersell the American man- 
 ufacturer. That is all there is in it. This is the 
 reason that over $34,000,000 worth of manufactured 
 cotton goods, and $44,000,000 of woolen goods 
 were imported into this country last year. These 
 added together make $78,000,000 worth of man- 
 ufactured cotton and woolen goods that were 
 brought here and sold last year. Suppose these 
 goods had been made in the United States 
 by the American people, do you think we would 
 have had 380,000 good honest mechanics on the 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 79 
 
 tramp looking for work, as these Democratic free 
 trade papers tell you was a fact? 
 
 The Democrats of Michigan tell you that "Ow- 
 ing to the intelligence of our workmen, and our 
 improved facilities and natural advantages we can 
 successfully compete with any foreign nation in the 
 markets of the world." What a set of liars they 
 are ! We cannot hold our own market. 
 
 First, I deny their statement that the men and 
 women who work in our American mills are more 
 intelligent than those who work in the mills of 
 England ; and I will make the statement broader 
 by saying that the workmen who work in English 
 mills are better educated than those who work in 
 the cotton and woolen mills of America. There 
 is only nine per cent, of the English people who 
 cannot read and write, while there are over thir- 
 teen per cent, of our American people in the same 
 condition. A good part of the men and women 
 who work in our mills are foreigners from almost 
 every country on the globe. 
 
 In the State of Maine twenty-four per cent, of 
 the foreign population cannot read or write ; that 
 of New Hampshire twenty-four per cent. ; Ver- 
 mont, twenty-five per cent. ; Massachusetts, sixteen 
 per cent. ; Rhode Island, t\yenty-two per cent., 
 and Connecticut, fifteen percent. So then we find 
 their first statement a bonified lie. 
 
 They also say, "with our improved facilities." 
 I would like to know what improved facilities we 
 
80 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 have that England has not. They have cheap 
 coal, cheaper labor, the very same machinery, 
 cheaper money. They have their own vessels for 
 carrying their goods to every part of the world, 
 while we have to export ours in their ships. The 
 next is '* natural advantages." Why cannot they 
 tell us what those natural advantages are that we 
 have? Surely not more water power, surely not 
 cheaper coal, surely not better air to breathe. 
 They have never told us what they are, and they 
 never will. These free traders tell us our Amer- 
 ican workmen are more active, and do more work 
 than the workmen of other countries. If it is true 
 that our people do more work than people in 
 other nations, it certainly shows a reduction of 
 wages for the American people. 
 
 Many men seem to think that the poor people 
 were just born to work, and they want to see just 
 how much they can get out of them. I have 
 known large contractors who were looking for a 
 man that could push the men. I have heard them 
 say that such a man was a good one to handle 
 men, for he could get more work out of them than 
 any man they ever saw. What they want is a 
 nigger driver ; that is the sort of a man they want. 
 Take a man who has been made a foreman in 
 some large factory, if he is a kind-hearted man 
 and treats the men with kindness and respect, he 
 does not retain his position very long. 
 
 It is impossible to get the markets of the world 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 8 1 
 
 except by the same method other countries get 
 them. I wonder why it is that none of these free 
 trade fellows think of running a factory and show- 
 ing the people how it is done ! If it is true, as 
 those Michigan Democrats tell us, that *' Owing to 
 the intelligence of our workmen and the improved 
 facilities and natural advantages we can success- 
 fully compete with any foreign nation in the mar- 
 kets of the world," then these free trade people 
 have a snap. They would not even have to invest 
 anything to secure a fortune at once. 
 
 There are thousands of manufacturers who would 
 be willing to pay anything for a manager that 
 could run their factory and supervise the selling of 
 their goods in foreign markets. If I knew, I would 
 either go to work and manufacture the goods and 
 show the people how it could be done, or I would 
 take a salary of $25,000 or $50,000 a year and 
 learn the manufacturers of this country how it 
 could be done. There is no trouble about getting 
 $100,000 the first year, if you can tell the manu- 
 facturers how to sell goods in foreign markets and 
 compete with other foreign manufacturers, without 
 reducing the price of labor in this country. I will 
 produce the manufacturer now manufacturing cot- 
 ton goods in the East who will employ any man 
 who says he can do it, and give him $25,0003 
 year. The mill is one of the largest and best 
 equipped in the world. They would, of course, 
 require you to give bond, so your part of the con- 
 
82 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 tract would be carried out. You to buy the cotton 
 as best you could, pay the hands what other mills 
 pay in this country, no more ; select your own 
 salesmen, and place the goods at one-sixteenth of 
 a cent a yard profit. Now you can either do this 
 or you can not. This, I think, would be a good 
 position for the editor of the Chronicle^ as I hardly 
 think he is making $25,000 a year with that paper. 
 Now if you can do it, let us hear from you. This 
 offer is also open to the Michigan Democrats. 
 
 Another proposition of $25,000 a year for five 
 years from a coal mining company for a man who 
 will show them how to advance the wages of the 
 workmen, and still sell the coal at a profit of fif- 
 teen cents a ton. All they ask is a good bond, so 
 you will be sure to do it, and not run them in debt. 
 Now either come out or shut up. Do not tell us 
 about what can be done unless you know how. I 
 have tried it as a salesman and failed. I went back 
 to the mill and told the company it could not be 
 done, unless they could reduce the labor so to save 
 three-eighths of a cent a yard. 
 
 These free traders claim that under the Wilson 
 Bill we exported more manufactured goods. If it 
 be true, they ought to cower before the reports of 
 their own free trade papers in regard to the condi- 
 tion of the working people in this country to-day. 
 Look around you ! You are not blind. See the 
 hungry men and women. Hunger will make them 
 work cheap. Free trade will make hungry men 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 83 
 
 and women just the same in America as it does in 
 other countries, and cheap labor will get the mar- 
 kets of the world. Nothing else will. 
 
 The old woman in St. Louis making pants at 
 fifteen cents a dozen was not the only one working 
 for the markets of the world. There are others. 
 
 In New York, on a small patch of land less 
 than a mile square, is a human hive where 175,000 
 people live, if we may call that living, to which the 
 home of the savage in the African jungle seems 
 like paradise. These toilers in New York live in 
 those cheerless rooms, that tower on either side like 
 prisons, into which God's blessed sunshine never 
 comes. The air is foul with the messes that they 
 eat ; yet this food and this shelter is their only re- 
 quital for long hours of weary and killing toil. Do 
 you expect any of God's creatures will be content 
 with such a dole for constant labor? Not while 
 the world exists. Not till the judgment day. 
 
CHAPTER VIL 
 OUR MERCHANT MARINE. 
 
 LET us see what protection has done for 
 our merchant marine. You sometimes hear 
 smart politicians on the stump tell about our pro- 
 tective tariff taking our flag off the sea. They 
 tell you that nearly all our imports and ex- 
 ports are being carried in foreign ships. These 
 are facts. Our merchant marine has been killed 
 by protection, and more freight was carried by 
 American ships in 1810 than is being carried to- 
 day. In i860 there were carried in American 
 ships 5,290,000 tons. In 1896 we only carried 
 4,700,000 tons, while England carried in i860, 5,- 
 700,000 tons, and in 1896, 13,500,000 tons, and I 
 admit protection has done it. 
 
 England began by protecting her interests. She 
 began way back in the thirties to pay her merchant 
 marine a subsidy, and every few years she in- 
 creased this subsidy until at one time, she was 
 paying her lines nearly $5,000,000 every year. 
 For years the subject of a subsidy for our Amer- 
 ican lines was discussed in Congress, while each 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 85 
 
 year more of our freight was being carried in Eng- 
 lish ships. Nothing was done, however, until 
 about 1850, when Congress voted a subsidy of 
 $200,000 to the Collins Line. England immedi- 
 ately doubled her subsidy to the Cunard Line, 
 making it nearly a half million dollars a year. No 
 line could compete with this, and in a few years 
 the Collins Line died. 
 
 France, Norway, Germany, and other countries 
 followed England's example with these results : In 
 1850 France carried 686,000 tons, while in 1896 she 
 carried 1,148,000 tons. Norway carried in 1850 
 298,000 tons, and in 1896 she carried 1,700,000 
 tons. Germany carried in 1850, 558,000 tons, and 
 in 1896 she carried 2,000,000 tons. Yes; pro- 
 tection has done it. Those countries know what 
 protection means, and they protect everything they 
 have that can be protected. With our agricultural 
 advantages England would have done better. 
 England knew she must seek the markets of the 
 world for the sale of her goods that her working 
 people might have employment; so she protected 
 them to the extent of her power. I firmly believe 
 that England, under the conditions that exist in 
 America, would have protected her people from the 
 pauper labor of the world, and given them higher 
 wages than the American people ever dreamed of. 
 She protected them with millions from her treasury, 
 and had she had this vast country she would never 
 have forced her people to export four-fifths of all 
 
86 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 the cotton raised in the world, at prices that do 
 not pay the planter a living. She would never 
 have forced the corn raiser to export his corn when 
 he did not receive ten cents per bushel at the farm. 
 She would never have had 380,000 of her citizens 
 on the tramp looking for work at any price. She 
 would never have forced a woman to make trousers 
 at fifteen cents a dozen. She never would have 
 allowed foreign emigrants to land on these shores 
 and in one year's time hold office under the flag, 
 and not able to even speak the English language. 
 
CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 FREE SILVER — THE COLD HARD FACTS. 
 
 LAST year we had the great campaign of edu- 
 cation : Free silver, gold standard, and re- 
 form of the currency. That is what they told us. 
 The majority of the working men in this country 
 voted for free coinage of silver on a ratio of six- 
 teen to one. They were told that with free coinage 
 of silver everything would be cheap that they had 
 to buy, and everything they had to sell would be 
 high. They were told about the great crime of 
 1873 when silver was demonetized. It is useless 
 to go into the details of that campaign. It is 
 already fresh in your minds, but we can look at 
 some of the cold hard facts. 
 
