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About The independent. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907 | View Entire Issue (July 2, 1903)
JULY 2, 1903. THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT 9 8TBIK.ES ABE USELESS There has been a craze for strikes among the workingmen. At first the strikers won, but of late many have failed. The strike of the Fall River mill workers has failed and - all the hands have gone back to work at the old rate after losing over a millioi of dollars in wages. If the mania for strikes continues it will be the ruin of the trade unions in this country. Tens of thousands of men have rushei into the unions who have no concep tion of the principles underlying them and grievous things have been dons by the votes of these new members. Of late the leaders of brains among the wage-workers have been giving the unions some very sound advice, but many of the unions failed to heed it The fact should be pressed home to these wage-workers that strikes, even if successful, settle nothing. If the rate of wages is raised, the cost of living increases at a greater ratio and the burden comes right back upon the wage-workers themselves. Nothing U gained. ' If the condition of the wage-workers is made permanently better it muse be by some other method than a raise in wages. These men must take an interest in government. They must think out sbme plan for the more equitable distribution of wealth. They must vote for those men who will in sist on passing such laws as will de stroy special privileges. The bank ers, the railroads, the manufacturers and every division of the wealthy classes have accumulated their wealth by special privileges. Before the great franchises were given away and the other special privileges were granted, there were no strikes an J no labor unions. The granting of these special privileges made labor unions a necessity. The conditions of labor will never be better until the laborer learns to vota for his own in terest instead of the interest of the classes who despoil him of the wear.h that he creates. That is what labor unions 'must learn.- Let them stap all the efforts to irevent an increase of production and instead thereof beml every effort to increase- production. Then see to it that the wealth that is produced is equitably distributed. 1-OPULIST8 AND PUBLIC OWNERSHIP From the very beginning the pop ulists have taken the position that there were some things in any civil ized community that must be owned ir. common and some things that must be the private property of the individ ual. The streets of a city and the reads in the country must be held in collective ownership. The personal belongings of every individual must bo private property. There is no man of sound mind who will deny this gen eral proposition. When it comes to considering what other "things should be owned in common and what by in dividuals, the differences arise. The socialists claim teat all means of pro duction and distribution should be owned in common anJ that takes in all manner of property. The popul ists advocate the public ownership of all those things in whicTi the public as a whole is directly interested. That includes the telegraphs, telephones, railways, postoffice system and the educational system. Further than that in public ownership the populists for the present refuse to go. LOW DOWN POLITICS The populists have had no criticism to make of the agricultural depart ment and until lately it has not been used as a political machine to advance the interests of the republican party.; There is no more disreputable thing than using that department and the literature that is paid for by all tho people than to make Its bulletins and reports a vehicle for t: e advancement and defense of the most disreputable 'doctrines of plutocracy and 'imperial ism. That was what was done in the June crop report "published by thej authority of the secretary of agricul ture." In' that "crop report" there is published a statement concerning the Philippines which has no place in such an official document and is aa F artisan as anything that ever ap peared in the republican press of this country as the following extracts will show: ' "The people (of the Philippines) almost universally are favorable to American occupation and gov ernment; they are more prosper ' ous and contented under our hon est and equitable administration of their affairs than they have ever been before." After all the official reports and af ter the appropriation of $3,000,000 to keep them from actual starvation, to publish such a statement as that in the official crop report, is about as low down politics as was ever discovered. But there are other statements just as absurd. One of them is this: "I consider the climate ideal the country wholly attrrxlive and the people kindly and well disposed, though it cannot be denied that centuries of oppression have de veloped ' traits of hypocrisy and treachery, that time alone can eradicate." The real animus of this is shown In another paragraph which is as fol lows: 'This is a country of wonderful possibilities. Labor ischeap and cost of production in every direc : tion low; and, while the native la borer, is . apt to be improvident, " there are thousands of Chinese here who can be employed at very low wages and who make the best workmen as well as the most faithful. This virgin field will not remain virgi i Tery long; the op portunities are too great and iav orable results too certain to be neglected." . That fellow has a scheme of ex ploitation and the agricultural depart ment is used to Ao his advertising for him. lOMETHINO ASTONISHING One of the signs of the times that indicate" a coming revolt 'against thc universal rascality by which for tunes are accumulated is .that even the Wall Street Journal has raise.l the question as to morality of certain transaction that have been very common during this reign of Mam mon. The directors of a railroad de termine to purchase the stock of an other railroad and by that means consolidate the two roads. After this action is taken these directors go out individually and buy the stock of the road to be purchased for themselves at 60 to 70 cents on the dollar. Then they make the ranouncement that the corporation that they are trustees for as directors will buy the stock of that road and it goes to over 100. The directors then sell the stock which they have privately