To some it will appear ridiculous to have devoted so much space in this volume to such a nonentity. If we could confine the “nonentity,” like an ape, in the Zoological Garden in Central Park, it is true so much space would be wasted as he occupies in this volume. But, the fact is, he is allowed to run at large, and in his peregrinations around the country he creates a feeling of disgust among the Common People for that political party to which he proudly asserts he belongs; claiming it to be the “only respectable party.” Were he not, as a “sandwich man,” a walking advertisement of the worst element that has become attached, like an octopus, to the Republican party, “Chappie” would be unworthy of the attentions he has here received.

But, in seeking for the true cause of the decisive and overwhelming overthrow of Lincoln’s “Grand Old Party,” it is necessary to mix even this worthless ingredient into the porridge of defeat with which the leaders of the Republican party have been fed.

It is a relief to turn from the despicable object of “Chappie,” and regard and compare in our minds with him the men who have “left footprints on the sands of time” in the history of our nation.

What a contrast is presented when we shift “Chappie” from the scene of our mental vision and bring forth the loved “Harry” Clay, the miller’s boy. That barefoot boy, on a bony, ill-bred horse, with shaggy mane and tail; holding a bag of corn in front of him, on his journey to the mill for his widowed mother, is a more inspiring picture, decidedly, than “Chappie” on his well-bred English cob whose coat is soft as fur from constant currying, whose tail is cropped off a la the fashion for riding-horses in London. As “Chappie” sits on his little imported English saddle, and daintily holds an imported English riding whip, prepared for a ride, to give the “Common People” an exhibition of the beauty, gallantry and horsemanship of the scion of sham aristocracy; with all his glory, backed with all of his millions, “Chappie” does not warm the hearts of the “Common People” like the picture of that miller’s boy, Henry Clay, the great Commoner of Kentucky.

Daniel Webster, struggling as district school teacher in New England, clothed in ill-fitting garments, would somehow furnish a better model for the sculptor or painter who would make a statue or picture or a head of him who was, indeed, a mighty man.

The music of the voice of grand old Daniel Webster, even though he did not drawl in delightful imitation of the English, would give greater delight to the “Common People,” plebeian as they are and unrefined, than “Chappie’s” lispings.

There remains another figure, called to mind by the Common People when they view “Chappie,” by reason of the vast difference between the figure of “Chappie” and the “rail-splitter” of Illinois. The long, uncouth, gangling, ungainly figure of a boy sprawled on his back, lying on the floor of a humble log-cabin, seeking knowledge in a well-thumbed book, by the light of a flickering fire, presents something that speaks more eloquently to the hearts of the Common People than “Chappie’s” gorgeous appearance and apparel; for they know that the name of the lad before that fire was Abraham Lincoln, and that from that uncouth figure, and by the aid of that difficultly-acquired knowledge, resulted the production of that man who, as representative of the Common People as their President, stood as the Rock of Gibraltar when the fierce waves of fratricidal war swept over our land; immovable, firm and unchangeable as that rock itself in the determination that the Union should be preserved, and that the Stars and Stripes should float over every inch of ground of the United States of America. While others lost hope and many were downcast, groping for support in the hour of gloom and peril to the national existence of our country, that man, who was the outcome of the ungainly figure by the fire, led the people of the nation as the pillar of fire of old led the hosts of Israel.

While men like Jefferson, Jackson, Clay, Webster and Lincoln present types which, to the minds of the Common People of America, are best and greatest, the picture of “Chappie,” in all of his splendid apparel, peculiar pronunciation, abnormal immoralities, will sink into insignificance beneath the flood of the people’s contempt and disapproval; just as the party to which “Chappie” had allied himself were swept away and submerged, November 8, 1892.

CHAPTER VII. HON. JOHN BRISBEN WALKER, ON HOMESTEAD.

It is the good fortune of only a few to be possessed of the remarkable genius and imbued with the spirit of prophecy to predict coming events with the certainty and accuracy of the Hon. J. Brisben Walker, who, in an article published in the Cosmopolitan for September, 1892, foretold, with wonderful force, the rock upon which the Republican bark was drifting. It was not until the manuscript of this volume was almost completed that attention was called to Mr. Walker’s article. To the credit of journalists, and writers generally, be it said that no class or profession are as willing to recognize the ability of their brothers as are the members of that profession whose aim it is to foretell the future, to weigh the evidence of public opinion, prognosticate as to the result thereof, and record the events that transpire, either in accordance with their prophecies or contrary thereto. To Mr. Walker be accorded the honor of justly appreciating the suppressed indignation of the people, and of sounding the warning note to the wealthy, prior to November 8, 1892. To the writer of this volume little credit is due for merely recording that which, since the result of the election is known, is perfectly apparent. Had Mr. Walker looked into the future and been blessed with prophetic vision, he could not have told, more clearly than he has, the forces that were operating in September, and which produced the results so surprising to many in November.

