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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 14, 1908)
6 The Commoner. ISSUED WEEKLY. WlI.I.IAM .1. IlllVAN ICiIItor mill Proprietor. Illt'ilMin I.. Mitcai v. ffoi'ldtf lUlltnr. Ciiaiu.iim W. HllYAM Publhlipr. Killtorlnl Ilooini iiml HuInon Ofllco SM-SSO Hoiilli I2Ui Htrrpt, TCntrrri) nt tlir PcaUifllrn nl Lincoln, Neb., ns urconcl-flnw matter (liidYciir - ftl.OO HaJHunllin . - .SO Ji Clnl ol Five or more. PcrVcnr - .?? a.io 5o Tlm-o AI011 flu Hugh 'opy Fntnplt ("nplrs Froo. I ore-mi 1'o'tnj.i WOnlFKxtra. SUMSCIUI'TIOXS can Ixj writ direct to The Com moner. They enn nlao bo sent through newspapers which havo nclviTllKcd a clubbing rate, or through local awnlM, wbcro HUh-awnlM have been appoint ed. All remittances Khoiild bo writ by postolnco money order, cxproHH order, or by bank draft on Now i'ork or Chicago. Do not send Individual clicckn, HtampH or money. DIKCONTINIIANCICS It Is found that a largo majority of our Hiib.scrlberK prefer not to havo tholr Hiib.HcrlptlonH Interrupted and their files broken In eiiHe fbey full to remit beforo expiration. It Ih therefore iiHHiimed that continuance Is desired unleHH iiubKcrlberH order discontinuance, cither when Huhm-riblng or 11 1 any time during the year. Presentation Copies: Many persons subscribe for friends, Intending that the paper shall stop at the end of the year. If Instructions arc given to that effect they will receive attention at tho proper time. HKNMWAI.S-The date on your wrapper shows tho time to which your subscription Is paid. Thus January 31, 08. means that payment has been re ceived to and Including the hist Ihsuo of January, 1908. Two weeks are required after money has been received before tho dato on wrapper can bo changed. OMA(Jia or ADDHMSS Subscribers requesting a change of address must give OLD as well as NEW addross. ADVERTISING Rates furnished upon applica tion, Address all communications to THE COMMONER, Lfncoln, Nob. The attention of Mr. Pulitzer is called to the fact that the Adullamites finally won out. Mexican papers aro booming Elihu Root for prcsldont. A great many people would bo for Root for presidont of Mexico. Mr. Fowler should now toll us what would havo been tho result had the government issued somo asset currency on the bonds of the Sea board Air line. Whon Mrs. Graco Vanderbllt Szechenyi is out in company she will often bo puzzled to know whether people aro addressing her or merely sneezing. Tho international congress of fishing indus tries will moot in Washington next September. Hero Ih a solution of tho present problem of caring for our ox-presidents. ! Tn PlllllllolphIa Press announces that unclor tho new management it will bo a "broader and more stalwart republican paper tlwin ever." It could be broader without much effort Perhaps Vice President Fairbanks is receiv- Imllnnn8aUSPOrt 0f.i.Ul Hterary Sontlemen of Indiana as a recognition of the fact that ho has never competed with them in literary output. Tho Now York woman who thought she parried an English lord, and discovered s e had married a clerk earning $S a week is doubt losses a week better off than 8hTlhiiB6htUBhQ ,win , l )lt tnVllscovery of several hundred dollars' worth of smuggled goods in his home Mr Shouts is still doubtless llrmly convIncEX In tho necessity of a protective tariff to ,K and nourish our infant industries. Judging by tho dividend announcement and other things, tho railroads have Tee so prosperous during the past two years that !hov were forced to aslc for receiverships because they could no longer borrow money uecause After pointing out that a presidential vie tory for tho democrats would still leave fie publicans in absolute control of the senate th Granr:?U00r,Ba,ls tel1 us that so many 'mSS -inutrauou editorial force ff "to et t V The Commoner. V0LUMB 8 NUMDER THE DEMOCRATIC VOLUNTEER Henry Warrum, of Indianapolis, speaking at the Nebraska dinner given at Lincoln, Jan uary 15, said: Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: I come to you without any regular commission to speak for the party in our state; not a member of the state committee, not an office holder not even belonging to that class of stall-fed leaders with which the party is everywhere so adequately supplied. Ordinarily I wouldn't have the te merity to travel this far to make a speech especially to such a distinguished assemblage nor would I be here now but for one thing: Wo have begun the organization of a state league of working clubs to bo known as "Volunteers," a work that grows directly out of the sugges tion of Mr. Bryan and of such possibilities that I am willing to spread the idea back of it wherever my voice may serve to do so. So my friends when I stand up among these governors and senators, I want you to remem ber that "I don't belong to the regulars, I'm just a volunteer." I said this movement with us grow imme diately out of the suggestion of Mr. Bryan dur ing his recent visit to LaFayette. In a larger sense it is suggested by the conditions surround ing our party. In our state, and doubtless in this, the re publican party enjoys the support of strong, wealthy and permanent organizations of various kinds. These enable their leaders to keep alive party spirit and to proselyto not only during campaigns but practically all the time. They have their Lincoln league, tho tariff leagues, their local clubs, their soldier organizations, their negro associations, their camp fires and love feasts and pow-wows, and they thus main tain what might be well termed a regular army. This is made possible, largely, by the constitu tion of that party. For years a class of politi cians, or statesmen, has been in the ascendency in the republican party who have come to re gard government as the machinery and means of advancing business interests. High protec tive tariffs have been levied, vast land grants have been made, subsidies have been voted and promised, concessions and privileges granted, largely in the exercise of the taxing power and all in the name of business. Thus by an appeal, not to public spirit, but to self Interest, it has gathered to its ranks the groat corporations and their myriad retainers: and still more important in this connection it has largely commanded the wealth of the coun try in the