The south is being wonderfully moved. North Carolina has hundreds of thousands of farmers united in this grand movement, led by Hon. Virgil A. Wilson. The Knights of Labor and Farmers' Alliance are preparing for independent political action in every state and territory of the Union. The signs of the times are most hopeful. II. The Duty Before Congress. What will be the consequence if Congress does not define the articles unprotected by interstate commerce-as dynamite, alcoholic liquors (including a wine and beer), infected clothing, diseased cattle, etc.? The effect will be anarchy that may result in civil war between the states. Iowa and Kansas will not tolerate the invasion of Missouri and Illinois ruffians or their detestable agents flooding these states with alcoholic liquors contrary to the laws of these states, any more than in 1856 Kansas tolerated the border ruffians of Missouri in their unlawful raids. This is a most serious question, touching the hearts of the people more nearly than did the anti-slavery question. The forays of Indian savages with tomahawk and scalping knife were not more to be dreaded than the forays of the alien saloon savages from Illinois and Missouri are to be dreaded by the people of Iowa and Kansas. Both (great corn-growing states) have abolished the distilleries in their borders that consumed millions of bushels of grain a great personal sacrafice. They will not tolerate the citizens of other states, or their agents, in Iowa or Kansas, doing what they have refused to their own citizens at great cost to themselves. The prohibition people are in earnest and will take no backward steps, but they will go forward at the sacrifice of life, if need be, for the protection of their homes and their rights against alien marauders. constitution of the United States was ordained to "promote the general welfare." When it has become a stumbling block in the path of progress, it will be set aside and a constitution of government ordained by the people, laying its foundation in the "consent of the governed." Nothing will be permitted to stand in the way of progress and of the government "of the people, by the people, for the people." The For the Federal congress to fail to act now for the protection of the right of "home rule" in reference to the rum traffic would be a repetition of the folly of the Pierce and Buchanan administrations in giving aid and comfort to the slave power, the courts, congress and president being joined then in the conspiracy of the slave lords to make slavery national. The people believe that the only reason for hesitancy now on the part of congress to act for the common protection is the influence of the whisky ring, the immense wealth of the rum power used "where it will do the most good" and its wealth is greater than was that of the slave power. The foundation principle of American government is the "consent of governed." Whatever violates this principle is un-American, and intolerable to us. It was because the British government disregarded this grand doctrine that our liberty-loving fathers trampled under foot the British flag, and rebelled against British rule. They declared it the right and duty of the people to do toward "any form of government" the same as they did toward the British government when it became destructive to the rights of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and to establish a new government, laying its foundation in the consent of the governed. Any other foundation is tyranny. And for congress to refuse to act now for the protection of the rights of the prohibition states would be to abdicate power and establish the most detestable form of "state rights"-the right of the citizens of Illinois or Missouri, or "raw Englishmen" or their agents, to do in Iowa or Kansas, what the citizens of Iowa and Kansas are forbidden by the fundamental laws of the states of Iowa and Kansas to do, i, e., "CONSPIRACY AGAINST SOCIETY." 605 to distribute alcoholic liquors "for a beverage," in these states. It would be an abrogation of the federal compact-amounting to a practical dissolution of the Union. Because, if the United States government is powerless to, or will not protect the states from such form of most odious "invasion," the states will have no other alternative but to protect themselves. How may they do this? There will remain but one way, the same only that was open to the states of Greece of old, the Amphyctionic council having inadequate powers to settle differences between discordant states, and leaving them to be settled by force of arms. If congress will not act to protect the people in their right of "home rule," if the state courts cannot and the federal government will not protect the people against border raids of this odious kind-will some lawyer point out the legal remedy-a possible peaceful settlement of the difficulty? Of course it has been settled for fifty years by the courts, federal and state, that the people of a state have the right to prohibit the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits within their confines. Must alien manufacturers have rights in Iowa that Iowa manufacturers have not? That would be contrary to all known law on earth among free peoples. We are, I fear, on the