 First, every word said in favor of a gold stand- 
 ard, every word said about free coinage of silver 
 on a ratio of sixteen to one, every word said about 
 reforming the currency, are wasted words. You 
 might just as well say that Congress should pass a 
 law that the moon shall shine just as brightly in 
 the night as does the sun in the day; but t\v^ fact 
 is, the moon would not do it. Neither will silver 
 remain on a parity with gold at any ratio the Gov- 
 
88 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 ernment might name, or, in fact, all the govern- 
 ments of the world. No ratio can be named by 
 which silver can remain on a parity with gold any 
 great length of time. 
 
 The facts are that these rich mining companies 
 are mining silver at about fifty-three cents per 
 ounce, and getting rich out of it. They can mine 
 more silver to-day with the help of one hundred 
 men than they could thirty years ago with 500 
 men. Sixty million ounces of silver were mined 
 and put upon the market last year. Perhaps you 
 do not know that those rich mine owners would 
 not have mined this silver unless they made a 
 profit. If you do not, you have very little sense. 
 
 Supposing it was possible to establish free coin- 
 age on a ratio of sixteen to one, what would you 
 get out of it? Not a five cent piece. It would 
 only give the mine owners one hundred per cent, 
 profit, and open up hundreds of mines that are 
 not rich enough to pay at the present price of sil- 
 ver, and the markets would be flooded and glutted 
 with silver. Increase in use, however great, would 
 be met by increase of production, and you would 
 soon have a money that would not be worth much 
 more than pig iron. International agreement could 
 not help it any more than it could fix the price of 
 pig iron. The present production of gold is so 
 great as to meet the wants of the whole world. 
 More than $200,000,000 were mined out and put 
 upon the market last year. Should they find a 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 89 
 
 country rich with gold ore and could mine large 
 quantities at half the cost as at present, you would 
 see gold take a tumble in the markets of the world, 
 and all the governments on the globe could not 
 prevent it. You may learn some time that supply 
 and demand make the price of everything in the 
 world; but I doubt if you live long enough. 
 
 ''Well," you say, "American silver dollars are 
 just as good as gold dollars." So is a Government 
 note, and both will remain so just as long as the 
 Goverment will redeem them in gold, and no 
 longer. This they are doing. 
 
 ♦•But," you say, "there is no law by which the 
 United States is compelled to redeem her silver 
 with gold." 
 
 My friend, the United States does redeem her 
 silver with gold every day in the year ; and when- 
 ever she declines to do so she cannot pass a single 
 one of them for more than fifty cents. I know 
 there is no law on the statue books to that effect, 
 but when the importer in New York or other cities 
 buy their goods in England, or other foreign coun- 
 tries on sixty days' time, those goods must be paid 
 for in gold. The importer sells his goods all over 
 the United States, and takes his pay in paper and 
 silver. He gets very little gold. At the end of 
 sixty days he must remit a gold draft, or send the 
 gold coin. Tell me, please, where he will get the 
 gold with his paper and silver to settle this debt? 
 You do not know, do you? He will get it from 
 
90 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 the United States Government through his bank. 
 Should they refuse to give him the gold for his 
 paper and silver it would be known in every part 
 of the world in one hour's time, and the Ameri- 
 can silver dollar, with its eagle and " In God We 
 Trust," would not be worth more than fifty cents 
 anywhere on the globe; and you, my reader, 
 would not take it for any more. The American 
 silver dollar will pass for one hundred cents in 
 Europe simply because the banks there can ship 
 it back to this country and draw gold against it. 
 And for no other reason. 
 
 **NO SUCH THING AS MONETIZATION OR 
 DEMONETIZATION/' 
 
 The man who does not believe there is a law 
 compelling the United States to redeem her silver 
 with gold in order to keep it on a parity with gold 
 is far behind the times. There are some laws not 
 made by Congress that must be obeyed, and this 
 is one of them. Gold is the standard money in 
 every country on the earth, and if all the nations 
 of the earth demonetized gold, and make silver a 
 legal tender, gold would still be the standard 
 money of the world just the same. There is no 
 such thing as monetization or demonetization. No 
 government can by law or by stamping enhance 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 9 1 
 
 the value of any metal, except by redeeming that 
 metal with something more valuable. Whenever 
 I dig twenty-two and eight-tenths grains of gold 
 out of the ground I have so much money. I do 
 not ask any government to stamp it, or to pass a 
 law making it a legal tender, or to name it a dollar, 
 or a franc, or anything else. I would be none the 
 richer by it, because they could not put any value 
 into the metal. 
 
 Gold is in demand simply because it is used in 
 the arts ; and should the demand for it in the arts 
 cease entirely it would not be worth anything. 
 And so it is with everything else in the world. 
 Nothing can be money unless it has the value with- 
 in itself. Nothing ever was, and never will be. Its 
 value will be according to its demand. Supply 
 and demand make its value, and the use of any- 
 thing as money will not make a demand, because 
 every coin is on the market all the time. It must 
 have the value in it to start with. 
 
 "MONEY CANNOT BE MADE BY LAW/* 
 
 Oh, you are one of those who want money made 
 by law, are you? All I can say to you is, you 
 never had any that was made by law, and you 
 never will. Yes, of course you know better. You 
 have a five dollar bill in your pocket that will 
 
92 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 buy just as much as a five dollar gold piece; so 
 have I, but it is not money. Never was, and never 
 will be. If it was money, why should they print 
 on it, "Will pay to the bearer five dollars." I 
 have some paper money made by law myself, and 
 by the laws of the United States of America. It 
 is stamped United States of America, two dollars, 
 but I could not buy one soda cracker with a mil- 
 lion dollars of it. 
 
 "Oh," you say, " that is the old Continental 
 money with which the United States paid the Rev- 
 olutionary soldiers. That was repudiated." Yes, 
 that is so. Now suppose the United States had 
 paid them in twenty dollar gold pieces, how in the 
 name of God could they have repudiated them? 
 If you know, speak out and let us know. 
 
 I am in favor of paying the working people of this 
 country in money that cannot be repudiated by the 
 United States. The working people make all the 
 money in the world, and I am against paying them 
 in old paper rags that can be made worthless by 
 one act of Congress. I do not object to the Gov- 
 ernment or National Bank notes of this country, 
 but I want every dollar of it payable on demand 
 in shining, glittering gold. Let the working peo- 
 ple stop voting for a money made by law, and 
 that can be unmade in twenty minutes by a few 
 little two by four lawyers in Congress. Demand 
 more good money for your labor, and vote so you 
 can get it, and live like Americans ought to live. 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 93 
 
 "NOTHING IS MONEY THAT HAS TO BE PAID,** 
 
 I have had them tell me that anything was 
 money that would pass : a bank note, a Govern- 
 ment note, or a bank check. I have had them 
 hunt up authorities on money to show me the 
 definition of money. But **the proof of the pud- 
 ding is in the eating;" and when I have a check 
 on the bank, and the bank fails and cannot pay, I 
 have sense enough to know that the check I hold 
 is not money. If I have a Government note or 
 bill, and the Government repudiates it, I know- 
 enough to know that the note or bill never was 
 money. I know enough to know that nothing is 
 money that has to be paid. When you have a 
 Government note or bill and want the money, you 
 take it to the Government and they will pay it. If 
 you have a bank note or check you do the same. 
 If you had a twenty dollar gold piece, what a fool 
 you would be running round looking for somebody 
 to pay it. You would not fear bank failures or 
 repudiation by the Government. You would have 
 twenty dollars in money. Nothing is money that 
 has to be paid or that can be repudiated. 
 
 What a working man wants of free coinage of 
 silver on a ratio of sixteen to one I cannot under- 
 stand. What I want is more money for my work, 
 so I can live better and work less. Why should I 
 vote to pay these rich miners $1.29 per ounce 
 for their silver, when it would do me no good? 
 
94 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 They will bring their silver to the mint in a bag, 
 and they will hold this same bag at the hopper 
 and catch every cent of it. Mexico is on a silver 
 basis, but twenty-two and eight-tenths grains of 
 gold will buy two Mexican silver dollars in Mex- 
 ico. There is plenty of money, gold and silver ; 
 and there are bank checks, bank notes, banks 
 drafts. United States notes ; all are good just so 
 long as they will pay them with money. I want 
 more of them, and I want to be sure they can and 
 will pay them with money. The only way for me 
 to get more of it is to get rid of this surplus of 
 labor, so there will not be a dozen men after my 
 job every month, as is the case now. That can 
 only be done by restricting immigration, and giv- 
 ing us a tariff that will not force us to compete with 
 all the low paid labor of the world. Give the 
 working people good wages, and they will con- 
 sume more. Give the Southern people ten cents 
 per pound for their cotton at the farm. Give 
 the corn raiser forty cents a bushel in the West for 
 his corn. Give the coal miner from three to four 
 dollars a day. Give every man who labors money 
 enough so he can live well and work only eight 
 hours a day ten months a year. Do not try to do 
 impossible things. Let the American people live. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FOREIGN IMMIGRATION. 
 
 IN the year 1897 we received into the United 
 States 329,000 people from foreign countries. 
 Thirty-seven thousand four hundred could not read 
 or write in their own language. These people, 
 most of whom were born in poverty and ignorance, 
 and raised almost in slavery, are used to hardships 
 and privations. They come to this land of free 
 America, and make for us a surplus of labor; and 
 by low wages drive out our American young men 
 from the fields. 
 
 It is so in our cotton mills. It is so in our min- 
 ing industry. It is so in our iron and steel works, 
 and it is so in many other factories and mills. 
 
 I saw them at work building a street car line in 
 the East, last summer, through the suburban towns. 
 Not one American was employed on the whole 
 line. No less than 68,000 Italians were received at 
 Castle Garden, New York, last year, and in 1900 
 they will cast their votes to make laws for the 
 American people, while the young men of nineteen 
 and twenty years of age in our colleges, and our 
 
96 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 boys from sixteen to eighteen in our high schools, 
 must stand by and see these ignorant foreigners, 
 from every country on the globe, walk up to the 
 polls, and make laws for them. Heartless ! Cruel ! 
 It is without one atom of common sense. 
 