financing of its campaign and the maintenance of its organizations. It is always at work, appealing to each class as its selfish interests lies, from the miner and factory hand of the east to the lumberman of the north and the grazer of the west, slurring over the un just burdens of vicious legislation they bear as citizens and pointing out the miserable share they get in tho plunder as business men: anneal ing to the old soldier in the name of his pension rounding up the solid negro vote a vote which alone will account for all their majority in In dianaoperating in the states of Wyomine Idaho and Utah under a compact with the Mor nmn church the reliance of Wall Street and its frenzied financiers, its campaigns under written by "practical men" like Harriman and Morgan, always depending on corruption and in its crises not hesitating at coercion. Such n n,nb?enf ? ,meth0ds of the rePublican Party in the last thirty years. And so it has maintained its magnifiepnr organizations with their splendid discipline Its policies went with a man to his office ami fac-tory-the bait was continually before his eyes vhenover its hand was extended the contiibu tion came as a matter of business, and so it lias worked, tirelessly, extending its crasn our dallies until but few are free om i hf lluence, watching the economic teaching in our colleges, proselyting here, discipline there at tracting our young men by the social features of their clubs and tho promises of 1? that too often allure them, quick i nPiSS0t n credit for prosperity and just as aJX ?laiming tag all responsibility fo? Janics and deDwSS" always working and even at t lm!, III, Si ?n' into the councils and controlline S Jrentur,ns of our own party. C0ntl0llinS the movements Do I overstato these thine-'? , Hcan party for the last tliirtv v.n ?h, rpub" essentially a busines 1 propositi JS;n5aB,fbfen ters with being the liquor party. "Why? Simply because it was opposed fundamentally to sumptu ary legislation and advocated the principles of personal liberty. But I say to you that, at least in Indiana, as soon as the brewery inter ests began to want favors as soon as they be gan to tire of the paltry limitations of brow ing and began to go into tho saloon business, as soon, in other words, as they had favors to ask thoy joined the republican party and they have been their active political allies for fifteen years. And though public sentiment may com pel legislation against such evils, I say to you that whenever these or any other business in terests want some favor, some privilege, some advantage they naturally turn to the republi can party. The democratic party does not believe that the government has any business in business; it believes that its province lies in the admin istration of law on the principle of "equal rights to all with special privileges to none." Its appeal is confined to a thoughtful and un selfish citizenship. It has no privileges to grant, no subsidies to vote, no protection to offer any class at the expense of all. It can not expect the aid, financial or otherwise, of protected, favored or subsidized interests. It can not therefore, maintain a standing army but must depend upon volunteers inspired only by a devo tion to principle. From the hour of its birth the democratic party has never lacked that ser vice. Campaign after campaign has been fought by its volunteers, summoned as they were to the party banner only by a profound conviction in the justice of its cause. And here as on the bloody fields of war the volunteer is ttie best and bravest soldier that ever went to battle. From the days of Valley Forge, when the old Continental died of cold and hunger rather than give up his ideal died that liberty might live the American volunteer has been the finest type of warrior. Nothing takes hold of a man like an idea it is the one thing for which men will gladly die. Under the stimulus of some great cause even the timid become courageous and with the prudent self-sacrifice becomes heroic. I have seen two pictures, one a picture of the British charge at Bunker Hill how beauti ful their serried lines! How brilliant their uni forms! sweeping on like one living body in the red line of war! Hessians? Some of them; not all. Perhaps there were some who fought because they loved their king. Most of them were fighting for the shilling they got but they were regulars, a great machine, splendid in their battle array and I said to myself such is tho republican party. And the other was a picture of the old Con tinentals "in their ragged regimentals." And there was the drummer boy and the old lifer and the farmer with the flag new born but, as Riley says, "old as the glory of God" and there they were, not beautiful in array b'ut sublime in their devotion and out of that pic ture, not drawn or painted on its canvas but shining out of it by the magic of suggestive art, where the heroic souls of these brave vol unteers not loving war for itself yet going to battle as to a banquet that truth might live and that liberty might not perish from the earth. And when I have looked on that picture I havo thought such are the masses that fight beneath the banners of democracy. But volunteer service is not enough. There must be organization, discipline, training and co-operation. The problem of practical poli tics, as of any other matter is to make human enorgy count for the most, to conserve and wisely use it. So the volunteer is not enough. They must be organized. They must act to gether. A strong aggressive committee is like a strong war staff but a good local club is like a well drilled company, and after all these must do the actual fighting. Tf 4CTc!j u T?a5iw? are tryinS t0 do in Indiana. It is simp icity itself. Each township is to bo n?pSg?d t0 ave its own club the member pledged to render such service as he can and all the clubs affiliated in a state federation, hnvo wUr ? tbe democracy is awake. We W ?inSirBa?od,.up state committee at tho I dtrftM tllG Wnd WJ haVG llad f0r yearS' It didn t go the way my friend Risk and I would have preferred, but what's the difference? I care not what captain is assigned me I know St.rS05Cmandep' J kuo ' the a The WOP Kve tl!? B rfD 'or such a work. iinL I S year is t0 be less one of preju dices and more one of ideas. The party will