The Commoner
VOL. 20, NO. I
4
The Commoner
ISSUHD MONTHLY
Entered nt tho Postofllco at Lincoln, Nebraska,
as flocond-olar.a matter.
3 i
William .t. btiyan, cziarles w. biiyan, .
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THE COMMONER, LINCOLN, NED.
Tho address Mr. Bryan delivered before tho
Nebraska constitutional convention, January
12, will bo published in a later issue.
Tho farm pnpors malco noto of tho fact that
pure-brbdr hogs arov Belling at a higher price
than over. Well, there aro some ill-bred one's
down In tho business districts, called profiteers,
that aro doing exactly tho same thing.
l$ott boing by nature cruel and vindictive, wo
nroglad that, wo wpro not present" when Sena
tor. Lodgo ,road in tho newspapers tho .other.,
day that tho allies had invited President Wil
son to call tho first mooting of the loaguo of
nations.
With Mexico, tho yellow peril, tho rods and
tho Russian bolshovists to use as scarocrows to
make tho American people bolleye that their
salvation lies in adopting universal 'military
training for their young men, tho militarists of
tho country ought to bo happy while tho hap
piness Is good.
Atittlo whllo ago tho ropubllcan newspapers
wore demanding to know what President Wil
son meant by an industrial democracy, but if
wo aro to judgo from recent editorials therein
thoy seem to fool that thoy misread it and that
now that the political campaign is opening it
must havo boon an industrious'domocracy.
Forward-looking democrats with a good rec
ord for progrosslvonoss in tho past aro tho kind
of mon tho party must put to the front this
year in tho state and nation. Tho sudden dis
covery on tho part of some eminent and somo
not so eminent gentlemen? how popular suffrago
and prohibition is with thorn would havo done1
them more good, pplitically speaking, if it fiad
boon mado before it got so popular with the
people.
T - ' I ,,
RENEWALS
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Commoner, and have renewed at the close
'of each year, expire with the January
(1920) issue. -In order to facilitate tho
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als promptly.
A Word to the Rich
May I spoak a word to thoso of the rich who
rogard tho Biblo -as authority? In tho' 12th
chapter of Luke, beginning with tho ICth verso,
tho Master presents a .thought that deserves
consideration at this tlmo.
And ho spake a parablo unto, them, say
ing, Tho grQund of a certain rich man
brought forth plentifully.
And he thought within himself, saying,
'What shall I do, because I havo no room
whero to bestow my fruits? '
And ho said, This will I do; I will pull
down my barns, and build greater; and
there will 1 bestow all my fruits and my
goods.
And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou
hast much goods laid up for many years
take thlno ease, eat, drink, and bo merry-
But God said unto him, Thou fool, this .
night thy soul shall be required of thee;
then whose shall thoso things be, which ,
thou hast provided?
So is ho that layoth up treasure for him
self, and is not rich toward God.
There are many whose ground has brought
forth plentifully during tho past generation. Most
of tho crop has been gathered without any
violations of the divine law of rewards. When
God gave us the .world with Its fortile'soil, tho
sun with its warmth, tho rains with its mois
ture His voice proclaimed as clearly as, if it
had Issued from the clouds; Go Work, and in
proportion to your industry and intelligence, so
shall be your reward. There is no other meas
ure of rewards that can be defended before tho
bar of judgment, and this law prevails except
where force suspends it, or cunning evades it.
Tho legitimate wealth of tho country Is accum
ulated in accordance with this law and thoso
who accumulate legitimately are not afraid to
trust their property to tho protection of laws
.made by tho people, because thoy know that
tho people desiro to do justice and will not in
tentionally wrotag any man, no matter how -much
ho has, if his accumulation represents
equivalent service rendered to society in return.
, But, unfortunately, every fortune does not
measure equivalent service rendered to society.
Some fortunes represent methods which can not
be defended in morals and somo aro due to
methods which can not bo defended in our courts
of law. We aro continually devising laws for
tho protection of tho people from fraud and
injustice. During the last few years nearly all
tho state legislatures have enacted what' aro
known as "Blue-sky laws" to protect the un
wary from tho frauds that promoters attempt
and tho post-office authorities are kept busy
trying to keep tho Wils from being employed
for the promotion of swindling schemes. But
these deal with tho frauds that aro attempted
on a small scale; tho larger acts of injustice are
perpetrated through law or in spito of law Un
just taxation is robbery under the forms of law
nlfmbInatIons of faPItal IlaVG on able to
prevent the passago of laws needed, and have
prevented the enforcement of laws passed. We
havo an Anti-Trust law; it was put upon the
statute books more than a quarter of a century
ago and additional provisions haye from, time to
time been added, and yet wo not only have
SSnVViaVG open defenders of the prin
ciple of private monopoly.
