BY W. S. MORGAN

TRUSTS breed distrust.

Law cannot make wrong right.

Charity is no cure for poverty; it is only a plaster.

A forty-three-cent protective tariff is worse than a fifty-cent dollar.

Fiat dollars are better than the fiat promises of the old party politicians.

The rich will continue to grow richer and the poor poorer as long as the present financial system exists.

I want to ask our Democratic friends how often do they need to be fooled by their leaders before they will get their eyes open?

Liberty is not safe in a country where greed and avarice are the basis of its prosperity.

The gold power owes allegiance to no party, yet it controls the machines of both old parties.

If there is anything that is calculated to give the political bosses the jim-jams it is a show of independence on the part of the masses.

I would rather be a dog and scratch at the root of a stump for a mouse, than to feel as small as most rich people do when the assessor and tax-collector come round.

Money paid out for public improvements is a blessing compared with that paid out for war expenses.

An honest dollar is one that preserves the equity in contracts, and not the one of increasing or decreasing value, or whose value depends upon the caprice or self-interest of a few bankers.

The greatest need of this country is for about seven million men who have the courage to vote for what they want.

“The poverty of the poor is their destruction,” and the wealth of the rich has the same effect on its possessors. These two extremes are the cause of the downfall of the nations.

There are some things of which there can be an overproduction, and one of them is yellow-dog politics.

Is there a farmer or laborer in all the land that ever signed a petition to Congress for the destruction of the greenbacks?

The question of 16 to 1 is still an issue; that is, there are sixteen reasons why the Democratic party should permit itself to be buried to one against it.

The banks are in the field to destroy the greenbacks and secure complete control of the currency.

It is not despair but hope that incites revolution. Despair is death.

The workingmen divide what they produce with every idler in the land, rich and poor.

The way to get even with a private trust is for the people to establish a public trust.

It wasn’t the so-called “sound money” men that saved the flag.

It is the hog nature in man that causes most of the suffering in the world.

Our commercial system rests upon the basis of skinning the other fellow before he has an opportunity to skin us.

One of the strongest planks in the devil’s platform is yellow-dog politics.

The best way to abolish poverty is to establish justice.

You can’t cheat the devil by passing a law that calls stealing business.

The lower classes are those who act low—rich or poor.

The practice of redeeming one kind of a dollar with another kind constitutes the banker’s cinch.

The harmony that will likely prevail in the next national Democratic convention might best be illustrated by pouring out a barrel of Kilkenny cats upon a wet floor.

I don’t think that Mr. Bryan is a thief, but he had the Populist platform borrowed so long that he has perhaps inadvertently fallen into the habit of thinking it is his own.

Railroads under private ownership form the strongest prop on which the trusts lean. Through special and reduced rates in the way of rebates they are enabled to freeze out all competitors.

It is stated that the rebate given to the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company by the Santa FÉ Railroad while Paul Morton was its traffic manager amounted to $400,000 a year. Morton was a heavy stockholder in the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. If this is true, and this is the kind of man President Roosevelt is depending on to reform railroad rates and abolish rebates, we may know just what to expect.

The supreme test of any question is, is it right? If it is, then no man should hesitate to declare himself for the right.

Direct legislation is the very essence of democracy, and that is why the politicians don’t want it.

If Thomas Lawson is telling the truth it appears that about three-fourths of the Captains of Industry ought to be wearing striped clothes behind prison bars.

The President’s recommendation for the control of the railroads, and the plan he seems to have adopted to go about it, consultation with the railroad magnates, reminds me of a story I once heard related by a German speaker at a public meeting. A man who had been considered as having an unsound mind was found one morning hanging to a beam in the barn, the rope under his arms. He was promptly cut down, and on being asked why he hanged himself that way he answered that he was trying to commit suicide.

“But why didn’t you place the rope around your neck?” he was asked.

“I’ve tried it that way twice,” he replied, “and it always chokes me.”

Is the President afraid of choking the railroad corporations?

The question of how to get something for nothing is pretty well illustrated in the free government deposits in national banks. The banks have now over one hundred millions of dollars of government money for their own use, for which they do not pay a cent. Yet when the farmer talks about borrowing money from the government on his land at 2 per cent. interest, the banks raise a howl of paternalism that can be heard all around the world. If President Roosevelt is sincere in his fight on the trusts let him yank that money out of the hands of the biggest trust of all—the money trust. This is something that he can do and that ought to be done. There is no constitutional question involved, and if it be urged that it is necessary for the money to be in circulation let the government loan it direct to the people without a rake-off for the banks. This thing of prosecuting the little trusts and aiding the big ones won’t add any laurels to Teddy’s brow. Let no guilty trust escape, and there ain’t any innocent ones.

Toledo has just brought in a batch of indictments against some of her public officials. Governor Durbin, of Indiana, declares: “Statistics of political debauchery in this State for 1904, if it were possible to present them, would be nothing short of stunning.” Several other governors in their messages have called attention to the growth of corruption in their States, and in Colorado the situation is alarming. Three United States senators have been indicted within the past year, besides scores of lesser officials, some of whom are now serving terms in the penitentiary. Four Republican candidates for governor have been defeated in Republican States on account of their connection or sympathy with corrupt practices, and yet the work is only begun. Let the crusade against political corruption continue. If there is not room enough in the jails, I move that some of the horse thieves be turned out and the public thieves turned in.