eve of anarchy and civil war if congress does not protect the. inalienable right of the people to self-government. When Illinois, or Nebraska, or Missouri, or Minnesota invade Iowa in this detestable way, forcing rum upon us contrary to the will of the majority expressed in law-then the invaders ought to be driven out "peacefully if we can; forcefully if we must," if we would be true to the principles of liberty and right. I speak now of the natural right-the right of home protection against alien invasion. But I believe the government and flag that has protected the people of the Indian Territory for fifty years without their asking it against the rum traffic, will protect the people of the prohibition states, since these states have so distinctly spoken, and since it has now become the prerogative of the national government to do so. If the United States government will not do this, then it is an odious tyranny, treating the prohibition states as shamefully, tyrannously and as outrageously as England treats Ireland, and deserving no more the love of the patriotic citizens of these states than does the British government that of Irishmen. June 19, 1890. Reader, farewell. I have fearlessly tried to do my duty to my country and to humanity. I have not spoken hastily; but have given deliberate utterance to my profound convictions. Yet, the vote of the federal senate on the silver bill June 1890, has led me to believe that I have under-estimated the patriotism of the majority of that body as now constituted. Wall and Lombard street money lenders met defeat for the first time in twenty-seven years in our "house of lords." Madness seems, however, to have possessed our honored Iowa senator, Mr. Allison, the only senator from the Mississippi valley (not including the Ohio valley, the home of Mr. Sherman) voting "nay" on the question of placing silver on her ancient throne. Will a single representative from the West and South vote "nay" when the bill comes up for final passage in the lower house with the senate amendments? I trust not. It is time the people west of the Alleghanies had their eyes turned to view the serpent-the joint-snake broken in pieces pictured on the flag of our fathers with the motto: "Unite or Die-" as the children of Israel looked upon the brazen serpent in the wilderness. It is our only safety--we must unite and without regard to party stand for American interests, or the wolf will soon be at every door, except the doors of the "less than fifty thousand rich men,” that Rev. Joseph Cook says "if the present causes which produce concentration of capital continue, Will Soon Own The United States." February 22, 1908. The Supreme Court of the State of Iowa has rendered a decision in respect to the legal status of the Des Moines (Galveston) plan of city government that would have been rendered in no state of the American Union prior to 1861, nor for several decades since. That decision is the ripened fruit of Federalism. That Upas tree has grown up in the field of the Republican party's planting the outcome of Hamiltonianism-which, if not hewn down and cast into the fire, will put a final quietus to American liberty. Who on this continent is so ignorant as not to know that the unwritten constitution of America, as of England, does forever preclude the possibility of legally centralizing the three separate powers of government, legislative, judicial and executive, in the same person or persons-king or triumvirate. Nor can the decisions of a thousand courts convince a people, with even a drop of British blood in their veins, to the contrary. The wrong will be speedily righted. OUR COUNTRY. A Commencement Poem, Burlington University, Burlington, Iowa, On a shore far remote, in days now long past, Away from Oppression and Britain they bore, Beyond the broad ocean America lay, Where the sun drives his chariot at close of the day; But there, too, the Temple of Liberty stood. The heroes of faith saw its dome from afar. And hailed it again as the shepherds the star. They are rocked on the bosoni of Ocean once more; No Dido receives them at Old Plymouth Rock; O Puritan fathers, your names we revere; OUR COUNTRY. The axe of the woodman advances its strokes; The forest of ages is shorn of its oaks; And millions of freemen dwell on the bright shore, Hermea, lovely maiden, in sleep-mantled rest, Once dreamed that a serpent lay coiled on her breast; "Brother, please hand me my scabbard and knife; I know, too, my father, all gory, lies dead! Did not he with brave Warren, the last on the field, Bold hearts now assemble; their swords glitter bright; "Go, son," said the matron, "go join in the strife: What tyrant e'er conquered a spirit like this? Of the dread British Lion they humbled the pride, They said, "We have triumphed, this land is our own; Contemplate the picture, instructive and true, Behold there all Monarchy shrouded in gloom, In the front of the canvas old Greece stands alone, 607 Oh, gaze on her splendor that for ages has shone How grand and how glorious of all most refined! There thought was unfettered; all the land a great school,- So led were our fathers a Republic to choose; My Country, I love thee, thy prairies and hills; 'Twas the loss of this anchor that sunk mighty Rome, + |