 I am aware of the fact that a good part of our 
 foreign people who come to this country have 
 made good citizens, and I think it right for us to 
 take what we can use and give them the benefit of 
 freedom and liberty. But when a man takes into 
 his family so many poor, aged, and decrepit per- 
 sons, that will starve his own family and them also, 
 I think that man a fool, and a greater one when he 
 will allow them to dictate to him how he shall run 
 his household affairs. 
 
 If I meet a great number of people traveling 
 who are worn and sick, it is right that I should 
 take into my wagon, all that I can carry comforta- 
 bly and safely. But if I take in the whole multi- 
 tude and break down my wagon so none of us can 
 ride, I would consider it anything but common 
 sense. 
 
 I believe there should be a restriction of our im- 
 migration to not less than one-third of what it is 
 to-day. Not from any one country, but from all. 
 This would mean better times for the American 
 people, and better times for those who came. The 
 foreigner who has been in this country long enough 
 to learn the principles upon which this Govern- 
 ment was founded, surely can see that there must 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 97 
 
 be a restriction of our immigration, or he, too, will 
 go down with the rest to poverty and distress. 
 
 The immigration we are getting now is not the 
 rosy-cheeked German or Irish lad. They are 
 coming from every nook and corner of the earth. 
 The poorest and lowest in the world. We are 
 driving our American working men to starvation 
 prices, and there is not an argument in favor of 
 our keeping it up any longer. Why should we 
 give to the foreign emigrants who are ignorant of 
 our laws, ignorant of our institutions, ignorant of 
 our language, or their own, what we withhold from 
 our own American young men who are educated 
 with every detail of this Government, and with the 
 history of every other? 
 
 We force our young men to remain here twenty- 
 one years before we allow them to cast a vote ; 
 and during all these years we are educating them, 
 step by step, so they may understand the princi- 
 ples of our Republican form of Government, and 
 be able to use their right of franchise for the bet- 
 terment of this country. As soon as they receive 
 this right they find their vote killed by some for- 
 eign hobgoblin, who cannot tell you the year or 
 the month. These ignorant foreigners are taught 
 as soon as they land that they have a vote in this 
 country; and they are also' taught that that vote 
 has a value. This is all that they have in this 
 world that has a value, and they sell it to the high- 
 est bidder. Who are those bidders? They are 
 
98 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 the ward heelers in our cities and towns who are 
 controled by saloon keepers, gamblers, and thugs. 
 You will find many of this class holding Federal 
 office in this great American republic, as well as 
 legislators and city councilmen. In half the States 
 a foreigner can vote in six months. 
 
 As long as I have a vote I will give it to no 
 party unless that party pledges itself to establish 
 a national election law that will allow no man to 
 vote, or become a citizen in this country, until he 
 has lived here twenty-one years, and can read and 
 write the English language. 
 
 I am aware of the fact that we have many good 
 men in office in this country who are of foreign 
 birth. They are the very men who are against 
 making a farce of our elections. The young men 
 born of foreign parents and educated in this coun- 
 try are not in favor of having our ballot sold and 
 bartered by men not competent to write the word 
 liberty, and knows nothing of its meaning. Every 
 man ought to be willing that every American citi- 
 zen should have the right to express his opinion 
 at the polls; and they ought also to demand that 
 he should have an opinion to express. 
 
 The Republican party has been for years trying 
 to put the ignorant class in control over the edu- 
 cated and intelligent class in the Southern States. 
 The Republican party in the North have stumped 
 the country at every Presidential campaign with 
 their mouths full of poisoned venom against the 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 99 
 
 Southern white men. They have told the people 
 in the North that all the gentlemen in the South 
 were negroes. They have told us that there was 
 no loyalty there except among this colored gentry. 
 But when the war with Spain came on we found 
 Bagleys and Hobsons there by the thousand. Who 
 were they? They were of the old Revolutionary 
 stock; truly American. We of the North are just 
 beginning to learn that in no part of this globe 
 can we find a more intelligent, braver, and truer 
 class of people than right down in our Southern 
 States ; and we ought by this time to appreciate 
 them as American citizens. No man believes that 
 the negro in the South is allowed at all times to 
 cast his ballot as he wishes. It is not true. If it 
 were true, it would mean ruin to most parts of that 
 fair Southern land. I am not the only Northern 
 man who has had his eyes opened on this question. 
 
 It is useless to tell me that our educated Irish 
 citizen, who has toiled in this country many years 
 to educate his children, wants to stand at the polls 
 in 1900 and see his vote killed, or that of his edu- 
 cated boy, by some ignorant bear dancer from 
 Poland. 
 
 It is useless to tell me that our German citizens, 
 who have been here long enough to understand 
 the principles upon which this country was founded, 
 and whose children have been educated in our 
 high schools, wants to have their votes killed at the 
 polls in 1900 by some ignorant man from Italy, 
 
 Utfa 
 
lOO POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 Portugal, or even from Germany, for they know 
 there is no common sense in it. The boys born in 
 America are educated, and we know it is not right 
 to allow these ignorant men from any part of the 
 world to come here and make laws for them. 
 
 You know these are facts that I have stated, 
 whether you were born in this country or some 
 other. What we want is a party with the princi- 
 ples of real common sense for a platform, and 
 every man who wishes to benefit his condition will 
 vote for it. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 SENATORS SHOULD BE ELECTED BY DIRECT 
 VOTE OF THE PEOPLE* 
 
 THE working people tell about the money power 
 in this country enslaving the poor; they tell 
 us about the millionaire buying himself into the 
 United States Senate ; yet they are the very ones 
 who make it possible for the millionaire to do so. 
 No man ever yet bought anything until he found 
 the man who had it for sale. 
 
 The claim is made that the millionaires buy up 
 our legislators, paying many times more for the 
 ofBce than the entire salary would amount to for 
 the full term ; and yet making millions out of the 
 offtce before they retire. 
 
 It is true that in this year [1899] our United 
 States Senate is made up mostly of wealthy men. 
 Nearly one-half of whom are millionaires. Some 
 are rated far above that sum. Direct charges have 
 been made against a number of our senators for 
 bribery, but I want to tell you that " millions of 
 dollars " are a stronger breastwork against the laws 
 than any other barrier on the face of the earth. 
 
102 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 There is hardly a doubt in my mind but many 
 senators have bought their seats in the American 
 Congress. There is hardly a doubt in my mind 
 but money is the whole thing in all our elections, 
 beginning at the justice of the peace and going on 
 up to the President of the United States. The 
 party without money can never make much head- 
 way. The strength of party to-day is in buying 
 up the votes of these "hard-handed sons of toil," 
 who puff and blow like a steam engine through the 
 streets and in the grog shops of our cities and 
 towns. The strongest pull and the surest pull for 
 the Senate of the United States with our State 
 Legislatures is money. The poor little fellow who 
 butts up against the millionaire in the race will 
 hardly know what hit him. All we can ever do is 
 to make it as hard for the millionaire as we can. 
 Make him spend all the money we can, and beat 
 him if we can. Our only hope is to elect our sen- 
 ators by the direct vote of the people. Then we 
 can save our profane words we now devote to our 
 legislators, and pour them out to the people where 
 they now belong. 
 
 '* Oh," but you say ** let us elect honest men to 
 the Legislature ; then we will have no trouble." 
 
 Let me give you a little picture, my friend. Our 
 State Legislatures are made up of something like 
 one hundred and fifty members, more or less. 
 Most of them go there with the idea that in about 
 four years more he will be governor of his great 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. IO3 
 
 State, and he can also see the Senate chamber and 
 the Presidential chair not far in the future. His 
 cup of happiness is almost full. Not quite, how- 
 ever, for he has spent a great deal of money in 
 making his race; in fact, more than he thought. 
 He has found that his entire salary will not begin to 
 make him whole. He intends to run for the State 
 Senate at the next election, and he begins to think 
 about how much more money it will take to put 
 him through in that race than it did to land him in 
 the Legislature. 
 
 Just as he gets deeply interested in his figures 
 some one calls and introduces himself as Col. 
 Brown, and wants to see him privately. As soon 
 as they are alone the colonel takes out a long roll 
 of paper and tells him that this bill will be brought 
 up in the house at this term, and he wants his 
 vote in favor of it. He explains all its good points, 
 and then asks, bluntly, if he will vote for it. The 
 little fellow hems and coughs, and says, he will 
 think the matter over. That does not satisfy Col. 
 Brown. He argues with him for some time, and 
 finally tells him that he wants his support and vote 
 for this bill. " But," he adds, " we do not expect 
 you to work for us on this, without paying you 
 well for the extra expense you are likely to incur." 
 The colonel then takes out a roll of bills about 
 the size of a man's leg, and chips off ten fifty dol- 
 lar bills, and hands them to Mr. Jones, with the 
 remark that he intends to show him that the ex- 
 
I04 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 pense he may unavoidably have will be paid ; and 
 adds, with a smile, " You take this, and any extra 
 expense will also be settled by us when the bill is 
 passed." 
 
 When the colonel has gone he sits down again 
 and begins his figuring on the probable cost of his 
 campaign for State senator. He soon hears a 
 gentle tap on his door, and some one says : "Jones, 
 are you in? " " Yes, come in. Why, how are you. 
 Smith? Take a chair." " Well, Jones, I want a 
 little private talk with you. No one round, is 
 there, Jones?" "No, we are perfectly safe here." 
 "Jones, Col. Paul has just arrived, and wanted me 
 to see you and find out if you would support him 
 for Senator. He wants to know tonight." "Smith, 
 I cannot see how I can vote for Col. Paul, although 
 I admire the colonel, and am free to admit that he 
 would make us a good senator; perhaps the best 
 we could get, but I halfway promised to vote for 
 Bill Gordon." " Well, Jones, Col. Paul would make 
 us the best senator of any man in the State. You 
 know he has lots of money, and could influence 
 other capital to come here and build up this coun- 
 try. Besides all this, Jones, whoever sticks to the 
 colonel is sure of a friend all through life. Col. 
 Paul is very anxious to see you tonight, Jones ; 
 and if you will see him I will call for you about 
 half-past ten." "All right. Smith, I will see him; 
 but I cannot see how I can conscientiously drop 
 Bill Gordon." 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I05 
 
 At eleven o'clock that night we find them in a 
 little dark office up town talking to Jones of the 
 benefits he will receive by voting for Col. Paul. 
 But Jones still holds out for Bill Gordon. 
 