While Mr. Walker has taken Homestead for his text, the application of his article to the condition of the people of the Union generally is so apparent that each man for himself may shift the scene and make it applicable to his own little community. In every village, town, city, or county in the Union, is some one man, or some set of men, who arrogate to themselves a certain superiority resulting from the accumulation of wealth in their hands; this accumulation, having arisen from the inequality in the distribution of the increased wealth of the nation, being in many cases purely accidental, and in others the result of the phenomenal development of the resources of this country, coupled with the wonderful spirit of invention shown in the land in the last thirty years. Mr. Walker takes Carnegie and Frick as types of the class to which the people object so strenuously. The building of a church, or the founding of a library, is but a small price to pay, in the opinion of the American people, for the right to assume privileges detrimental to the growth and continuance of that doctrine so dear to the hearts of the masses—the equality of man. Mr. Walker entitles his article, “The Homestead Object Lesson,” and begins by saying:—

“An affair like that at Homestead educates the public mind rapidly; more rapidly in a month than ten years of books and pamphlets. In the face of death, men stop to think. What led to this? What does it mean? What is the remedy? And when the daily journal gives in one column the picture of Cluny Castle, or the magnificent pile from which the Lyttons have gone out to admit partner Phipps from the Homestead mills, and in another sketches showing the dead and dying upon the banks of the Monongahela, the contrast is so sharp that one draws a quick breath of discomfort, and even the most conservative, whose manhood is stronger than his love of dollars, admits that something is wrong.”

If a man in the walk of life of Mr. Walker shall “draw a quick breath of discomfort” at the scene he pictures, because his “manhood is stronger than his love of dollars,” how utterly obvious it ought to have appeared, and should now appear, to those possessed of wealth, that an appeal for the support of that class who, as American citizens, not only possess an abundance of manhood, but, in addition thereto, are sufferers by the wrongs or conditions written of by Mr. Walker, was and is useless.

“Lovers of the Republic may well tremble at this exhibition, so closely resembling the evil days when rich Romans surrounded themselves by hired bands of fighting bullies. True, our modern rich man does not parade the streets, surrounded by his gladiators. He sits in a secret office, removed from danger, and, in communication with the telegraph wires, orders his army concentrated from many States by rapid transit, and moves it unexpectedly upon his private foes. There is lacking that personal courage which gave a half-way excuse to the Roman who, sword in hand, shared the dangers of the fight. But the risk to the Republic is all the greater from these modern methods. For, if a man may hire 300 poor devils ready to shoot down their brothers in misery, there is no reason why he may not hire 10,000.”

There are not a few of us who will recall the natural indignation aroused in our bosoms while witnessing that noble impersonator of Virginius, John B. McCullough; the idea of the degradation to which we were drifting, by the possibility of the existence of an aristocracy, whose hired bullies and parasitical clients acted as panders to the worst passions of man. If it be possible to adopt the old Roman method of hiring bullies and assassins, and maintaining paid private armies, how very possible to come to a condition similar to that so powerfully portrayed in Virginius! Lovers of the Republic, of honor, and virtue, may well tremble, at the bare possibility, vaguely imagined, but evidently more vivid to the minds of the masses, than was contemplated by those autocratic gentlemen who ordered their mercenaries to Homestead.

“There is another side to this matter. Raised up under the system which declares that any man has a right to control, without limit, the earth’s surface and its productions, or the labor of his fellow-men, Mr. Frick, doubtless, feels that he is performing a sacred duty in protecting his property at Homestead, by any means that the law permits. Thousands of good men held the same thought regarding their slaves, before and during the war. It really seemed to them a divine right of property, and all classes of the community to-day—learned ministers and professors, intelligent merchants, and high-minded men of all professions—hold that our system of distribution is not only legal, but fair, and authorized by the teachings of the Gospel.”

