for city government, dug up from the smoldering ruins of Russian's burning and exploding mediaeval rottenness, fired by God's anger and mined with the dynamite of His wrath.

YE 268TH LESSON.

Defects of the Galveston Plan.

Its leading defect is that it is not government of the people, by the people, for the people; but is government of the business interests, by the business interests, for the business interests-an oligarchic form of government as of Venice under the Doges. The assessor not being elected by the people leads directly to taxation without representation. This will bear hard on those who own homesteads and are not rich and influential. Their appeal for just taxation will be to an appointive officer; for no one of the five elective officers will have time himself to hear appeals, but he must appoint a deputy to hear them. The deputy, not being responsible to the people, may turn a deaf ear to their cries for relief. And, too, the clerk, not elected by the people, may be deaf to petitions for referendum, etc., that the five disapprove, and the people be compelled to carry into court, with great cost for attorneys' fees, their appeals for justice. Indeed he will be deaf to them or lose his place. Every provision of the Galveston plan not for the benefit of "business interests" will become a dead letter.

The election at large of the commission removes the government out of reach of the common people. The plea that better men will be secured for office by that means is not true; for now, under the popular system, the mayor and two of the councilmen are elected at large. Are these by any means better men than the officials elected by wards?

And but two more will be elected under the Galveston plan, which shuts off the people from control, and which is the meaning and purpose of this retrograde movement-the disfranchisement of the working class and the setting up plutocratic rule. That, it seems to me, ought to justify the beating of the long roll and the call of every patriot to arms.

The so-called "non-partisan primary" will prove as great a farce as is the election of the President of the Union by electors. There is nothing in the law to prevent caucuses nominating candidates before the day of the primary. Every initiated voter will bring to the polling booth, in his vest pocket, a list of names selected by previous caucus. The "300" will make nominations to suit the "business interests"the Hubbells, Polks, et al. As many fools as possible will be persuaded to come upon the ballot by petition alone, to scatter the general vote. The voter, not let into the secret, will be confused by the multitude of names on the ticket, all strange to him, and his vote will be of no consequence. Having nobody to vote for but the five, the common order of men that it is the purpose of the conspirators to disfranchise, will lose interest in city elections and so leave the darklantern conspirators and their dependents to rule the city.

Every man, not a chum or kinsman of the commissioners, that accepts appointment by them to office, must lose his self-respect. He trots along after his master, the commissioner, who has whistled for him, like another dog looking to be sicked on. The commissioner feeds him as much or little as he sees fit and then kicks him out of the office door when he sees fit, to all intents and purposes a dog! All the poor cur can do is whine and cringe before his master. The commissioner treats every worker for the city the same way-increases his hours of labor, reduces his pay, and turns him off at his whim, according to his tyrannical will.

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Complaint is made that the library building has cost too much. But is not the library board appointive? The police are complained of. Are they not appointed to office?

The legislature the past winter amended the city charters, curing many defects. But whatever defects may still exist, they are not the results of too much popular control, but too little. If policemen were elected by wards, by popular vote, then would the will of the people be carried out by them? There would be watchfulness exercised by them everywhere. Elect by general vote the chief of police, and he will serve the people faithfully. But when appointed because he has been the right-hand man in securing the nomination and election of the commissioners and the "people be damned" will be his motto in office, or may be.

Why is this or that man appointed postmaster? It is because he has helped the congressman obtain his place. Let postmasters be elected by popular vote. It is rot to think of relinquishing the right we have as voters. Advancement, and not retrogression, is in order. Let an end be made of the domination of the privileged class. Too few and not too many officers are elected by popular vote. Let the people rule ever and forever.

YE 269TH LESSON.

The Price of Liberty.

"Eternal Vigilance is the price of liberty," has been the motto of our progenitors for more than two thousand years. What is liberty? It is to do as you will in acordance with the common will, and the moral law. Now our Teutonic fathers in the woods of Germany, before the days of Julius Caesar, had a way of finding out the common will. It was called the "folk moot"-folk meet or mood; the meeting of the people where they expressed their voice or will or mood, and the same system was brought to New England by the Pilgrim Fathers -the town meeting, local self-government, which by us is exercised by wards in cities electing ward representatives to meet in council. The smaller the wards-the more councilmen elected in a city, the nearer we come to self-government. Among the Greeks and Romans there was a great public meeting-place in every city, where the people gathered to determine their will, called by the Romans the forum. The Greek name of their meeting-place I do not recall. Their orators displayed their eloquence both in reference to government policy and in trials; for the jury consisted of a large body-hundreds of people, public opinion being the ruling power in all things. And that defines freedom.