Wo havo just emerged from a war thof miio,
for-incalculable sacrifices.Morethai se"ol
m lliions of human life w,ore offered upon th
altar of Mars; hundreds of billions of propert?
were burned up and debts, grievous to be bS
wo piled high upon backs already bowed unto
unue? Sffi' Fi?aUClal SyStems ke down
under the strain and each nation engaged in thn
war put forth supreme effort. But while tiiis
was the common lot and while the misses mi?
uncomplainingly tho unprecedented demands
giving of their blood and of their means afi
reaped a rich harvesfrom the Tat?ons ,X
fortunes If wo may judge from the income"
tax returns, the nation uever know such a riot
of excess profits. Millionaires spramr un in
rapidity and numbers never equaled in the n
tion's most prosperous days, and now vheS the'
war is over and people are trying, to re-adjust
themselves to newN conditions, wo find niutor
racy more insolent and more' arrogant than S
has oyer been beforq, It seizes upon every Pre
text to gain a firmer hold upon government
it resorts to every form of misreprosentettonto
further its ends; and it seeks to condemn aa Un
patriotic, every protest against its most excoa.
sive demands. at oxces-
The number of plutocrats in tho countrv
relatively insignifieant-as small as the nunfb
of anarchists, but in influence they are nnwr
Jul because their interests aro interwoven wkh
tho interests of groat financiers, and these control
many of the great newspapers of tho laud Al
tho public ownership has ago and rcanonq
bility on tits side, these' beneficiaries of nrivnn
monopoly seek to disgrace public ownership by
discriblng it as socialistic. One of the railronrt
presidents. Impudently answered the demand for
government ownership of railroads by asking
whether our nation was to be Russianized 'ihia
intolerance is brooding discontent and furnishes
material to tho few who preach revolution as i
.remedy for plutocracy.
It was the plutocrat who led the fight against
popular election of senators; it was tho pluto
crat who fought to the last against currency re
form; it was the plutocrat who tried to prevent
the collection of an income tax. The pluto
crat has led in profiteering. It is the plutocrat
who is today seeking to turn the government
over to predatory woalth and whoso scheme em
braces a-consolidation of capitalistic interest
among the railroads and private monopolies
wherever it can bo established. '
It is time that the PATRIOTIC rich should
come out from among those who plunder the
public and join in the making of laws which will
re-establish competition where competition is
possible and put the government in charge of all
monopolies wherever monopoly is necessary.
More than 90 per cent of tho people have no pe
cuniary interests in favoritism, private monoply
or special privilege in government. If they will
only join with the masses, they can right every
wrong, they can remove every abuse and re
store equality before the law. They can put
the people in controi-of the government and the
people, in power, will destroy. the breeding places
of pjutocracy.
There is no real danger of revolution, be
cause tho American people aro too intelligent
.to permit abuses to develop to the point whero
revolution will bo accepted as tho only remedy.
But th0.soo.ner remedies are 'applied, the milder
will thoso remedies be. The flow of justice can
-no more bo damned than a running stream, and,
as in the case of a stream, the higher the dam,
the greater tho danger below when the obstruc
tion is swept away.
Let tho patriotism that enabled us to mobil
ize our resources for war now mobilize
the resources of the nation for peace. Trea
son was not permitted when our nation was
meeting an enemy upon the battlefields; no moro
should the nation tolerate the attacks that aro
now being: made upon its strength in time of
peacer , Our government is the best government
in the world; our people aro the best people in
the world; lot the people uso tho government
to protect the rights of each and to advance tho
welfare of all. The legitimately rich those
who earned what they have should ally them
selves at- once with thd masses, and tako counsel
with them. Our government should be mado
so good that every citizen will be. willing to die
if necessary to preserve it for his children .and
his children's children.
. W. J. BRYAN.
"DRINKING "Jig; THE AIR"
Lieutenant Maynard (speaking generally and
2 with any particular reference to recent
flights) thus condemns the use of intoxicants by
those who travel in the air.
"I said and I still say. that many accidents
in aviation aro caused, by overuse of intoxi
cants. Aviation, Is a game whero a false move '
means disaster and in any such vocation the
participant needs the full uso of-an active
brain not deadened atid weakened by the '
effect of liquor. - -
"Such an effected brain and the cor
responding reaction on tho nervous system
add an unnecessary fatal hazard to the al-
ready natural and necessary hazard of fly
ing itself" - .-
It would seem like a self-evident truth, but
oven self-evident truths .have no weight with
some of the wets. -
. Somo mathematically-inclined gent- has it fig
ured out that since the automobile has come
into general use four thousand persons aro
yearly killed In an effort to ascertain whether
they can beat tho fast passenger trains over
the crossings Yet some people complain be
cause the public takes no interest in important
railroad questions. '
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