In the most lucid manner, Mr. Walker continues to give the causes of the existence of conditions conducive to the results which have been produced by the accumulation of wealth, and, in consequence, assumption of a superior social position by the possessors thereof:—

“Less than half a century ago the people of the United States were comparatively poor and the wealth of the country distributed with a near approach to equality, less than a dozen individuals having fortunes approaching the million mark. The laws had been made for the existing conditions of labor, and were, as a whole, of a satisfactory character. No one had yet dreamed of the marvelous inventions and discoveries of natural wealth which were to upset all the conditions of production, and make the succeeding fifty years a wealth-giving period, unprecedented in the history of the world. Anthracite and bituminous coals, petroleum, the cotton gin, the reaper, steam and electricity, with their thousand marvels, were suddenly emptied upon a community whose laws had been made for conditions the very opposite of those now existing.

“It is not to be wondered at that the American mind should seize upon the possibilities which old laws gave to individuals for grabbing these newfound treasures. They would have been more than human if they could have resisted the temptation, and besides, it must be recollected that the Christianity practised was of a perfunctory character, formal and nominal rather than real, and civilization just beyond the period of wild beast skin wearing. In fifty years the creation of wealth has become prodigious; the distribution of wealth has become frightful in its inequalities. The laws, which were beneficent for an agricultural and pastoral people, worked degradation and infamy in a manufacturing community. They permitted the few to grab the greater part of this new wealth. With great fortunes are coming upon the scene an unparalleled luxury upon the one hand, and a poverty upon the other, scarcely surpassed in the days when production did not equal one-tenth the present output. In the strife for wealth the law-making power was found to be a useful auxiliary. Judges were bought, senatorships were sold in the interests of railways and the great corporations; and within the last ten years we find wealth—not contented with the advantages which the laws, confessedly in its favor, give it—hiring private armies to give force to edicts allotting to the laborer a lesser share of the product.”

Experience and observation force the conviction upon our minds, that Mr. Walker is correct in his assumption that even the ministers believe that the distribution of wealth among the masses is not only legal, but fair, and authorized by the teachings of the Gospel. A little strange, however, is it for the teachers of the doctrine of Christianity to maintain principles so utterly at variance with those expressed by their divine Master: “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.”

“There is only one class to dispute this proposition. They are the toilers, whose labor is the immediate cause of the production of our wealth. We may say that there must be intelligence to direct, and that to the intelligence which takes advantage should come the gains. But Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Frick are proofs that in the ranks of labor itself there is intelligence to direct. Many Carnegies and many Fricks would spring up to-morrow if opportunity permitted. If one would study the justice of a system of political economy, let him surrender his vested rights of property and take his place among those whom the system crushes, whose labor it devours, and whose reward for labor is a bare, joyless existence. We who have the money can reason speciously regarding the justice of our laws, the excellence of our system of government. The laboring man can only groan in spirit. He has not hitherto had the power of his vote, notwithstanding our boasted representative government, because his brothers, in the agony which poverty brings, in their effort to relieve the hand-to-mouth miseries of their existence, have sold at each election this birthright for the merest taste of pottage.”

Fortunately, under the Australian system of voting, it was impracticable to buy Esau’s birthright with a delusive mess of pottage held out by the protected, wealth-accumulating, sham aristocrats.

“Everyone knows that this has been true, that the labor vote has never been a unit, that its purchasability has been one of the well-understood factors in ward politics, that there has been no combination, no united effort, no intelligent direction, no willingness to submit to leadership, and that there is to-day no probability of the vote of these people being cast at an early election for the objects in which they are so deeply concerned. The issues that are before the public in either of the great political parties for whose candidates the votes will be cast, are very largely those which concern the people of means and influence. Platforms are dictated with reference to Wall street, and the great corporations and the rich men who supply the sinews of political war.”

Fortunately, Mr. Walker’s prophecy has proved incorrect. There was a time in the very near future when the objects so sacred to them would outweigh any possible advantage that might accrue to their pocketbooks by voting with those who would impose the yoke of a class distinction upon our country. It was nearer the day of retribution than even Mr. Walker, farseeing as he has demonstrated himself to be, supposed. The 8th of November was to witness the vindication upon the part of the workman of his inherent right to exercise his prerogative as an American citizen, uninfluenced by mercenary motives. Almost without an error has Mr. Walker gauged the public feeling. It is pardonable, in one who is so much nearer right than the majority, to make one single error. None of us appreciated how full were the hearts of the workingmen, the poor, and those oppressed by wealth and stung by an attempted exhibition of the privileges accorded to “caste.”

