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DECADENCE OF PUBLIC SPIRIT.

47

vation Army on his knees in the muddy streets of Des Moines, Iowa, praying for the reformation of the debased and degraded habitus of the beer saloons.

YE 23D LESSON.

Decadence of Public Spirit.

What ails our county? The decadence of public spirit. There is but one passion controlling. It is the love of money. Everything is considered in reference to the money it will bring. Does any man become interested in poiltics, it must be by the neglect of his business affairs. It costs so much to live in the style of the present day that no man of moderate income can devote time to public affairs. Who then may? Those employed as agents of railroads, and such as are held in pay by great moneyed interests. The potent managers of party politics are men hired to do this kind of work. They are doing it just as attorneys work for their clients-working for-not the public good-but for the good of great moneyed corporations-manipulating politics to help build up the power of corporate wealth.

Now

Especially is this the case with the editors of metropolitan party newspapers. The cost of conducting a great newspaper is immense. The subscription fund is a small part of the necessary income. If subscriptions were all the support the paper had it could not be kept running a single year without bankrupting the richest man in the state. on whom does the editor most depend for the means that keep him from bankruptcy? First is his advertising, and that is his chief reliance. The editor is as honest and as patriotic as any man. But the interests that keep his paper alive do not represent what we call "the people," but only a small minority. Hence "the people" have no organs.

Who are the people? The people are the great multitude that depend on daily toil for subsistence. By the people is meant not those who live by investments of money and the per cent of increase on capital invested; but those who have only time and labor of hand and brain to put up as stock in trade. These are "the people," for the protection of whom government was instituted in America. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" belong to men and not to property. It was to protect the "inalienable rights of man" and not franchises and licensed privileges, enabling the classes to prey upon the masses, that the constitutions of the American governments, national and state, were ordained.

How did this happen, when in England the masses had no consideration in the contemplation of law-had no voice-more than women have now, in making the laws?

It came about from the fact that our fathers were farmers and they were poor. But what looks most like the supernatural is the fact that our charter of liberty was written by a young man who was a holder of slaves. Yes, Thomas Jefferson was a slave-holder. That is a fact. But it is a fact also that he did not believe it right to hold slaves. Slavery was, in his opinion, a wrong. It was one of the great wrongs complained of by him in his draft of the Declaration of Independence, for which England was held responsible, and to get from under which the colonies he thought ought to declare their independence. And, also, with his pen he dedicated to freedom the northwestern territory.

How did it happen that Jefferson declared in favor of the inalienable rights of man? It came about from his reading. He was a disciple of Rousseau, the French philosopher. It was from France shone those rays of truth that became a burning and a shining light in our Declaration of Independence.

Our fathers were free because they were poor. All the people of the northern states were poor until since the close of the civil war. Up

to the time of the beginning of the war the domestic loom still held its place in the houses of many western farmers and domestic woolens clothed the country people. While the people dress better today and live in better houses, with carpeted floors-a thing unknown outside of the towns up to 1865-they today are not so well off as they were then. The country folk cannot take as much time for recreation as they did take of old-time. Their imaginary and artificial wants have increased to so great an extent as to render them discontented and unhappy because they see others that have so much more than anybody had till within a few years past.

We have gone as far as we will go in the direction of centralization of wealth and power in the hands of the few. But will there be a means discovered or invented of restoring the majority of the wealth of the United States to the ownership and control of the majority of the people of the United States? Yes.

YE 24TH LESSON.

The New Abolitionism.

Who in all the ages have been the producers? Slaves. It was so in Egypt, in Greece, in Rome. The slaves were more numerous than freemen. What was, then, anciently a republic? It was not a country in which the people governed, but the governing class were the minority, masters, and the governed the majority, slaves. Look out over the world today. It is the same. The many producers are not the governing classes anywhere. They are not the rulers among us and they have not been the rulers.

The producers who have ever been the slaves and have never been the ruling class are about to become the rulers. I mean the men and women who have been and are considered "servants" are about to become "masters," and the class that has hitherto been masters and rulers is about to become extinct. We have about come upon a time when there will be none others than workers, and when what is known as the "speculative class"-a class living off others' toil by "profits on investments of money" will cease to have an exist

ence.

And such is the end definitely expressed of the movement the world over toward co-operation. That is what co-operation means. It will abolish the classes. There will then be only workers and those others that because of age, sickness and physical disability are incapacitated for work. The dependent will be royally taken care of. There will be no such thing as want. The amount of the common product that the most active worker can lay up will not be large, but it will be all that he or she produces, and added thereto the amount to which each is entitled, resulting from increased production by machinery. If machinery could work automatically there would need be little manual toil; but whatever work is essential to be done by human hands should be shared equally and every able-bodied person should contribute alike of time and labor for the common good.