But there was a fair expression of opinions and each had equal chance to give expression to his views, in this crystallization of public sentiment, not through the daily press, for none existed; but in the folk moot or forum by public speech. If the daily press today was free and open to all to speak by pen, as it ought to be, and we had a public forum for speakers by voice, then would we be free as were the Greeks and Romans and as were our fathers of old in the German forests. "But is not the press free and open to all?" does the reader ask? It was so only a few years ago. But a change has come over it of late. The editor, with few exceptions, alone speaks now, except in news items; or if he admits others to say a word it is niggardly done. Really we have a censorship as positive as in Russia. Right now in Des Moines, the three daily papers of the west side have studious ly and really closed their columns to any word in opposition to the Galveston plan. And if ever a people was hoodwinked, had "the wool pulled over their eyes" by the press, the people of Des Moines are

being so befogged by the Register and Leader, the Capital and the News in reference to the thing most vital to our rights as freemen. And we have no forum. Even the new court house has no hall for public speaking that will hold a hundred people.

I do not charge the editors named with being corrupt. They are well-meaning men. But they know only "business interests." Now "business" as now conducted is no good thing. Business methods should not by any means, be applied to government. I need only to name trusts. And the dealing of employers with the employed, economically, is not so good as was that of the Southern slave masters with their slaves to whom they gave food, clothing, shelter, medical attendance in sickness, and buried them decently when dead.

The Galveston plan is a new move on this side of the water. One must have been a careful student of history to be prepared to understand the meaning of this new departure new to America, but not new to Russia, because Russia and all her cities are governed autocratically of which the Galveston plan is a slight modification. But in truth it is no better; for all power is centered in the keeping of three men, and they may and no doubt will do as they please, and the people by no means can help themselves once under the yoke. It is the system of autocracy loathed and fled from and fought against in the war of the revolution by our fathers.

by this

Our fathers established the constitution of the United States. It has become the model of free government for all peoples. The constitutions of all the states and the charters of every city in America are modeled after it. Local self-government is conserved means. The election of representatives by districts for the nation and the states and by wards of the cities the folk meet-the sovereignity of the people being thus, as far as practicable, under representative democracy preserved.

What has blinded those editors to espouse a cause so un-American and led them to attempt to hoodwink the people? A wrong diagnosis of the ailment of society. "The people have become corrupt," they think and say. This is false. It is special priviliege that curses our city. One very rich man in Des Moines said, as I can prove. “It is thirty thousand dollars a year in my pocket to have saloons licensed in this city." These were his words. Yes, and it is as many more thousands a year in his pocket to have baudy houses. If the property owners all and severally had declared: "I will surrender my life rather than let a house for an immoral purpose" Des Moines would have no use for a police force. A city marshal would be alone sufficient as in years gone by, to guard the city. But the Des Moines plan is being forced on the people by falsehood and chicane, artifice and fraud that this order -"business interests" may rule the city.

"When the wicked rule the people mourn."

YE 271ST LESSON.

Anglo-Saxon Liberty.

It

Anglo-Saxon liberty is the liberty of the English-speaking race. has come down to us through 2,000 years. Let us hold onto it 2,000 years more, at least. And we shall. It is the government by the many -every man having a voice.

Five men (in fact, three) entrusted with supreme power-more power than the kaiser of Germany wields-as great as that of the czar of Russia! Of course, a good kaiser or a good czar may govern well. I copy the following from the book entitled "Anglo-Saxon Freedom, the Polity of the English speaking race," by Hosmer page 12:

"Now and then a king arises of the highest good sense and the ut

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most worth. Sometimes a small governing class will show, through a term of years, unselfishness and solicitious skill in public business. The beneficent autocrat is sure, however, to give way sooner or later to some tyrant-the well-meaning few to a grasping oligarchy. The masses of mankind can trust no one but themselves to afford to their welfare a proper oversight. No one will claim for a democratic government that it is not beset by embarrassments and dangers. But when all is said against it that can be said, it remains true that, for Anglo-Saxon men, no other government is in the long run so safe and efficient. Nothing else can be ultimately desirable than the admission of all to share in the sovereign power of the state. Nothing quickens and expands like political discussion; but political discussions fly over the heads of those who have no votes and are not endeavoring to acquire them. The great instrument of drawing forth the powers of the mind and sharpening the wit in every useful way will be the free schools of manly discussion; and intercommunication with popular institutions will keep always open and attended. Both as to thought and action, the faculties of man have this as their best training. As long as everything is done for them, they have no occasion to think at all, and will soon become incapable of thinking."