“Nevertheless, there is a ground-current steadily moving across the continent. Workmen, who were wholly ignorant thirty years ago, are partly educated to-day. Within fifteen years, a highly-intelligent class has sprung up among the workmen themselves, and there are a few really able men who have been making efforts for their advancement. That man Powderly, for instance, is a statesman of a high order. He has capacity for organization, he has singleness of purpose, he has determination, and he has courage. And he is only one of a number. They have been educating their followers, and teaching them to unite upon certain simple propositions. It is like the fencing-master, who puts in the hands of his pupil the single-stick, before he confides to him the glittering rapier. There is talent enough among them to organize a movement more formidable than that of Spartacus. Thank God, they are men who love the Republic, and who hope for the elevation of their people through the evolution of the law.”

Mr. Walker could have gone on and called the attention of the wealthy to the fact that, while these men loved the Republic, they did not love the foreign spirit that pervaded the would-be upper classes. It is well that a man of Mr. Walker’s position should feel it incumbent upon him to compliment, or, more properly speaking, to duly appreciate, a man like Powderly. Mr. Powderly, were he not a statesman and a patriot, is possessed of dangerous powers; were it not for the great amount of virtue, honesty, and common-sense that resides in the bosoms of the masses, some dangerous, daring, and magnetic leader might spring into prominence and cause the overturning which Mr. Walker so ably depicts later in his article. Mr. Powderly, and men of his kind, have ever acted as the governing-power on this tremendous engine, called Labor, in this country. They have exhibited a degree of conservatism and consideration for the rights of the wealthy, as well as the rights of the laborer, which entitles them to the respect of all sound-minded Americans.

“Two things must always be borne in mind: First, that the laboring men have the majority, if they choose to exercise it, not only of votes, but of physical strength. Intelligence and cunning were, once upon a time, factors upon which the few rich could count to keep in subjection the many poor. The time is rapidly approaching when these will no longer avail. There is a prevailing thought that this must be a Republic, indeed, where all men shall be equal before the law; where the law will carefully guard the industrious man against the greedy man; where cunning will not place labor at the greatest of disadvantages; where labor will become honorable, and idleness contemptible; where effort will be expected from every citizen in the direction of his best talent, and where the needs of the unfortunate, through disease or inheritance, will be respected; in a word, the model government in which a near approach to the ideal Republic will be attained, an example set which the countries of Europe may well imitate. We have the opportunities here, with our rich territory, our great natural resources, and our population yet uncrowded, to do this. If we fail, the idea of a Republic may well be abandoned for the next 2,000 years.”

Forcefully is it called to the minds of the fortunate possessors of wealth, by Mr. Walker, that the poor are in possession of a superior physical force. It would be well for those who enjoy the protection accorded to them and their property by this vast population, made up largely of the laboring classes, to consider what a small percentage the “wealthy” represent in the mass of 65,000,000 people. Their pronounced minority becomes apparent whenever they oppose the will of that great majority, the “Common People.” Should it ever be necessary to arbitrate any question of difference by physical force, how absolutely unequal are the contending elements! Men like Mr. Powderly have ever sought to cast oil upon the turbulent waters occasioned by too much arrogance upon the part of the wealthy. It is not only equality before the law which the poor man prizes, but that equality which is rather of a sentimental than a legal nature. He recognizes no inequality as existing between the woman whom he honors as his wife and the woman whom men like Messrs. Carnegie and Frick may clothe in seal-skins and laces, and bedeck with jewels. It is not only before the law that the poor man desires to be equal. The sentimental portion of his nature is moved to create a difference, socially, resting only upon those natural inherent qualities, worth, merit, and virtue, and not that which has its foundation in the possession of wealth alone.

“That was a curious interview between the commandant of the militia, the gentleman born and bred—with an inheritance of belief regarding the rights to accumulate property, even if in so doing one crowded one’s fellow-mortal to the wall—and the iron-workers who constituted the Homestead committee. Gold-spectacled, practised in the art of snubbing and sure of the physical strength at his back, the officer was more than a match for the laborer, who in his turn was awed by his inherited respect for wealth and power. Chilled and overawed, the representatives of labor went down the hill from this unequal interview. The general in charge had neither the grace nor the will to recognize a labor association which embraced a membership large enough, if properly organized, to sweep out of existence the entire army of the United States. They must have reflected, as they went down the hill, these representatives of labor, that if a militia organization carried such weight, permitted such freezing dignity upon the part of a citizen towards other citizens, it might possibly be well for their interests to have a few thousand of their own men enrolled in this same militia. There is nothing to prevent a body of American citizens from organizing themselves as a militia organization with proper arms and equipments. There are enough workmen in Pittsburg and vicinity to give a hundred regiments of the full complement of ten companies of seventy men each, with as many more left over for onlookers at parades. Six months of hard drill such as the enthusiasm of these men would permit would leave them equal to the best of the Philadelphia troops. Does anyone believe for an instant that if there had been a hundred such regiments among the workingmen of Pittsburg, General Snowden would have declared that he could not recognize the existence of such a body of men as the Amalgamated Association?”