 Finding they cannot persuade Jones they all 
 leave, with the excuse that they will return in a few 
 minutes, except a little hatchet-faced fellow, who 
 has said nothing up to this time. As soon as the 
 footsteps of the others die away the little hatchet- 
 faced fellow draws up to the table before Jones, 
 pulls out $200.00 in gold, and lays it on the table. 
 Looking Jones squarely in the eye he says: ''Mr. 
 Jones, we want your vote." Jones turns red in the 
 face and rising to his feet says: ''Do you think 
 you can buy me ? " The little hatchet-faced fellow 
 puts his hand on his shoulder and says: "Mr. 
 Jones, sit down. We want your vote," at the same 
 time putting $500.00 more on the table. And as 
 he stood there he added to it until that table was 
 piled high with shining, glittering gold, and Jones' 
 face had turned to deathly pallor. Then he took 
 the little hatchet-faced fellow's hand in his trem- 
 bling one and whispered, '' Col. Paul shall have my 
 vote." And Col. Paul got it. 
 
 You ask me what I think would have happened 
 if they had sent some working man to the Legisla- 
 ture instead of Jones? I think it would have cost 
 Col. Paul less money in his race for senator. 
 
 The human race is past finding out. One man 
 condemns another, and we soon find that he is a 
 
1 06 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 hundred times worse than the one he condemns. 
 No confidence in one another. The street car 
 conductor must •* punch in the presence of the pas- 
 senger." The man who holds any position of 
 trust must give bonds ; on down to the clerk in the 
 store who is not allowed to make change or rap up 
 his sales. A check is put upon every man and no 
 one is looked upon as honest. It reminds me of 
 the poet who said : 
 
 "This world is all a fleeting show, 
 To man's delusion given ; 
 Not an honest man left on earth, 
 And hardly one in heaven." 
 
 The only way we can do is to put a check on 
 our millionaires by electing them by direct vote of 
 the people. And if money is to win the election, 
 let it be more evenly divided, and not let Jones 
 and a few more have it all. Let the people do the 
 voting, and then they can curse the people instead 
 of the State Legislature. 
 
A 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 "LABOR UNIONS/' 
 
 S far back as I can recollect we have had Labor 
 Unions ; and from time to time the names of 
 these Unions have been changed Hke the temper- 
 ance organizations. We have one organization for 
 a time that seems to take, and when the interest 
 begins to lag up jumps another, bearing a difTer- 
 ent name ; that has a run for a while, and then 
 dies like the rest. I do not object to Labor 
 Unions or temperance organizations, but the 
 Unions have done the laboring people no good, 
 for they are working for less wages than they did 
 fifteen years ago. The temperance organizations 
 have done the cause no good ; and the question 
 would naturally be asked, What is the matter? 
 The answer would naturally be given. Neither one 
 or the other have been run in the interest for 
 which they were organized. 
 
 * 
 
 HARDSHIPS OF MANUFACTURERS AND MEN. 
 
 The Labor Unions are usually controlled by 
 men who are unfit for the positions they hold. 
 They have little idea of the profits of the manu- 
 
I08 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 facturer, or that it is one thing to manufacture 
 goods, and another thing to dispose of those 
 goods at a profit. The Unions meet at their rooms 
 and decide that they ought to have more pay for 
 their work, so they make out a schedule of prices 
 and submit them to the manufacturer. The man- 
 ufacturer looks them over and sees at once that he 
 cannot pay these prices and get out whole, let 
 alone making a cent profit, and naturally he de- 
 clines to advance the wages. 
 
 At the next meeting of the Union the men 
 decide to strike, and away they go. The manu- 
 facturer has orders ahead that must be filled or 
 his business will suffer, for he cannot expect to get 
 orders from these firms again unless the goods are 
 shipped out promptly. These Union labor people 
 know this, and they say to one another, ''We have 
 got him this time, and he will have to pony up." 
 The manufacturer sends away to other towns for 
 help, and they soon appear. The poor fellows 
 have been out of work a long time, their families 
 on the verge of starvation. They have come many 
 miles to take the place of the strikers. You can 
 see poverty and despair written upon every one of 
 their faces, just as plainly as if it had been written 
 there with ink. When they arrive at the factory 
 they are met by the Union labor people, and what 
 do you see written upon their faces? Not the 
 words that are written in the holy book, "Love 
 thy neighbor as thyself; " not the words, "Love one 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. IO9 
 
 another," but you see written there, revenge, hatred, 
 and murder. It is just as plainly stamped there 
 as despair is stamped on the faces of those whom 
 they are calling scabs. 
 
 You will not have to wait long before the fight 
 begins, and it is a desperate one. Despair on the 
 one, revenge on the other. Poor hard-working 
 men battling for an existence on one side ; poor, 
 hard-working men battling for an existence on the 
 other. The blood of each flows freely ; legs and 
 arms are broken, and some are killed. Police are 
 called out, arrests are made, and guards placed 
 over the factory. Still the fight goes on from day 
 to day, and weeks lengthen into months. 
 
 The strikers have suffered in those months more 
 than words can tell. Their wives and children 
 have suffered as no tongue can portray. And 
 what is the result? The men go back at the old 
 prices. The manufacturer has lost a good part of 
 his business, so he can give them work but a part 
 of the time. The working people are in debt, with 
 no clothes for themselves or families. Thousands 
 of dollars have been sent in from other Unions, 
 which have worked a hardship upon those who 
 sent it. The expenses of the great mogul who 
 came to take charge of the strike had to be paid, 
 and nothing is left them but the cold north wind, 
 which reminds them of their terrible condition. 
 Yet they keep up their lodges. They still have 
 their leaders to support in idleness, and every year 
 
I lO POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 their condition is worse than the year before. At 
 every decade they are nearer to the level of the 
 working people of the old countries. How long 
 they will keep it up, time alone will tell. 
 
 Certainly, I will tell you what I would have done 
 had I been a member of the Union, and wanted 
 the manufacturer to advance our wages. I would 
 have said to the Union that I believed every man- 
 ufacturer should make five per cent, on the output 
 of his factory. Of course I know that not one 
 manufacturer in a thousand is making that much 
 net profit; but I think he should. I would have 
 said to the men in the Union, ** Before we strike let 
 us make a proposition to the firm." I would have 
 drawn up a petition something like this : 
 
 "We, the undersigned employees of your factory, 
 are not satisfied with the wages being paid us, and 
 respectfully ask that our wages be raised fifteen 
 per cent, forthwith. 
 
 '•We think you should be well satisfied with five 
 per cent, net profit on the output of your factory, 
 and we agree to furnish you with men from our 
 Union who will place the products of your factory 
 at prices so you can make the five per cent, net 
 profit, and pay us the advance in wages we ask." 
 
 If I was not capable of placing the manufact- 
 urer's output at prices where he could do this, and 
 could find no one in the Union who could, I would 
 never strike. You may say he would not do this. 
 I claim that he would. If you are able to place 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I I I 
 
 the output of any factory at prices where the man- 
 ufacturer can make a net profit of five per cent., 
 you need not work more than ten years before the 
 interest on your money will keep you in luxury 
 the rest of your life. 
 
 MANUFACTURERS NOT MAKING THE PROFIT 
 THEY ARE ENTITLED TO. 
 
 The cold hard facts are : The manufacturer is 
 not making five per cent, profit on the output of his 
 factory, and cannot advance your wages ; neither 
 can you take his output and sell it so he can make 
 a net profit of five per cent, and no man who be- 
 longs to your Union can do it. The manufacturer 
 himself cannot do it, neither can he find a man 
 who can. 
 
 Any man who has money can manufacture 
 goods, but the hardest part and the most essential 
 part of the business is selling them at a profit; and 
 the laboring man never thinks of this. If your 
 Union people are so smart, and know just what 
 the manufacturer can or cannot do, why don't they 
 manufacture a few goods themselves? It is a very 
 easy matter to sit down and tell about how much 
 the manufacturer is making, but it is not true. 
 The manufacturers of the United States are not 
 making a net profit of five per cent, as a whole ; 
 and as a whole cannot pay higher wages than they 
 
112 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 now pay. You cannot get a Union man to believe 
 this, and yet there are none of them capable of 
 disposing of the goods at a profit, no matter how 
 much money you may offer them to do so. And 
 for this reason I take it for granted that they can- 
 not do anything they say they can. 
 
 The Unions are a good thing, rightly managed ; 
 but their policy should be to bring about the con- 
 ditions by which the manufacturer could pay them 
 a fair wage, and then make him do it; or, in other 
 words, I want to see the Unions work for better 
 wages for the laboring man, and not work to keep 
 him down, as they have been doing the past twenty 
 years. 
 
 Do you expect the American manufacturer of 
 cotton goods to pay his men two dollars a day 
 while the Englishman pays only fifty cents a day, 
 and still compete with the Englishman? You 
 know better. You know he cannot do it. There 
 is no use in argument on such a question. Then 
 why do you not make laws to shut those goods out 
 of this country, instead of voting for free trade ; 
 Do you expect to win a strike when there are a 
 hundred thousand hungry men ready to take your 
 places ? You know you cannot do that. Then why 
 do you not vote for congressmen who will work to 
 restrict emigration, and get rid of some of this 
 surplus labor? 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. II3 
 
 THE AMERICAN BOY BADLY USED. 
 
