favor revolution. But not here in America. He is wild who talks in favor of revolution here. Wrongs prevail. Colorado is ruled by despots. Their rule is temporary. Who will rule there and here and everywhere in the United States shortly? The men and women whose hands are calloused from hard work. They are the "people"-the "majority." They will rule. Tomorrow they will unite in a great party, and there will be lawyers and rich men, members of it also, but not, as now, the only conspicuous members of party.

Another Lin

The great labor unions say they have twelve million dollars in sight to support a strike. Good! But let that be a ballot-box strike. And the time is almost ripe for that strike to be ordered. coln will be placed in the presidential chair-another schooled at the plow or in the workshop-a toiler. (I would nominate Mitchell.) Of course the daily press is the property of "stockholders"-bankers, railroad magnates, etc. But what influence has the daily press in fixing public opinion? Very little. Why? Because it is not of the people. It is known by all to be the mouthpiece of monopoly. Of course there are exceptions. A rich man may, like Washigton, be the 'Father of his Country." Lawyers are not all influenced in their actions by retainer fees alone. They, and men of great wealth, were the "salt of the earth" in our forefathers' day and there have been enough of them to take a leading part in the great world-movements for reform hitherto Let us not forget this. A true American is a patriot, be he rich or poor, and no matter what his profession or occupation. America is safe while it is American.

But there will be great movements. The anti-slavery movement was one of the greatest. It is not yet ended. It is still on. It will not be ended before poverty has been abolished-before public opinion has become so ripened that any one will be ashamed to be better off than his neighbor-before all shall be as alike as are the bees in a hive the drones driven out, of course.

Public opinion is an omnipotent force. It will be so advanced that he who lets a room for an immoral purpose will be despised, as was Benedict Arnold by our fathers. Self respect will not end with fine clothes, but will place each person upon a throne, as the ruler of his own soul. No alcohol or nicotine fiends then, for each will be as careful as to his drink and food as now he is of that of a favorite horse or dog. The exhibition, at all times and on all occasions of true manliness and true womanliness will be the highest ambition of each person. No one will fool away his time making money, letting his head be empty that his pockets may be full.

I see in the near future Christianity restored to its primitive helpfulness-a grand expression of human duty-that of man to his fellowmen the ripened fruit of Greek aestheticism, as was Greek oratory, poetry, history, philosophy, sculpture, architecture, etc., that can never be improved upon. The primitive, Pentecostal church will remain forever the ideal, the model commonwealth-the true pattern for social betterment the world over. But the haven of reform is love. The man that spends five thousand or one thousand dollars or even one cent for an automobile, while there are others suffering for bread, is an utter savage-a meaner savage than was ever sheltered in a wigwam on the shores of Lake Huron or Lake Erie a hundred years and more ago.

YE 237TH LESSON.

System and Not Chance.

Can the people be led to move together from the land of bondage toward a land of freedom? There came a time when the Israelites moved together and left the land of Egypt to journey toward the land

SYSTEM AND NOT CHANCE.

315

of Canaan. It was not a long journey; but it took a long time to make it. The American people are in bondage; but they do not realize it. They do not know that they are slaves. Why do they not know it? Because the modern system of slavery is hidden. But it is slavery. To whom? Who are the slave masters? They are:

(1) (2) (3)

The employers.

The money lenders, and

The landlords.

The employers of labor enslave directly the toilers by witholding wages and employment; the money lenders and landlords by extortion. What is the remedy?

There is but one, viz; Common ownership of the tools, the money

and the lands.

And this means that the cost of the tools to the workers shall be no more than their true value. The same of money and of lands the many guaranteeing to each fair play.

How may the many do this?

By abrogating private reprisals.

Production and distribution must be regulated by law, and not by chance. Legislation must enlarge its sphere; and there must be bureaus of production and distribution.

All will see this when all see

All

Food and
Not

that the essentials of life can be assured to each in no other way. The essentials of life must be assured to each. This is civilization. must be fed, clothed and housed. But how? Must each grab his essential share the best way he can in an atmosphere of selfish anarchy? They do so now. How? By a wild rush! "Get who can" is the order. The people are by nature loving and kind. clothing and some sort of shelter are conceded to all even now. many starve or freeze to death from want. A few do; but the people regret that this is so. How quickly they come to the rescue in time of great suffering. How promptly is want relieved. We do not have to convert the people into readiness to give. They are very willing to share with those rendered suddenly destitute by cyclone, earthquake, fire or flood. What, then, is wanting?

Today millions are destitute that no

Why destitute?

cyclone, earthquake or fire or flood have harmed. their own fault? Some are. But multitudes are not. Willing hands often cannot find work-cannot have wages. Why so? Why

By

are

not all, that are willing to work constantly employed? This question ought to have an answer. Say, Oh, patriot, is it not the true answer: "No man employs me?" The eleventh hour is reached and passed, and the twelfth, and no employer!

of

on

This is the eating cancer

Our social system. How may it be removed? Quit depending
Chance for employment. Give us system. Is not that a specific?