The express companies once had a monopoly of transmitting money and charged exorbitant rates for the service. Then the government went into the business and reduced the rates. The express companies were compelled to come to the government rates or not get any business. Thus money is saved to the people, and the business is established on a firm basis. Of course the express companies set up the usual cry of paternalism, but it did no good, and the people would not think now of surrendering this prerogative to private companies. Now, why can’t the government add to its postal system the carrying of parcels, say up to ten or twelve pounds’ weight, and a telegraph and telephone system? The latter are just as legitimate and necessary as the former. Is it because the express companies, that have grown immensely rich, have a lobby in Congress to prevent the passage of such a bill? In England they have the parcels post and the government telegraph, and they save the people millions of dollars. In the past few years nineteen congressional committees have been appointed to investigate the use of the telegraph in connection with the postal department and seventeen of them have reported favorably toward establishing it. A majority of Postmaster Generals have recommended it, and the people demand it, yet the telegraph companies, or rather one company which is controlled by one family, has been successful in thwarting all legislation toward the establishment of a government telegraph system.

The readiness of the Democrats to vote for any old thing they see coming down the pike with the Democratic label on—Parker or Bryan, the gold standard or free silver—reminds me of an incident that happened down in Texas. A wealthy farmer who employed a great many negroes was going into town one day, and one of the negroes on the farm asked him to bring him back a marriage license.

“All right, Pete,” said the farmer, “but what’s the girl’s name?”

“Ann Brown,” replied the darkey.

When the farmer returned that evening he gave the negro his marriage license.

Pete took it and slowly read it over.

“Look heah, Marse Henry, you’se done gone an’ got dis license fer Mary Clarke. I’se gwine t’ marry Ann Brown.”

“I’m sorry, Pete,” the farmer replied, “but never mind; when I go into town again next week I’ll get you another license.”

“What’ll dat cost?” asked Pete.

“One dollar.”

“Lordy, nebber mind, Marse. Dere ain’t a dollar’s wuff ob difference ’tween all de coons on de fa’m.”

Every effort is now being put forth by the banks to have the greenbacks retired. So long as they continue to be issued by the government the banks have not complete control of the money of the country. This movement to retire the greenbacks was begun directly after the Civil War. At that time the bankers said: “It will not do to allow the greenback, as it is called, to circulate as money for any length of time, for we cannot control that.” Hugh McCulloch, then Secretary of the Treasury, acting on the bankers’ suggestion, said: “The first thing to be done is to establish the policy of contraction.” It was done, and we had the panic of 1873, on account of which thousands lost their homes. The panic aroused the people and caused the bankers to pause in their conspiracy. The Greenback party came and $346,000,000 in greenbacks were saved from destruction. But in the meantime the bankers had silver secretly demonetized. In 1878, however, it was partially restored by the Bland-Allison law. But the bankers were still at work. In October, 1877, the famous Buell circular letter was sent to the bankers throughout the country. “It is advisable,” said this circular, “to do all in your power to sustain such prominent daily and weekly newspapers, especially the agricultural and religious press, as will oppose the issuing of greenback paper money, and that you also withhold patronage or favors from all applicants who are not willing to oppose the government issue of money. Let the government issue the coin and the banks issue the paper money of the country, for then we can better protect each other.”

In March, 1893, the American Bankers’ Association sent out to all the national banks what is known as the “panic circular.” In view of the present efforts on the part of the banks to retire the greenbacks, this circular furnishes some very good reading matter:

Does anyone but the bankers themselves, and their paid agents, believe for a moment that it would be safe to surrender the control of the currency of the country into the hands of men who would put out such a circular as that? May we not conjecture what they would do when once they had us in their power? If there are those who are in doubt about this question, or the patriotism and honesty of the national bankers, let them read the history of the panics of 1873 and 1893, both of which were precipitated by the bankers. Let the government take the bankers at their word and compel them to keep in their banks a reserve gold fund for the redemption of their own notes. Abolish the gold reserve in the Treasury and make every greenback a perpetual, absolute money, receivable for all dues to the United States, and a legal tender for the payment of private debts. In other words, put the banks where the government is now, if they are to issue any notes at all, and give the government the prerogatives which the banks now want, and some of which they already have. Instead of the government loaning money to the banks at one-fourth of one per cent., let it loan it to the people direct at two per cent. Instead of the government maintaining a large supply of gold for the benefit of the banks, let the banks furnish their own gold for the redemption of their notes, and compel them to maintain a 100-cent reserve, for a note that has only 50 cents behind it is worse than any 50-cent dollar that the banker has ever conjured in his mind. Money issued by the banks and that issued by the government are entirely different propositions. If the banks have proved anything they have proved too much. They have proved that the government credit is the best in the world, that it will even make the note of a dishonest banker good. They have proved that it would not be safe to place the control of the currency into their hands, for they might at any time issue another panic circular asking the banks to call in “one-third of their circulation and one-half of their loans,” and a lot of other mean things that an honest man and a patriot would not do. The question is now up, and it is nearing the climax where the people must decide as to whether the banks will control the currency of the country, and through it the business of the country, or whether the power shall remain in the hands of the people, as Jefferson says, “where it belongs.”

BY EUGENE C. DOLSON