 I want to call your attention to one other thing 
 that your Unions do that is not right. In many 
 factories you do not allow the manufacturer to take 
 in young men and learn them the trade. The 
 young man comes here from the old countries, 
 having learned his trade there. He joins the 
 Union and gets a job while the American boy is 
 shut out. There is nothing right in this, and I 
 shall do all I can to stop it. You want good wages 
 for your labor in the factory, but you want the 
 farmer to raise what you have to buy from him for 
 almost nothing; but you do not think that unLss 
 the farmer gets a good price for what he produces 
 he cannot buy many of the goods you make. 
 
 DISHONESTY THE GREAT TROUBLE. 
 
 The farmer tries to get a good price for his 
 produce, but he does his level best to get what you 
 produce at the factory for almost nothing, not 
 thinking that unless you are well paid you cannot 
 buy very much of what he produces. It is dog 
 eat dog from one end of this country to the other. 
 Every working man doing his very best to pull the 
 rest of the laboring men to the bottom ; and sym- 
 pathy for the poor man is wasted. They have 
 worked against one another ever since the world 
 
114 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 began, and no doubt but they will continue to do 
 so until the end of time. 
 
 The Unions have no confidence in one another. 
 They meet and swear by all that is great and holy 
 that they will buy no goods except they are Union 
 made. A few will stick to their promise. The bal- 
 ance, knowing that the manufacturer paying Union 
 prices for labor cannot sell his goods as cheap as 
 the one using scabs and paying low wages, will 
 skulk around and buy the goods where he can buy 
 the cheapest ; then go to the Union and take an 
 oath that he never bought anything but Union 
 made goods in his life. The men who do stick to 
 their pledge find it out, and get disgusted, then go 
 and do the same thing; and the objects of the 
 Union are defeated. 
 
 If the laboring men would be honest with one 
 another, and vote for laws that would help them, 
 it would not be long before America would be the 
 Eden of the world. Eight hours a day ten months 
 in the year, with pay enough so you can have the 
 comforts of life and save something for old age, 
 should be the policy of every working man. But 
 instead they vote for free trade, and allow the man- 
 ufactured goods to come in free, and they must 
 compete with them. 
 
 The farmer votes for free sugar, which forces him 
 to raise cheap corn, cheap wheat, and cheap cot- 
 ton. They cry out for expansion and annexation, 
 knowing that the pauper labor from other coun- 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 11$ 
 
 tries will force them to work still cheaper. They 
 grasp at the shadow of free silver, knowing that it 
 such a law was in effect it could do them no good. 
 They worry about trusts, and who shall run the 
 railroads and telegraph wires, knowing that who- 
 ever owns them they will be forced to pay the 
 same rates. They never think about establishing 
 conditions where they are to be benefited, and 
 never will. 
 
CHAPTER XIL 
 
 CONDITIONS OF THE COUNTRY IN 1899. 
 
 WE have now had two years of Republican 
 administration. Let us take a look at the 
 conditions of the American working people to-day, 
 and the prospects for them in the future. To me 
 it looks as if the future had nothing in store for 
 them but lower wages and harder times. Let us 
 look at the Chicago Journal of to-day (Feb. 7 : 
 
 1899): 
 
 " All day long streams of destitute persons is- 
 sued forth from the entrance to the City Hall into 
 the intense cold without. Most of those in this 
 current of humanity had asked Secretary Campbell, 
 of the Police Department, for food ; but were as 
 hungry as when they came. Others had pleaded 
 for coal, but there was none for them. Yet others 
 had asked for clothes to keep Jack Frost at bay, 
 but they were as scantily clad as when they came. 
 Mothers with babes in their arms were in that dis- 
 consolate river of life — old tottering men, young 
 wives and white-haired women. They lingered 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 11/ 
 
 about the radiators in the hall, and only reluctantly 
 turned into the street. 
 
 "We can give no assistance," said Capt. Camp- 
 bell,^ Secretary of the Police Department. " We 
 have no funds. We are bankrupt." 
 
 What makes the above more damnable is to read 
 the following: "Twenty thousand Cubans are be- 
 ing fed daily at the expense of the United States." 
 Thus we find the conditions on this cold February 
 night, 1899, after two years of Republican 
 administration. 
 
 Five thousand brave American boys have been 
 laid away under the sod in the past ten months, 
 and they are still dying with disease, and being 
 killed. Many of these boys were taken from high 
 schools and colleges and sent out to battle on a 
 plea of patriotism. 
 
 Yet this is not the worst. Here is what the 
 Chicago Times-Herald, of May 28, 1898, says: 
 " The little babe two months old of Edward Linsey, 
 private, Seventh Regiment, I. N. G., died at its 
 mother's breast of starvation. Private Linsey is at 
 Camp Tanner with his regiment, which has been 
 mustered into the service of the United States. 
 Private Linsey went to the front with his regiment 
 with the consent of his wife, and because he could 
 not get work in Chicago. Although a capable 
 workman for Gormully & Jeffrey, the discharge of 
 a large number of men left him idle for two months. 
 He could not find work. His regiment was or- 
 
I I 8 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 dered out. He said to his wife : ** I will go, and 
 the money I get for being a soldier I will send 
 to you." But his baby died of starvation yes- 
 terday morning, in a bare room at 240 Orleans 
 Street. 
 
 "The coroner came, and he said, after careful 
 examination, that the mother had been so long 
 without food that her milk would not support the 
 little one, and it died of starvation. 
 
 "The wife only twenty-six years old called in 
 another poor woman and the two went to the 
 Rookery Building, the headquarters of the Relief 
 Society of the Seventh Regiment, and asked for 
 aid. The answer was: 'We will send some one 
 around to see you.' He did not come, although 
 again the cry went down to the Rookery Building: 
 * I need food and help.' So she sat in the little 
 room caring for the little boy toddling about her 
 and the baby that was crying at a breast that would 
 not nourish. 
 
 " The father was begging for his pitiful thirteen 
 dollars a month at Camp Tanner, but the money 
 did not come. The days passed, and with the 
 dawn of yesterday the baby shut its eyes, and the 
 thin lips came away from the tired and exhausted 
 mother's breast forever." 
 
 I say there is no excuse for this. It is con- 
 temptible ! It is damnable ! 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. II 9 
 
 QUESTIONS HARD TO ANSWER. 
 
 Why are we at war with the savages of the 
 Eastern Hemisphere? Why are we spending a 
 million dollars a day in Cuba and the Philippines, 
 and sapping the life's blood of our own people by 
 taxation ? Why are we feeding forty thousand bar- 
 barous people, who are never happy unless cutting 
 somebody's throat, and leaving our own people to 
 die of hunger and cold? Why are we so anxious 
 to feed the Cuban soldiers, and let the children of 
 our American soldiers starve to death, while the 
 mother cries out in vain for help? Why are we 
 so anxious to annex those countries to this with its 
 low-paid labor, and force our farmers and our me- 
 chanics to live as they live? Why has this Gov- 
 ernment lost sight of the distress of the American 
 people? Why are they willing to sacrifice our 
 young men in those tropical climates, when one 
 company of American boys are worth more to the 
 world than all the Cubans and Filipinos that were 
 ever born, or that ever will be born? 
 
 I can tell you why it is so. The free distribu- 
 tion of Cuban bonds has done it. The lives of 
 our American boys are being sold and bartered 
 away for a promise of reward. 
 
 Let us take a calm sober view of the situation, 
 and see why we declared war against Spain. Some 
 will contend it was on account of the blowing up 
 of the Maine ; but you have only to read the 
 
I20 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 declaration of war by President McKinley to disa- 
 buse your minds of that thought. We could not 
 declare war on account of the blowing up of the 
 Maine, and hold our own self respect. McKinley 
 knew this, and declared it was for ** humanity's 
 sake" to free Cuba, and not on account of the 
 destruction of the Maine. Even he had his doubts 
 about the Maine being blown up by the Spanish ; 
 just such doubts as a conscientious man might feel 
 of the guilt of an accused person when the evi- 
 dence was circumstantial and not absolutely con- 
 clusive, but enough to tone down that part of 
 his message to Congress in which he treated of 
 the Maine. If President McKinley had been able 
 to dispel those lingering doubts, the message would 
 have been more vigorous. The United States had 
 given Spain to understand that if the cruelties in 
 Cuba did not cease, our people would intervene to 
 stop them. The blowing up of the Maine was a 
 dastardly, treacherous act, but the Spanish gov- 
 ernment promptly disavowed the deed, and called 
 for a disinterested tribunal of arbitration, and 
 promised reparation if found responsible for 
 negligence. 
 
 Not many years ago a mob of American citizens 
 broke into a prison in New Orleans and shot a 
 number of Italian subjects who were awaiting trial. 
 Italy demanded redress. We paid a large indem- 
 nity, although our Government declared its inno- 
 cence. Now would Italy have been justified in 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 121 
 
 declaring war against us because certain individ- 
 uals had murdered her citizens in cold blood? 
 No more have we any right to hold Spain as a 
 nation -responsible for the act of some wretch 
 who assassinated our noble boys and destroyed the 
 Maine. War was not declared on account of the 
 blowing up of the Maine, but for the sole purpose 
 of freeing Cuba; and President McKinley himself 
 said so. I contend that the United States had no 
 legal right to declare war against Spain. And I 
 contend further that the sacrifices this country has 
 made and is still making are too great for the 
 results to be obtained. The Cubans are unlike 
 our people. They are half-civilized, hot blooded, 
 and can only be governed by extreme laws and 
 extreme measures. 
 
 • 
 
 HARDSHIPS OF THE AMERICAN BOYS. 
 
 We sent to Cuba last summer during the very 
 sickly season 20,000 of the very best boys we had 
 in America ; many of them are still there ; many 
 more are in the Philippines. These young men 
 were sent out to those terrible countries, which are 
 hot, malarious, and deathly, to fight the Spaniards. 
 Not to uphold the honor of the United States, not 
 to protect the American flag, or the American 
 citizen, but to free Cuba. Those boys laid out 
 there in the wilds of that terrible, deathly island, 
 
122 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 through the hot summer days, burning with a high 
 fever, and with their tongues parched and swollen. 
 No water except that taken from lagoons, of which 
 every swallow breeds death. Lying out there in 
 those swamps, bleeding, mangled, and torn, crying, 
 in their agony of death, My God ! My God ! 
 