Eliminate speculation, usury and rent, which co-operation will do, and the problem of equality is solved. Take away the profits of buying and selling, the employment of labor, money lending and rent and all men will be on the same level and each will have to do his part of work. "Co-operation" is the one word to be written on the banner of the labor party.

The fundamental error of national legislation for the past half a century has been that its aim was to increase the profits of investments of money. The aim of all legislation should be to increase the profits of labor. I repeat and would reiterate for the thousandth time, or until it is apprehended by all minds as an incontrovertible truth, that no profit should result from the investment of money. We

TO GIVE IS TO POSSESS.

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must completely annihilate all profits except those to labor. We must destroy forever every system that gives to any man profits on any investment except solely the investment of his own energy. He must have nothing that he does not produce by the force of his own being, of muscle and mind. This the common ownership of the lands, the tools and the money will bring about.

Do I mean then that the merchant, the manufacturer, the banker, the farmer and all others engaged in any kind of business shall make no more than an equitable return for time and toil and nothing for money invested? Yes, that is exactly my meaning. I do mean that there shall be no investment of private capital in any kinds of business. I mean that all men being equal, as a rule, in physical and mental capabilities, all shall be entitled, as a rule, to an equal wage dividend. But some men are stronger physically and mentally than others. Yes, but not enough to entitle them as manipulators of machinery to any greater share of the common product than that of other workers. Strong men and strong women receive no higher wages today in workshops and factories than do their weaker brothers and sisters.

But this result is to be attained by a complete change of our system of production and distribution of products. Co-operation will be substituted for competition. The fight for the new emancipation of the slaves is begun and it will never cease until the toilers are the ruling class.

YE 25TH LESSON.

To Give Is To Possess.

"He should keep who has justly earned."-Ruskin.

This sentence comprehends in its significance the whole of political and social economy. It expresses all that can be said or written of reform. Men talk of "dividing up," saying, if you gave all an equal portion today, tomorrow some would have much and the many nothing. Why so? Is it because of any defect in the many or because of a superiority of the minds of the few? It is neither the one nor the other. It is because of system-system of social organization. What is wanted? Such a social system as will make each equally certain of having his portion, and equally certain that each shall do his part to produce the common portion that must in the nature of things be "parted to all men according as every man has need." Can conditions be so ordained and set in motion that no one can dispossess himself of his due portion? That no one can become destitute? Yes.

Now what first must be done? First, it must be seen to that each able-bodied, adult man earn justly his due share of the common product. Can this be so ordained and established? It can. How? By equal opportunities afforded to each and all, and multiplied professions open to each and all, so that each person may freely choose his occupation. This will be extending through life the same identical surroundings or the same identical liberty that is open to the child to choose its play. This is to extend the freedom of childhood on and on to old age. This is to make all work play, and to make work a thing to be loved, and to be the one great pleasure of existence--occupation in the line of industry most congenial to each person. I do not believe in slavery. But I do believe in motion-like that of the planets-in an orbit with a momentum given by God; the power of the creative arm extended on-moving on-driving on.

How shameful-all realize it-for men to work in any line of really good work-as the ministry, or even in politics-just for money. Good men work gratuitously for their fellowmen. Think of St. Paulof Jesus-working for a big salary! Think of John Ruskin-John Howard John Milton-John the Baptist-and St. John, the Divine

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THE DAILY PRESS AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

working sordidly to "make money?" Scandalous!

thing. It is a shame!

Do not think such a

No man will, in a truly civilized era, work for any other motive but the common good. It will then be the pride of each to make the greatest personal sacrifices for the common weal. He that can die for the common good-can give his life on the scaffold-to advance the world's glory will gladly embrace the opportunity. The aim will be to give, and not to get; to bestow and not to receive; to sacrifice and not to grow rich. "Take up your cross and follow me." That is the true doctrine of civilization. That is the true political economy. On Jesus Christ will rest the new civilization. "Be like Christ"-the new religion. “Go about doing good"-the occupation of each.

How many men today make it the end and object of existence to do as Christ did? How many are as indifferent as he was to their own personal well-being, speaking from the social standpoint? Of course, our own personal well-being is most enhanced the least we covet for self. It is best for us when we know nothing but duty and want nothing but the opportunity to be offered on the altar-to be lifted up as Christ was ilfted up. What is life? Nothing but a space for well doing. But long life-if it had been of necessity for the greatest good Jesus would not have died at the age of thirty-three. He would have lived to be a centennarian at least. It is not how long we live. It is only how we live. Whoever falters is lost. We must go right forward to win the victory.

"Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them

Volleyed and thundered."

So it is all along through life. We must go forward.

Having begun this essay with a quotation from Ruskin I will close it with another from the same writer. He says in his lecture entitled "Work":

"There will always be a number of men who would fain set themselves to the accumulation of wealth as the sole object of their lives. Necessarily that class of men is an uneducated class, inferior in intellect and more or less cowardly. It is physically impossible for a well-educated, intellectual or brave man to make money the chief object of his thoughts, as physically impossible as for him to make his dinner the principal object of them. We do great injustice to Iscariot in thinking him wicked above all common wickedness. He was only a common money-lover and like all money-lovers, didn't understand Christ. Couldn't make out the worth of him, the meaning of him."

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YE 26TH LESSON.

The Daily Press and the Public Schools.

The influence of the pulpit is growing less and there is no other moral mentor to take its place. The two factors that ought to be the conservators and upbuilders of public morality are the free public school and the daily press; but they are not so. Tradition stands in the way of both. Under the old regime the church through the grand and unselfish agency of priests, monks and nuns was the upbuilder of all that was good and the unrelenting foe of all that was evil. No words in our language can adequately express the admirable worth and sublime worthiness of those men and women, separated from all that is most fascinating to the common mind and devoted alone to doing good in obedience to the divine will. Influenced by no motive but to make the world the better for their living in it they were the granite foundation of society. Now society is built upon sand. Where

THE DAILY PRESS AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

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is to be found one public teacher who is not moved solely by the love of money? Who are the public instructors at the summer Chautauquas? And for what end are the Chautauquas instituted? The one end only, viz.: money-making. Who are the chief attractions? The Tillmans! Who are chosen superintendents of our public free schools? Young men professionals attracted solely by salary. In moral ideals they stand not a whit above the common professional level of lawyers, judges, etc., who are “in the swim" reaching after the dollar; but in moral accountability have no more conception of their duty to the young are no more exemplary-than a Sioux Indian; are as low down in moral stamina as the lowest savage of the forest or plain. Supreme judges walk the streets of the city with lighted cigars protruding from their befouled lips and the superintendent of the schools of the capital city of Iowa uses that fact as an argument to prove that the tobacco habit is not an evil, at the same time that the law of the state pronounces it an evil and compels the teachers of the schools to instruct the youth that the nicotine drug (tobacco) is a poison and the use of it a dreadful vice; and in our highest literature we are instructed that it is a horrible curse, and so instructed, too, by the grandest and most exemplary writers-instance Madam Hyacinthe Loyson who, in her wonderful book, entitled "To Jerusalem Through the Lands of Islam," says:

"The whole world-Christianity, Israel, Islam, Paganism and savagery, are all victims of perverted appetite (the old vice of Adam) and through deplorable ignorance of the universal poisoning of the human race by nicotine. Tobacco affects the moral, civil, domestic and religious life by its direct action upon brain and heart-troubling alike reason and affection-the two factors of conscience-lowering its action and, therefore, lowering manhood. The different mentality and consumption of tobacco by the different races explain the different effects. Orientals given to meditation rather than action, smoke double the quantity of tobacco compared to the robust, active Occidental; but his poisonous weed often contains less than one per cent of nicotine, while that of the Occident, America and France, often contains seven per cent. Chemical extraction of three of these "best cigars" will kill a man.

"The striking effect of tobacco is the obliteration of moral perceptions, the diminution of natural affection, the failure to discern between colors, but far more grave, the failure to discern between right and wrong, between truth and falsehood, love and passion, righteous ambition and rapacity and domination. Given as the first fruits of the tobacco vice is the disobedience of parents and law, lying, stealing, revolt, ruined health, blindness, ataxy, sterility, debauchery, war murder.

"Any one can verify these statements by personal observation of their immediate surroundings (not forgetting hereditary inoculation) in hospitals, courts and prisons. "I have," she says, "studied these questions carefully for over half a century in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and I am convinced that the use of tobacco is the principal cause of the degeneracy of the race, as it is above all others the vice against nature, taking fire with its fumes and its poison into the human body, thereby profaning the temple of the Holy Spirit."

What a grand position the daily press occupies; but how, for the love of money, it is actually the instigator and promoter of vice and crime. The question asked is not what information will best serve to promote public morality, but what will bring largest dividends to the stockholders of this concern. This statement is a profound, most important and most deplorable truth. It is damnable. Of course there are exceptions to this rule. But they are few. To conduct a paper on a "paying basis" all "ads" must be invited and accepted that will not prevent the paper's being carried through the

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