Production should proceed according to rule, along a definite track-steel rails and stations, tanks and a time table.

of

DO

No uncertainty as

Old with wagons and teams; but we must move right along on
That is the remedy. Yes, the remedy is certainty.
away with chance and establish law and order. Systematized pro-

Schedule time.
duction and systematized distribution of products are the remedy.

hoever will take up the thread of this admitted truth and follow will reach a beautiful vision not a mirage, but a real city of God. The houses not log cabins but brick and hewn stone edifices and fitted within with all modern improvements-bath tubs, electric lights,

etc., etc.

That is all we want-modern improvements extended uniIt (our social system) is where it when the family loom and big wheel took up the principal space

versally and organized society.

was

of the best room in the house. There is no change in our social order; but change everywhere else. Society, in all its arrangements, must move like a Corless engine and its dependent machinery-all according to a pre-arranged systemnothing about it haphazzard. What may we expect of food and clothing for,the next year? Who can say?

We must reconstruct our social system.

All is chance. Sudden strikes

may stop all machinery; extortionate rents keep the lands untilled; and high interest rates hold the money congested in the east. The question now is, What will the speculator grant? How much will he permit to go to the producer? What price will the trusts place on the essentials of life? Speculation must be abrogated and no tribute be paid by individual to individual, but only must the individual be bound to give to the state. We must have co-operative production— all the tools and workshops being common property like the statehouse; schoolhouses, etc., that belong to the public; co-operative distribution of products must be instituted-transportation being free, like the postal system; and the money supply must be freed from capitalistic control and restored to the nation to which it rightfully belongs.

But are the people ready to grasp the issue?-to go forward in the great antislavery cause? What was the movement headed by Garrison, Phillips and John Brown? Only the skirmish line of this great contest.

YE 238TH LESSON.

Artificial Bulwarks Thrown Down.

It is but a little while since the world, universally, was in the same condition that we find existing today in central Africa, viz: Conquered peoples held under the swords of the conquerers. The conquerers framed every statute to suit themselves-with what object in view? Clearly to keep the conquered permanently serfs and chattels.

In the dark shadow of the courts, today, are seen the toilers in the same abject condition as was labor at the time the ancient "decisions," that we turn to for precedent, were given by the periwigged judges of the reign of King Charles I, James II, Henry VIII, John or William the Norman. Working men of the beginning of the twentieth century, ye have a great duty to perform here in America. Be thankful to the God of your Puritan forefathers that you have the opportunity to make history that will show you to have been men not unworthy descendents of Cromwell's Ironsides-men of British blood, not less, but far more worthy by its mixture with blood of German, French, Bohemian, Scandinavian, etc. The American race will not submit to the tryanny, nor to a tithe of it, that at this moment grinds the faces of the toilers of Europe. Whatever in law or institution has come down to us from the pro-slavery past will be eliminated by the anti-slavery present. Let the judges of the courts who have been placed in their seats by corporation dictation remember the fate of the ermined tryants, Charles I and James II. Let them beware!

But we will sit down and like school boys bent on winning a prize on the last day of school, study as men never studied before until we have come fully to "know our rights." With patience will we wait until we have “prepared our speech." Then will we go to the front of the platform, stand for the right as "God gives us to see the right-that government of the people, by the people, for the people, may not perish from the earth." Nor will any howl of the enemy deter us from "hewing to the line." We will declare that the question of rights of labor shall not be settled until it is settled rightly. There will be no "Missouri compromises," but "the rights of man" shall be definitely determined and established for all time to come on this continent. The artificial bulwarks that stand in the way of human equality shall be razed to the ground. The Hebraic monetary system, an inheritance from the dark ages, shall be overthrown and "usury" put an end to forever.

This is not all. The rights of the many to the land shall be securely

of reize of

THE EQUAL RIGHTS OF ALL.

317

established; and the rights of the toilers to the tools of production without paying tribute to capitalists shall be placed beyond question. We shall make the rule of the majority redound to the common good.

How in the fewest words can the situation be made plain? The growth of corporate power has been so great as to leave the power of the people nil. The American governments, both national and state, are controlled by corporate interests, speculative in their nature; capitalistic, deriving their profits from investments of money, through the channels of interest, rents, profits on labor employed in production, etc. By a preconcerted, systematized method, devised by the votaries of greed, those interests control the machinery of government. It has been by subsidizing the press and the bar and the pulpit that corporate power has succeeded in hoodwinking the masses so long.

allies.