 As I sit at my desk in the glory of this bright 
 spring morning, and look out upon the swelling 
 buds and fast coming leaves, which tell the story 
 of nature's resurrection, I say within my soul that 
 one of our boys is worth more to the world than 
 all the savages of the earth. 
 
 Where comes this " for humanity's sake" that 
 we hear so much about ? Was it humanity to stand 
 by and see our own Americans hungry and cold, 
 and not give them a rag or a bite to eat, while we 
 feed and clothe twenty thousand Cubans? Was 
 it humanity to send money to pay the Cuban sol- 
 dier, and stand by and see the children of our 
 American soldiers starve to death because we 
 would not pay them the little pittance of thirteen 
 dollars per month that they had earned? Shame! 
 Shame ! 
 
 What is it we hear from the Philippine Islands? 
 The Filipinos are striving to be free. They have 
 a Constitution and a Congress. They have an 
 army of fifty thousand men. They are trying to 
 live under their own government. Talk about our 
 carrying liberty and blessings to all mankind. 
 Every once in a while we see in the papers that 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I 23 
 
 several thousand Filipinos had been killed, and 
 twice as many more wounded, while our loss was 
 only a few. The fact is, we do not know our loss. 
 The men who are at the head of this Government 
 are not telling us ; but the time will come when 
 we shall know. The mothers of this country are 
 finding it out every day. 
 
 The cry of Secretary Long in his speech at 
 Boston was, ** Who will pull down the American 
 flag wherever it has been raised?" There will be 
 millions of patriotic Americans who will pull it 
 down whenever it is raised over a people who are 
 striving to be free, and they will bring that flag 
 back to America and wipe off the dirt and dust 
 put upon it by this Republican administration. 
 And although they can never erase from it the 
 blood of our grand, noble boys. Secretary Long 
 and the balance of the millionaires in Congress 
 and the Senate will learn in November, 1900, that 
 the conscience of the American people is not dead. 
 
 We have another Secretary (Mr. Gage), who 
 said at a meeting in Washington in justification of 
 this war in the Philippines, *' Christian civilization 
 and five per cent." 
 
 The President once said, "Forcible annexation 
 would be criminal aggression." Still criminal ag- 
 gression goes on. 
 
 It has certainly proved a fine ending for a war 
 begun for humanity and liberty to find us killing 
 Filipinos, whose only offence is to resist the attempt 
 
124 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 by US to deprive them of that independence, which 
 for years past they have been spending their Hves 
 and treasure to attain. 
 
 One argument used in favor of the annexation 
 of Cuba and the Philippines is that they are in- 
 capable of self government. If that is so, why 
 should we be so anxious to make them citizens of 
 the United States? We certainly have enough of 
 that class with us now. 
 
 * 
 
 WHAT ANNEXATION MEANS. 
 
 The one great reason why we should not annex 
 those countries is plain and simple. By doing so 
 our farmers, who now raise corn, wheat, and cotton, 
 would be obliged to sell those products for less 
 money. Less money means a harder life, less to 
 eat, less to wear, less to spend, and less education 
 for their children. It means more. It means that 
 our farmers must come down to the same plane as 
 the inhabitants of those islands. 
 
 When you reduce the condition of the farmers 
 of the United States, you reduce the condition of 
 every man who toils. The foundation of this coun- 
 try is the farmers ; and to make this country pros- 
 perous you must first make the farmer prosperous. 
 Will you do it by the annexation of Cuba, Hawaii, 
 and the Philippines? Let us see how it would 
 work. We have 600,000 acres in tobacco, which 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 1 25 
 
 produces 500,000,000 pounds. With the cheap 
 labor in those countries, and tobacco admitted free, 
 do you suppose our tobacco growers could com- 
 pete with them? 
 
 **Well," say the men who raise wheat, corn, and 
 cotton, *' let them raise something else. We will 
 buy our tobacco where we can buy the cheapest." 
 Yet there is nothing else for them to do with their 
 land except to put it in wheat, corn, or cotton. Do 
 you get too large a price for your corn and wheat 
 now, Mr. Farmer? Do you, Mr. Cotton Grower, 
 get too much for your cotton? Could you get 
 more for these products if everybody else went 
 into the business? Do you, Mr. Mechanic, expect 
 to get a better price for your labor when the 
 farmers have no money to spend ? Have you lived 
 all this time and do not know that when the farmers 
 are prosperous you are prosperous? Let the 
 farmer go down, and as sure as the sun rises you 
 will go down with him. I do not care what business 
 you are in, or what labor you may perform, there 
 is no way to benefit you except to give to the 
 farmers a better price for their products. And to 
 accomplish this you must give them something by 
 which they can reduce their acreage, and by this 
 means reduce the supply. 
 
 The question is how can you do this? If yon 
 put a duty of five cents per pound on sugar, and 
 a good high tariff on jute, hemp, and other textiles, 
 you will reduce the acreage of corn, wheat, and 
 
126 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 cotton. If you raise the $100,000,000 worth of 
 sugar you now buy from other countries, you will 
 reduce the acreage enough so the corn and wheat 
 raisers and cotton growers will not be obliged to 
 compete with all the low-paid labor of the world, 
 and they could then live as Americans ought to 
 live. You cannot make the American farmers 
 prosperous without making every other man in 
 this country prosperous. 
 
 Now what effect will the annexation of Cuba, 
 Hawaii, and the Philippines have on the American 
 farmer? It would simply force him to raise cheap 
 corn, cheap wheat, and cheap cotton. Not only 
 cheap, but lower prices must prevail than ever 
 before. 
 
 Free tobacco from Cuba will, with the cheap 
 labor there and big plantations run by large cor- 
 porations, produce tobacco so cheap that it will 
 force our tobacco growers in the North to quit the 
 business, and raise corn and wheat; and it will 
 force the tobacco grower in the South to raise 
 cotton. The more corn and wheat you raise the 
 lower it will get. Not only will the annexation of 
 those countries lower the price of farm products, 
 but it will bring thousands of Malays, Cubans, and 
 Chinese to this country to lower the wages of our 
 mechanics, and to compete with the farmer in his 
 products of the soil. 
 
 You men who toil, I care not what occupation 
 you may follow, cannot be aware of the effect 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS, 12/ 
 
 which such annexation would have upon your 
 wages and incomes. 
 
 I take the following from the editorial column of 
 the Boston Herald: 
 
 . '* The number of inhabitants of the Philippine 
 Islands is unknown, from the fact that the interior 
 of one of the large islands — Mindanao — has never 
 been entered by its nominal Spanish rulers, and 
 hence it is only known that in its valleys along the 
 hillsides reside an enormous number of natives. 
 Mohammedan Malays, in their relations to the 
 Spanish government, are about as independent as 
 though they had never heard of Spain. The 
 number of these people in this and the smaller 
 islands is variously estimated from seven to fifteen 
 millions. Of course, if we took possession, we 
 would not be satisfied by collecting a few hundred 
 dollars revenue at one or two trading points upon 
 the coast. To be useful to us the Philippines must 
 be made to realize the benefits of modern civiliza- 
 tion by paying taxes. It has been said that the 
 semi-savage life of the South Sea Islands, with its 
 independence, absence of worry, responsibility, and 
 work is preferable to the English wage earner with 
 a family to support. 
 
 '* No doubt but what the Malays might in time 
 be taught the useful arts of- industry and become 
 wage earners, but their advantage as wage earners 
 will consist for a long time to come, possibly for a 
 generation or two, in the fact that their services 
 
128 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 can be obtained for such a relatively small remuner- 
 ation. These Malays would consider themselves 
 well paid if they received eight or ten cents per 
 day. It would quickly be discovered by all forms 
 of contractors that in the Philippine Islands the 
 United States possessed a large and untried reser- 
 voir of cheap labor. 
 
 "We have emigration laws and alien laws that 
 prevent the Chinese from coming to this country. 
 We prohibit contracting for labor to be brought 
 from foreign countries, but the Philippines in our 
 possession no statute of this kind would be in the 
 least restrictive. If we should annex those islands 
 they would be citizens of this country, and under 
 the Constitution would have equal protection and 
 opportunities of our laws. These Malays under 
 such circumstances would have the right to come 
 and go as they pleased. And considering the 
 developments of the contract system and the power 
 which an hereditary potentate in the East has over 
 those who are bound by religious as well as other 
 ties to obey him, it would indeed be strange if ar- 
 rangements were not quickly begun by which, 
 through payment to local native authorities, thou- 
 sands upon thousands of Malays from the Philip- 
 pine Islands might be brought to this country to 
 enter into those various classes of work which re- 
 quire merely unskilled labor ; and this system 
 would be far lower than that to which our Italian 
 contract labor ever descended. 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I 29 
 
 "We also have to consider that there is a large 
 Chinese population in the Philippines, and it will 
 be no easy matter to prevent its growth there, 
 considering the ease with which native vessels can 
 land Chinese emigrants upon any of the hundred 
 islands ; and when once established as citizens of 
 the Philippine Islands, then by the same token 
 they will also be citizens of the United States and 
 no law can keep them out of this country." 
 
 These are the conditions that will surely come if 
 the Philippines and Cuba are annexed to the 
 United States. 
 
 The territory we have annexed from time to 
 time in the past is very different from the countries 
 we are now trying to bring into our Union, from the 
 fact that it lay in the Temperate Zone and joined 
 our own ; besides it was unoccupied by any great 
 number of people, and nothing to obstruct our 
 progress and work. You must have a climate and 
 soil adaptable to raising good men and women, or 
 the crop will be a bad one, and, like poor potatoes, 
 unfit for market. 
 