Workingmen of Des Moines, do not surrender for your lives, your right of selecting all officers of government-not only the mayor and councilmen, but all other officials. But a plan of oligarchic and autocratic rule is now being forced on the city by chicanery and falsehood, hoodwinking the people and defaming the city administrations— telling lies through the press and concealing the truth, disfranchising the many, leaving only five men to be voted for by the people and clothing those autocrats with power to hold on to office in spite of all that is right, by the same means that Tweed ruled New York, until the people awoke. The following grant of power to three men (for a majority rules the five), the people stepping down and out, ought to arouse the indignation of every living patriot and cause the patriot dead to come up from their graves-the brave men who lost their lives fighting for our freedom in all the wars from 1776 to 1865, and shake the recreant voter on his dying bed who casts a ballot for the Galveston plan of disfranchisement, as Queen Elizabeth shook the dying countess that had betrayed her into signing the death warrant of Essex. The arch-enemy of mankind is delighted. He sees the tables

turned.

"Awake! Arise! or be forever fallen!" he cried to his paralyzed hosts, beholding them cast down from the battlements of heaven, prostrate in the molten sea of hell.

"The council shall, at said first meeting, or as soon as practicable thereafter, elect by majority vote the following officers: A city clerk, solicitor, assessor, treasurer, auditor, civil engineer, city physician, marshal, chief of fire department, market master, street commissioner, three library trustees, and such other officers and assistants as shall be provided for by ordinance and necessary to the proper and efficient conduct of the affairs of the city; and shall appoint a police judge in those cities not having a superior court. Any officer or assistant elected or appointed by the council may be removed from office at any time by a vote of a majority of the members of the council, except as otherwise provided for in this act."

Here is to be seen the most beautiful "salient feature" of the Galveston plan. It needs no learned lawyer to explain it. This and Section 7 ought to satisfy the voters as the judge was satisfied with the one reason of the seven that the boy was prepared to give for his father's absence from the jury box. "I will give your honor seven reasons for my father's absence," said the son. "May it please your honor, the first reason he is dead!" "Hold on," said the judge, “you need not give the other six. This one covers the ground.”

YE 272D LESSON.

The Liberties We Prize.

A chief captain said to St. Paul: "With a great sum gained I this freedom." The apostle answer: "But I was free born." Now our own immediate ancestors and our old-time English progenitors, with a great sum of blood and treasure purchased for us the freedom we enjoy. We free-born men ought to be exceedingly jealous and watchful for its preservation. Go back in history to the days of Wat Tyler, and we may learn something of the worth and cost of the liberities we prize. Then it was that the common people made their first fight against the tyranny of the aristocracy of England. An oligarchy of privilege and wealth is endeavoring today to obtain complete control of our cities first, and then of the states and the nation afterwards. Seven hundred years ago there were towns in which local administration was in the hands of a close corporation, often a body small in number; towns, too, where the administration remained in the hands of the townspeople. To the former type belonged generally the larger and older municipalities; to the latter, the smaller and more recent― towns in every stage of development, to which an end was not set until the reforms of 1832. Since then all cities of the English-speaking race have been administered democratically. The great struggle of the common people has been for a direct voice or local representation in government, both of city and state. The aristocratic class has ever stood for "representation at large," as now is attempted by the same class here among us today.

The so-called "300" of Des Moines have, it seems, awakened to the belief that they are a superior order. But any three hundred teamsters or printers, or miners, or workers in factories, or hod carriers, even, are better fitted to rule, for they are less greedy of spoils, than are the "three hundred" owners of stock in the street and interurban railroads, waterworks, gas works, electric light plants and telephone lines, and their dependents-lawyers, clergymen, etc. They, by dastardly means, are endeavoring to usurp the control of the capital city of Iowa, as the same class is controlling now, to a large degree, the state and the nation. They of that class, are anarchists of the worst type-as history teaches of Russia now and of England of old. The toilers of England, under the leadership of Wat Tyler, "a man of excellent purpose and ability," rose to obtain redress of their wrongs. Tyler was treacherously assassinated in the presence of the king. The petition of the toilers to the king, "We will that you free us forever, and our lands, that we be never named as serfs," Richard answered by saying: "I grant it." A throng of clerks was set to work to prepare charters which were issued by the score, securing to the receivers ample rights. Only treachery was in the minds of king and nobles. "When, by false promises, the insurgents were induced to disperse," says the historian, Hosmer, "at the earliest safe moment the sternest vengeance was executed. The pledges were broken. Fire and sword raged through the land. Several thousand died on the gallows and in the field. When King Richard was reproached for his faithlessness, he insolently answered: 'Villains you were and villains you are. In bondage you shall abide, and that not your old bondage, but a worse.'

Here is exhibited the anarchistic spirit of autocratic and oligarchic power-the same that is attempting to be turned loose upon us, a hitherto free people. The "three hundred" would, I repeat, deprive us of our ancient liberties, and that by means of falsehood, as the followers of Wat Tyler were betrayed. The aristocratic class, have never instituted any reforms since their prototype, the devil, in the garden of Eden, misled our mother, Eve, by telling her a lie similar to the one put forward by the "three hundred"-a wonderful reform! Yes; and our "eyes, too, will be opened!" But, that after all, is no lie. Shall we