We will assume, with Mr. Walker, that the commandant of the troops sent to Pittsburg by the Governor of Pennsylvania, was a “gentleman bred.” About a man being born a gentleman, we may hold opinions at variance with Mr. Walker. Horses may exhibit the fact that they are thoroughbred, when intelligence in the shape of a jockey is perched upon their backs; but born gentlemen in America have never, as a rule, by their scintillating genius and danger-defying patriotism, carved out names upon the eternal monuments of the nation to rival the names of Clay, Webster, and Lincoln. We hope that the man put in command of the Pennsylvania militia was a “gentleman bred,” but the exhibition that he made of himself, while clothed with that brief authority, would not be conducive to the formation of such an opinion.

In his meeting with the citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, who were contributing towards the payment of the taxes from which the expenses incurred by the State were to be defrayed, he did not conduct himself in a manner such as to make a shining example for those who shall command, in the future, the citizen-soldiery of the Republic. He seemed utterly oblivious to the fact that he came, not as a conquering hero, but as a private citizen, invested with a brief and circumscribed authority exercised for the greatest good to the greatest number in the prevention of lawlessness and violence and the peaceful solution of a local difficulty with which the Sheriff of the county appeared to be unable to contend. The arrogance assumed by this “gentleman bred” was not calculated to create any great amount of good feeling in the breasts of his fellow-citizens, to pacify whom he was sent by the Governor of his State. There would have been but slight loss of dignity upon his part to have allayed their anxiety by a little exercise of that “good breeding,” patience, and consideration for the feelings of others, which are supposed to be characteristics of the gentleman the world over. General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the armies of the nation, as victor in a contest of four years’ duration, has set a magnificent example in the treatment of his vanquished but great opponent, Lee, by his courteous, kindly, and magnanimous behavior toward Lee and his vanquished legions whom Grant had so long faced and at last vanquished.

“I choose to ask this question as a reductio ad absurdum, in the hope that it will cause my own class, who have power and authority, to stop and reflect that perhaps it will be best to concede something in the way of law, to regulate this one-sided distribution of wealth, lest it should be regulated through bloodshed, or, what is more horrible still, should throw into power, through sheer brute force, elements which will bring our Republic to anarchy. If there could have been pointed out to the nobles of Louis XVI. the things which were liable to follow their arrogance, the children of these French rich would have cause for congratulation to-day.”

Mr. Walker says that he chooses to ask this of men of his class. He hardly means that. Men of his class, like himself, would have brains enough not to require the question. Mr. Walker doubtless refers, in speaking of men of his own class, to the wealthy, and to them it is well addressed and worthy of their careful attention. France had its 14th of July, which should have taught Louis XVI. and his nobles the lesson which it is hoped has been learned thoroughly by the rich of this country, as taught in the result of the election of November 8, 1892. These are but the premonitory symptoms of a terrible scourge that might sweep over our country. The poor may be robbed with impunity; the “Common People” will good-naturedly submit to a lot of snubbing; but it would be well for men accustomed to exhibit their impudence and assumption, to forego the snubbing process when brought in contact with the people, as General Snowden was, while commanding the military power of the State, as he did at Homestead. General Snowden might well be taken as a type of the “smart set” of Philadelphia, imitating the manners of the McAllister “smart set” of New York.

“The fact is, we have two separate worlds in this country. The man who lives in what is known as the world of society has no conception of what the world of labor is thinking. Their worlds are almost as distinct and as completely cut off from each other as if one had its capital at Kamtchatka, and the other at Terra del Fuego. The poor do injustice to the kindly-hearted people whose minds have been warped by the teachings of inheritance and by their environment of wealth; and the rich do not dream of the thoughts which fill the minds of the poor. It is a dangerous ignorance. These two factors are like the nitre and charcoal of gunpowder. Any stray spark may produce disastrous results. The laborer believes now that the law is gradually being altered to suit what he considers the equities of his position. Let him become fairly convinced that the government is for the few, that the military is but a means of carrying out schemes of aggrandizement by the rich, and that votes are bought or majorities counted out in the same interest, and the crucial hour of the Republic will at once have arrived.