purchased to their own company at a profit from 30 to 40 per cent and put the cash in their, own pocketsN. The Wall Street Journal has advanced far enough to question the morality of that kind of stealing, which is a very great ad vance. Such tricks as that have been the common thing in Wall street and this is the first time that the question of "morality" was ever raised. "Morality" has ' been an unknown thing in Wall s'.reet and the fact that some one has taken a thought on the subject there is simply astonishing. VICTORY IS NIGH For some time The Independent has been saying that a revolt against the worship of money was near at hand. The signs continue to multiply. Even the Chicago Tribune has at last edi torially repeated what this paper has been saying for years and when The Independent was saying it the Tri bune was engaged in denouncing all such papers as this as anarchists and socialists. At that time the "captains of Industry" were the idols of the Tribune which it worshiped and fawned upon. Now it says: "The object pf all chevaliers n n nn nr v u LRJ i i M AU 47JJt,VlCll 1 1C411 V1UC1 l l l :l Ji'LSUVlS Clothing: Sale Write for Samples or Send Your Order. Every Garment Guarao teed Satisfactory or Your Money Back Special $5.00 Suit Coat and Vest $3.75 Pants not sold separate Men's Suits made from all wool worst eds will be sold by Hayden Bros, for 15.00. All well made and have good lin ings and trimmings. They're put to gether to stay together; and come in regular sizes also stout and siim cuts, made in four button cutaway sack style. In all sizes fiom 34 to 40. Your home merchant will tell you that it" is cheap at 18.00. If you don't like them after you get them we want you to send them back to us and we will refund your money. This applies io anything we sell as well as these suits. Pure Worsted Four-Button Sack Suit $9.00 Coat and Vest, $7.09. Pints not Mid separate. Men'i fine pure worsted suits in a neat stripe and cut in the very latest styles, four button cutaway sack. This material is made from pure long worsted yarn, will probably wear longer and give as much satisfaction as any cloth that you can procure n) matter what price you pay. The coat is made with hand padded shoulders, hair cloth fronts which keeps coat in perfect shape; also lined with a good serge lining and well tailored throughout Comes in sizes from 34 to 46, regulars. NEW GROCERY LIST NOW READY FREE FOR THE ASKING NAYUtN: ItttJ On Wholesale Supply House Omaha,Neb. d'industrie is to get hold; by fair, promises, and unfair dealing, of wealth which others have created. The big ones manage to do it without coming in coniflct with the law. The little ones are scooped up in the net and dumped into the bait box." What a mighty change is here! The Independent is no longer "a voice cry ing in the wilderness" as it was for so many years. A great mass of peo ple, and among them ' some of those who were then demanding the heads of all modern John the Baptists, are begh.ning to preach the same gospel that The Independent has been preach ing ell the time. So it says to the true &cd tried who have come all the way over the trail: "Cheer up. The day of victory draws nigh." . xIt has even occurred to the Tribune that all . the syndicates put together have not created one dollar of wealth. The wealth was created by those who toil 8nd the Morgan syndicates have simply been engaged in gathering it to themselves. It even Intimates that Morgan and all like him are nothing but common liars, who by means of lying have been . engaged in robbing the people. Listen to it: "The unscrupulous person who takes a dozen or more plants, ' soma of them valuable and some worthless, consolidates them, and issues against them bonds and pre ferred and common stock whose face value is from three to ten times the value of the plants and offers his securities to the public with assurances that they are worth their face, knows they are not and never will be." But a few months ago this class Of Individuals, in the opinion, of the Tri bune, were "great captains of indus try" whose brains were making this nation a world power, and it held them up as models for the youth of the land to pattern after. What has happened? The Tribune sees the end approaching. RAILROADS AND MADDEN A great many things may , result from the postoffice investigations at Washington not at all contemplated when the thing began. The populists have been continually calling atten tion to Ihe excessive rates paid to th2 railroads for carrying the mails. Tho fact that the enormous sum of $60. 533,217 was paid to the railroads dur ing the year 1902 for carrying the mail is being commented upon even in some of the great dailies. It is a fact known to all newspaper men that newspapers are carried by the ex press companies on the same trains and often in the very same cars for one-half cent per pound when the government gets one cent and yet that is the class of matter the Madden aul Loud gang claim produces the whol of the deficit. If the express compa nies can carry newspapers for a half cent per pound and make a profit, it should follow that the government cculd carry theru. at a cent a poun.t and not make a deficit, providing that the same rate was charged for their, transportation that the express com panies pay. The truth which the great dailio have long refused to publish is that the railroads have so dominated the republican party that it has paid to them three or four times as much as the service was worth and much more than the roads charge private corpor ations for the same service. The Independent in the last few years has many tinges called attention to the exorbitant amounts paid to tho railroads and perhaps that is one of the reasons why Madden has let loosa the dogs of war upon it so often. If the Xacts which this paper has pub lished had not been suppressed by the dailies, the wrong would have been righted long ago. The correspondents of those papers in Washington ha m known all about it for the editor of ent when the facts of the excessive charges of the railroads were laid be fore committees of the senate and house. He knows that some of thes9 correspondents did report the testi mony given and sent it to their pa pers and he 'knows that It never ap peared in print. Such papers as that would never be troubled by Madden if they should mail a half million extra copies at pound rates. HEADACHE At all drag ttotcs. mm 25 Dose 25c. S