The

But the peculiar conditions that left the door open for monopoly to pass through to the throne of power have ceased to exist. North and South watch each other as enemies no longer. They are The interests of the northern corn growers and the southern cotton growers are the same. Soon will these unite against the common foe, and the millions of wage slaves will join with the farmers in the common cause. There is but one road leading out of the land of bondage into the land of freedom. What is that road? Popular control of government.

When the masses take control of the machinery of government the reign of monopoly will cease.

Let us then talk no more of "harmonizing the relations of labor and capital to each other." But let us declare that private capital must be abolished. All profit to the speculators off the labor of other men must be rendered nil. his own face. Let every man earn his own living by the sweat of Let us abolish slavery finally and forevermore.

YE 239TH LESSON.

The Equal Rights of All.

This is the one American doctrine the one above all others for

whic h

the Declaration of American Independence is held sacred-the

doctrine that America alone has made fundamental, that distinguishes America from all other countries and that to relinquish is to make void all that was ratified by the decision of the sword in two great wars

by consent of the governed. the citizen from the alien.

The right to vote is what distinguishes Suffrage To deprive the adult man of the right of is to denationalize him, is to entomb him and he is no more forfeited. the dead. Only as a punishment for crime may this right be It is wrong to say that because one cannot read he shall prete, as long as he has ears to hear and understanding to com

than

prehend oral language; for the majority of the voters of the United

States

seeing.

gain their knowledge of politics from hearing rather than It is not necessary that one be able to read to be well in

formed. Teaching by word of mouth is the pre-eminently practical

way

and the one alone essential, and to my mind to restrict suffrage

to those alone who can read ought to be resisted by the men so wronged, even "unto death."

And the poor man deprived of this

right

Sword and gun. has left to him no means to prevent his enslavement but the No men, said Lincoln, are less willing to take or

touch ought that is not their own than poor men; and I believe that it

was

also he that said that no man was ever good enough to govern

another man.

America has had four

Now, in regard to government, it has been ever true that good government depends on patriotic leadership.

pre-eminently patriotic leaders, viz., Washington, Jefferson, Jackson

and Lincoln.

(I believe the fifth, Roosevelt.) And their worth and

worthiness to lead has been recognized by the men who could not read as well by the learned, by the poor as well as by the rich. All that is wanted in a free country is good leaders and not demagogues. But no man can be a good leader who is actuated by any other motives than patriotism and altruism. The bane of our politics today is party spirit and self-seeking. Patriotism is markedly wanting in our party leaders. I am sure that spoils of office fill up the measure of the patriotism of the party leaders of today as a rule and that equal rights of all men are not regarded.

Party platforms are often insincere, hypocritical and false. By their actions must parties be judged and not by their words framed to deceive. The wrong of the republican party may be termed "imperialism;" that of the democratic party "boxerism." Now, I mean by imperialism, "government without the consent of the governed," away from home, and by boxerism, I mean the same thing at home (negro disfranchisement). Imperialism is enforced by us against men in distant islands of the sea; boxerism against men at home, in the United States, at our very doors. Both are tyrannies and both bear down only on men as a rule, whose skins are not white and men not of the Anglo-Saxon race. Both isms may be defined Anglo-Saxon domineering and domination, bigotry and selfishness, greed and tyranny. It is the old bigheadedness of Rome that boasted: "There are no men but Romans." We put it: "No men are qualified for self-government but those of the Anglo-Saxon race!" Bosh!

YE 240TH LESSON.

The Race Problem.

Has the time arrived when race antagonisms will end? I think it has. The world is one. Africa has been partitioned between the several European powers. Colonies of Europeans are being planted in every part. Will the European race supplant, drive out or ultimately bring to extinction the African race on its native soil, as the Indian race has practically become extinct in the United States? Or will the various races inhabit the same lands and live together in peace and amity. The time has come when mankind will fraternize. The age of selfishness is past; for selfishness has become abhorrent to the human heart. Labor knows neither race nor color. It is one. It is fraternal. The toilers are lovers. Of course the pride of race will continue. The black man will be proud of his race. The white of his. The day of amalgamation has passed with the passing of chattel slavery. The inter-marriage of the races will not be general, but exceptional. The producers of all races will stand shoulder to shoulder as brethren.

What then will be the sequel of the race question here and everywhere? Fraternity. Why? Because of moral forces. Whence came narrowness? Through what door did it enter the Christian fold? One text of scripture: "Salvation is of the Jews." The Christian church became more narrow than Judaism-all non-church members--"children of hell." The stake was set up. And even today in Russia are seen massacre and anathama-the great Tolstoi a victim of the latter; and in America the black is burned at the stake because he is black. No white has been tortured for even the worst of crimes. But this cruelty is exceptional. Enlightenment and civilization have come in to control and the exceptions are the dregs of barbarism-the cup drained to the bottom.

I know that justice to all men will be administered before long. The British occupation of India will be for the good of India in the end. The opium traffic will be put down, the rum traffic discontinued.