 The conditions are very different in Cuba and 
 the Philippines than in our great South and West 
 that has been added to the United States in the 
 past hundred years. First, those countries are 
 more densely populated than most of the States of 
 this Union, and populated by a race that is not 
 likely in many generations to lay down the musket 
 and take up the implements of industry. More 
 
I30 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 good American money would have to be expended 
 in those countries to rid the cities and towns of 
 their pest holes, and make them fit for habitation, 
 than it would cost to run the Government of the 
 United States. 
 
 • 
 
 WHAT THE AMERICANS HAVE TO CONTEND 
 WITH HERE. 
 
 We found in this country 3,000,000 American 
 Indians. To-day we have 250,000. We have 
 done everything that could be done to educate 
 them that they might be self-supporting and take 
 a place among men. We have been sadly disap- 
 pointed in the result, but we can take heart, for 
 there is now only 250,000 more to civilize; and 
 the crack of the rifle keeps on diminishing the 
 number. 
 
 We have not had much better success with the 
 Southern negro, notwithstanding the money that 
 has been expended upon them, and the right to 
 vote and hold ofifice given them. Forty years have 
 now past, and we read from one of the most intel- 
 ligent of their race (Booker Washington) these 
 words: 
 
 •* It is unfortunate that my people permitted 
 themselves at the close of the war to be led in 
 such a wholesale manner into politics. I do not 
 believe it is wise for the Government nor just to the 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I31 
 
 people to confer unlimited suffrage upon any- 
 ignorant people." 
 
 Thus we find we have had very poor success 
 with the lower races of our own country, and how 
 can we expect to have success with a race that is 
 still lower? 
 
 • 
 
 WHAT THE WORKING PEOPLE CAN EXPECT. 
 
 The American people must arouse themselves 
 and take the reins of government out of the hands 
 of the men who are plotting these changes for the 
 profit of a few politicians and rich corporations. 
 Unless you do, you will find it harder each year to 
 gain a respectable living, and your children will be 
 hewers of wood and drawers of water. In the 
 older countries the children follow the father. 
 The father toils day by day for a mere existence. 
 The boy looks for nothing better than his father 
 had, and it goes on from generation to generation. 
 Is it not getting that way very fast in this country? 
 Is there much chance to-day for the poor boy that 
 can have but a common school education to ever 
 get into business? 
 
 How many of our working people can now 
 afford to keep their boys in school, free as they 
 are, until they graduate at the high school? There 
 are hundreds of thousands that cannot, but are 
 forced to take them out that they may earn their 
 
132 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 pittance for the support of the family. In the 
 State of Massachusetts, where they boast so much 
 about their educational advantages, not one boy in 
 a hundred ever graduates at the high school, and 
 not one in thirty ever reach it. No wonder the 
 supervisor of census at Washington said that 'The 
 most ignorance displayed in making out applica- 
 tion for service under the census law came from 
 Massachusetts." 
 
 • 
 
 WHAT YOUNG MEN MUST ACQUIRE TO 
 SUCCEED. 
 
 Young men must now have almost a complete 
 education before they can secure a situation in any 
 mercantile business, and the first few years the 
 salary is so low that it will not pay board, so that 
 none but the sons of the well-to-do can enter that 
 line. The following clipping from the New York 
 Sun covers the whole situation : 
 
 YOUNG MEN WANTED! 
 
 '♦ Wanted : by our merchants; 
 
 Young men about nineteen, 
 Living with their parents, 
 
 Must be bright and clean ; 
 Tolerable writers. 
 
 Quick at figures, too, 
 Also know book-keeping 
 
 Right straight through and through, 
 Understand typewriting 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I 33 
 
 And stenography, 
 Know three different languages, 
 
 And how to write all three ; 
 And, too, they must have letters 
 
 From those for whom they've worked, 
 Stating they are honest, 
 
 And that they never shirked. 
 They must be high school graduates. 
 
 And be filled with useful knowledge. 
 But the preference will be given 
 
 To those who've been through college. 
 Now, the bright young men fulfilling 
 
 The above requirements, 
 Will get a weekly salary — 
 
 Of two dollars and fifty cents." 
 
 — From the New York Sun. 
 
 I have just been reading a long editorial in one 
 of our great dailies about the increase in our ex- 
 ports of manufactured goods. He tells us about 
 the great strides we are making in securing the 
 markets of the world, and about the prospects for 
 trade in our newly possessed territory. He does 
 not tell us wJiy we are exporting more manu- 
 factured goods, but here is an editorial clipped 
 from the Bosto7i Herald, dated Oct. 15, 1898, 
 which does tell and tells it plainly: 
 
 " A short time ago we called attention to a 
 highly interesting series of articles that appeared 
 in the American Wool and Cotton Reporter, on the 
 question of labor cost of weaving in American and 
 English cotton mills. This comparative exhibit 
 has been extended by our contemporary by a very 
 carefully prepared statement of the comparative 
 
134 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 cost of spinning various threads of cotton -yarns 
 in English and American Mills. 
 
 "After a careful technical summary of the 
 manner in which in England the price for spinning 
 yarn is arrived at, the Reporter says, taking New 
 Bedford as a town : ' The most of the spinning mules 
 used there contain 900 spindles or more, and the 
 piecers and back-boys are paid by the spinners. 
 Thus a pair of short mules of 1200 spindles, 
 spinning 23's, earns $9.27 a week. The back-boy 
 is paid 35 cents a day, or $2.10 a week by the 
 company, and no piecer is allowed. The cost in 
 wages is $11.37 for spinner and back-boy. The 
 production is 1500 pounds per week, at a cost for 
 spinner and back-boy wages of about seven mills 
 per pound. In England, the same production costs 
 the manufacturers, with the addition for course 
 counts and the use of tubes, $16,97; 0^ nearly a 
 half more than it costs the American manufacturer 
 per pound. 
 
 '"Take another example : The spinner pays a 
 piecer $5.22 per week, and a back-boy $2.45 per 
 week; the mules contain 180 spindles, running on 
 50's, producing 27 hanks per spindle, or 48,608 
 hanks per week of 58 hours. The price paid is 
 .0333 per hundred hanks, or $16.18 per week. The 
 weight is 972 pounds, and costs the manufacturer 
 i^ cents per pound for spinning. In England the 
 prices for spinning the same under the same con- 
 ditions, would be $16.68 per hundred pounds. 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I 35 
 
 The difference in this respect is but slight, but, 
 such as it is, it shows that the English manu- 
 facturer pays more for the same work than the 
 American manufacturer.' " 
 
 This is the reason our exports are increasing. 
 Lower wages in America than in England, and it 
 shows conclusively that the Hon. James T. Stock- 
 well did lie when he told us this was the best 
 country in the world. 
 
 Turn back and read that editorial of the Boston 
 Herald over again. American boys working in 
 the cotton mills at New Bedford, Mass., at $2.10 
 a week. The spinner getting $9.27 per week and 
 pay the piecer. Less money, says the Boston 
 Herald, than they pay the mill hands in England. 
 For what purpose do you suppose God created 
 that boy who is working in that mill for $2.10 per 
 week? That boy should be out playing in the 
 free air that God made for him, and hell is good 
 enough for the man who would have such condi- 
 tions in this country in order to compete for the 
 markets of the world. 
 
 EVERY DOLLAR'S WORTH OF TRADE FROM 
 THE PHILIPPINES WILL COST TEN. 
 
 A great deal has been said in free trade papers 
 about our exports of American machinery, and it 
 is true we are exporting American machinery. 
 
136 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 Not long ago a Pennsylvania firm shipped a lot of 
 woolen mill machinery to China, and what will be 
 the result of it? Exactly this : We shall receive 
 millions of dollars' worth of woolen goods into 
 this country made by the cheapest labor in the 
 world to compete with the boy working in our 
 American mills at $2.10 per week ; and the boy 
 will have to work for less money. 
 
 Thomas B. Reed said, in regard to the Philip- 
 pines as a market for American manufactures, that 
 "Every dollar's worth of trade that we could ever 
 hope to get from those islands will cost us ten." 
 
 Thomas B. Reed, I think, is the brainiest man 
 in this country to-day. Not only will it cost us 
 more money than it comes to, but it will carry our 
 working people down with the tide until they are 
 on the same plane with those Filipinos. 
 
 Every dollar's worth of imported manufactured 
 goods forces out some man from our mills, and he 
 must seek the fields in order to live. Every man 
 who starts the plow adds to the surplus of farm 
 products, and these farm products are cheapened. 
 Every time the farm products are cheapened the 
 consumption of manufactured goods is lessened. 
 Every time the consumption is lessened the wages 
 of every man who toils is lowered, and every time 
 the wages of the working man is lowered, he will 
 have less to eat and less to wear. Whenever you 
 give a man less to eat and less to wear, you take 
 away from him just that per cent, of his manhood. 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 1 37 
 
 A man well fed and well clothed is a hundred 
 times better mentally, physically, and morally than 
 the man poorly fed and poorly clothed. I believe 
 in bringing the standard of the American people 
 up, in preference to any other people on the earth. 
 Foreign countries buy from us what they need, 
 nothing more. When you force our farmers to 
 raise corn, wheat, and cotton at prices that do not 
 pay them a respectable living through fear of 
 a Chinese wall, you defeat the object for which 
 this country was proclaimed. 
 
CHAPTER XIIL 
 
 IT is now March i, 1900, and let us thank God 
 we are living. McKinley and Bryan is the 
 battle cry. The date of the Conventions have 
 been fixed. Bryan is to be nominated at Kansas 
 City, July 4. The great mass of working people 
 in this country will rally around him, and listen to 
 the sweet words that fall from his lips. He will 
 tell them of the great crime of 1873, and that he 
 intends when he gets the keys to the great vault to 
 open it wide and pour forth to them the shining 
 white metal on a ratio of sixteen to one, free as 
 the air, so that every poor man will be able to pay 
 his debts, and buy himself a beautiful home, where 
 he can sit himself down in the sunshine with noth- 
 ing to do but gaze upon the magnificent works 
 of nature forever and forever. McKinley and 
 Hanna will don their spring suits, trimmed with 
 gold lace, waving the Cuban flag, and crying out 
 in a loud voice to their disciples: "Come unto 
 me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
 will give you rest." They will gather unto him 
 and listen to the golden words as they glisten and 
 sparkle in the midday sun. They will tell about 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 1 39 
 
 the great wave of prosperity that has swept over 
 the land They will tell about the advance in 
 wages. They will tell about the higher prices for 
 wheat, corn, and cotton. They will tell about ex- 
 ports of manufactured goods. They will tell about 
 the glorious flag floating proudly in two hemis- 
 pheres. They will sing you the song about Lib- 
 erty, Fraternity, and Equality, and they will ask 
 you to vote the Republican ticket. 
 
 The United States industrial commission have 
 been investigating the condition of the laboring 
 and producing classes for the past six months, and 
 will soon submit the report to Congress. This 
 report will prove for the benefit of the Republican 
 party in the coming election that the farmers, 
 laborers, and mechanics in all industries are thriv- 
 ing as never before ; increasing their luxuries and 
 their bank accounts and getting a bigger share of 
 a larger product than ever before in this country. 
 Let us look over the country and see how the real 
 facts will compare with that report. 
 
 Here is a despatch to the Bosto7i Herald from 
 Chicago, dated March 6, 1900, and is headed, 
 "Fifty Thousand Idle." It says: 
 
 "Building material firms which supply the Chi- 
 cago market voted to-day to close their plants 
 until conditions in the "building industry here 
 changed for the better. By closing, 10,000 men 
 employed in stone quarries, brickyards, and plants 
 where lime, cement, and other materials are 
 
I40 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS, 
 
 handled, are made idle. This makes the total 
 number of unemployed men in this city 50,000." 
 
 WHAT HUNGER AND COLD WILL DO. 
 
 Here is another under date of March 9th: 
 
 "Nicholas J. Canfield, eighteen years old, was 
 arrested last night for setting fire, yesterday after- 
 noon, to one of the Boston & Maine hay sheds at 
 Charlestown. He made a full confession to Fire 
 Marshall Whitcomb, and said his reason for setting 
 the fire was because he was 'sick and tired of 
 looking for work,' and thought he 'might get a job 
 loading the damaged hay on to wagons.' He has 
 been hanging around the railroad yards for the 
 past year, living from hand to mouth and sleeping 
 about the freight sheds." 
 
 There are thousands of youths in this land of 
 liberty to-day who are tired and sick of looking 
 for work, and who are driven to commit crime by 
 hunger and cold. Millions of money for the poor 
 Cubans but not a dollar for the poor, half-starved, 
 half-clothed American boy. Put this boy Canfield in 
 prison, and if you have any money to spare send 
 it to the negroes in the South, or to the poor 
 Cubans. Don't do any thing for the boys at home. 
 
 The following is from Lowell, Mass., under date 
 of March 27, 1900: 
 
 "About 150 weavers of the Faulkner's Mill of 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. I4I 
 
 the American Woolen Company are out on strike, 
 on account of the refusal to grant them the scale 
 of wages they demanded. The company offers 
 advantages under a premium list which would give 
 $1.60 a month for each weaver who could earn 
 $32.00; but the weavers say it is impossible to 
 earn more than $28.00 per month under present 
 conditions." 
 
 I notice in the Protectionist for February, 1900, 
 that the wages of cotton and woolen operatives 
 was increased in April, 1899, ten per cent., and 
 again in December ten per cent. If that be true, 
 the weavers were only receiving $22.40 per month 
 prior to April, 1899, and yet this same Protectionist 
 and the Republican campaign orator will tell you 
 the working people of this country are thriving as 
 never before. A man earning only $28.00 per 
 month with a family to support will never have a 
 home. Surely things ought to be changed. I 
 would not be surprised if the Republicans had the 
 unmitigated gall to insert in their platform at the 
 next National Convention a plank favoring a pro- 
 tective tariff, to protect the poor laboring men 
 against the pauper labor of other countries. It is 
 wonderful the amount of cheek they have ! 
 
 The Hawaiian revolution was brought about by 
 Americans in Hawaii who were interested in 
 making sugar; and from that day to the present 
 these same Americans have constituted an oli- 
 garchy, and the mass of the people have had no 
 
142 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 share whatever in the political control. Labor on 
 the sugar plantations are nearly all Japanese and 
 Chinese coolies, who are brought there under con- 
 tract, and who are really slaves of the planters. 
 The plantations there are fast coming into the 
 hands of the American millionaires. It is said 
 Mr. Spreckles will produce on his Hawaiian plan- 
 tation this year 50,000 tons of sugar. If our 
 American millionaires will use slave labor in 
 Hawaii, they will use it here if you give them a 
 chance; and you do give them a chance. You 
 curse them and the trusts, but you send them to 
 Congress and the Senate to make laws for you, 
 and they have very nearly squeezed the life out of 
 you. I am willing that the savages of the earth 
 look out for themselves, and not willing to bring 
 the conditions of our working people any lower 
 for their sake. 
 
 When we come to sum up the whole situation 
 we find the working people responsible for all the 
 poverty and hard times. They made every trust, 
 brought about every reduction of wages, sent every 
 millionaire to Congress and the Senate that is there 
 to-day; made prisons of the factories and mills, 
 made every law that is detrimental to their interest, 
 and you can depend upon them to continue in this 
 course until they are on a level with the poor of 
 other lands. 
 
 There are in nearly every town and city in the 
 United States Chinese laundries run by Chinamen. 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 1 43 
 
 They live and thrive just because you patronize 
 them instead of giving the work to some good old 
 Irish or German women, who will spend the money 
 right in your town. The Chinaman will send the 
 money back to China, and buy from his own coun- 
 try his clothing and shoes, and live on rice which 
 you allow shipped in free of duty. You are a 
 smart set, you working people. Yes, you are. 
 
 The Republicans are going to tell you about the 
 advance in the price of cotton and corn, and I want 
 to tell you what a colored editor in Athens, Ga., 
 says in regard to the emigration fever that has 
 taken hold of the colored people there : 
 
 "Many have gone already to the far South 
 [Florida], and to the Southwest [Texas], being 
 the favorite goal. Many more are preparing to go, 
 and many are waiting in the city for transportation. 
 The most of these people are farmers. The reason 
 why they remove is a plain and intelligible one. 
 They made scarcely anything last year, and they 
 find themselves at the beginning of this penniless 
 and with few whites willing to advance to them the 
 means of living and of making a new crop." 
 
 We know cotton has advanced, because the crop 
 was short. Supply and demand make the price. 
 With the price of cotton at seven cents the South 
 did not receive the amount of money they received 
 in 1898, with the price at four and one-half cents 
 per pound. The same can be said of the corn 
 crop. Yet the Republicans will quote prices to you. 
 
144 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 I advocate the election of Mr. Bryan in pref- 
 erence to President McKinley. You all know what 
 to expect from a Democratic administration. You 
 know what you got from the second administration 
 of Cleveland, when the Democrats got control of 
 the House and Senate ; that was about the hardest 
 times you working people ever saw. You would 
 have got the same dose under his first administra- 
 tion, if the Democrats had had control of the 
 House and Senate so to have changed the tariff 
 law. You got it good and hard when they did get 
 a clip at you in 1892. If Bryan is elected, you 
 will get it again ; but it will be preferable to what 
 is being hatched out for you by McKinley and 
 Hanna. If Bryan is elected, you can kick him out 
 at the end of four years, and it may be possible 
 that you can through him cede back Hawaii to 
 the Hawaiians, and prevent Puerto Rico, Cuba, and 
 the Philippines from becoming a millstone about 
 your neck. 
 
 If the Republicans are successful, Cuba will also 
 be annexed. You can see it cropping out in the 
 Republican press all along the line. Think well 
 what this means for you and your children before 
 you cast your vote for Wm. McKinley. If we 
 cannot prevent the annexation of Cuba, Puerto 
 Rico, and the Philippines, except by the election 
 of Wm. J. Bryan, I am willing to grease his head 
 and swallow him down. If you are satisfied with 
 the conditions, vote for McKinley by all means. 
 
POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 145 
 
 But when you sell your crop, and have only about 
 enough to pay your rent and look at your little 
 family who have worked so hard in the hot sun 
 through the summer, and toiled through the fall 
 and winter half-clothed, do not sit down and 
 mourn, but tell the boys honestly, "I helped bring 
 these conditions about, and am proud of it." Tell 
 them that you love them, but you love the poor 
 Cubans and Filipinos better. Tell them that you 
 cannot afford to send them to school this winter, 
 for we must educate the poor savages in those 
 countries, and you must pay the taxes so it can be 
 done. 
 
 You who toil in the mills and factories and in 
 the mines ; you who work in stores and warehouses ; 
 you who toil by the day, call your little family 
 around you at night, after they have eaten their 
 little supper of corn meal mush, and say to them 
 that you are sorry they are so poorly clad. Tell 
 your wife you are sorry she has to work so hard, 
 and have so Httle. Tell her about the poor Cuban 
 and Filipino with his mauser. Tell her you wish 
 you had money to spare so she could have better 
 clothes and more to eat; but tell her it is your 
 duty to help pay for the education of those 
 savages, even at the sacrifice of your own family. 
 
 Tell your boys you believe in bringing all the 
 low and degraded to this country from every land, 
 even if it does lower your wages, and they have to 
 quit school and work in the mill at $2.10 a week. 
 
146 POLITICAL THUNDERBOLTS. 
 
 Tell them you believe in giving every man from 
 foreign countries the right to vote in six months 
 after he lands, whether he can read and write or not ; 
 but you do not want them to vote until they reach 
 the age of twenty-one years. Do this, and when 
 you come to die and look upon your little family 
 group for the last time, knowing it will take the 
 last dollar they have on earth to put you under 
 the sod, tell them with your last breath to help the 
 poor Cubans and Filipinos, and trust to chance for 
 what they get in the future. 
 
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