“Can science do nothing towards the solution of these difficulties? Statistics show us that if we were all to labor, no one would want for anything, neither the necessities of life, nor reasonable pleasures, nor enjoyments. Again, is there any intelligent rich man, who would not wish his sons to labor? Who does not believe that labor, in moderation, brings happiness, if only that it gives a keener zest for recreation? Who does not believe that idleness brings mental and physical injury? Who, then, would wish for his children existence in a community where idleness is to be their lot? Is there any thinking man who can feel reasonably comfortable, when only a few blocks distant, thousands are eking out a dark existence by labor that extends, in many cases, over double the allotted number of hours, who have few pleasures, and fewer still of what we call the comforts of life?”

It is not simply that those not possessed of wealth may live within a few blocks of those who are possessed of wealth; it is not that their lives may be eked out in darkness; it is the crushing shame to them that their miserable existence is made still more hard to bear by the flaunted superiority, socially, of the possessors of wealth, who live a few blocks away. Poverty, when accompanied by none of the other and more objectionable features, is not so hard to bear. The poor man believes in the dignity of labor. He does not feel degraded by the fact that he may toil with his hands. He only feels a sense of shame, and his bosom only swells with wrath, when the disdainful dames of the wealthy class presume to snub or insult his wife, the sharer of his toil and privations. She is to him the light and life of even his miserable hovel, only a few blocks away from the wealthy; hence, the keener pang that he experiences when the one bright spot in his life, sacred to him, is invaded by snobbery and pretended class distinction.

“Yet wise laws could regulate much of this in the brief period of one generation. Lighten the burdens of taxation upon the poor, by letting those whose wealth is protected by the State chiefly furnish the means of subsistence for the State, at the same time offering a discouragement to the amassing of great wealth. The well-known expedient of income-tax would be a step in this direction. Take out of the control of private individuals the power to amass great fortunes, at the expense of the public, through the management of functions like railway, express, and telegraph, which are purely of a public character. Establish a system of currency, self-regulated, by means of postal savings banks; tax highly the unimproved properties which are held for purposes of speculation. Finally, let it be a recognized principle that when men employ many laborers, their business ceases to be purely a private affair, but concerns the State, and that disputes between proprietor and workmen must be submitted, not to the brute-force of so many Pinkerton mercenaries, but to arbitration.”

The espousal, by Mr. Walker, of a doctrine which, to most of the wealthy, is rank heresy,—an income tax,—is a step in the right direction. A graduated tax, to be regulated by the amount of income received and enjoyed by the taxpayer, would furnish a speedy, practicable, and just means, not only of preventing these vast accumulations in the hands of individuals, by accretions resulting from that part of their income which they are unable to spend, but it would also furnish a means whereby the Federal Government might be supported without the imposition of even the existing internal revenue tax, and only such protective tariff tax as would prove absolutely necessary to sustain our manufactures. It was a great step in the right direction, for the owner of such a prosperous magazine as the Cosmopolitan, the possessor of much of the world’s goods, to propose such an expedient for the relief of the people; especially when coupled with the suggestion that corporations, like those of the railroads, telegraph, et al., should not be controlled and managed for the profit of individuals. We should have fewer strikes, and much less labor trouble, if the Government controlled the great corporations who employ large numbers of laboring men.

This article is given prominence and so liberally quoted from—not alone from the intrinsic merit of the article and discernment of the writer in predicting the overthrow of plutocracy, and warning the rich against their insolence to those less-favored brothers, as far as worldly wealth is concerned,—but also, because of the position of the writer of the article; a man of brains, enterprise, energy, and wealth.

CHAPTER VIII. SURRENDER AT HOMESTEAD.—ORGANIZED LABOR DEFEATED.

It is fitting to follow the chapter composed so largely of what Mr. Walker has written concerning the condition of affairs at Homestead, with an account of the surrender. Carnegie, the owner of castles and coaches in Scotland, the many times millionaire, and Frick, his representative, living in luxury and attempted social superiority, have vanquished the forces of organized labor. They have won the battle.

Some victories are more disastrous than defeats, and this victory, at Homestead, of capital, wealth, sham aristocracy, against the people, will teach the people to seek other methods by which their wrongs may be righted. It will show them, coming as it does just after the exhibition of the great power of the people, November 8, 1892, that their plan of action must be changed; that the effective missile to be used against the autocratic aristocrat is not the bullet, but the missive called the “ballot.”

The plan of campaign of the poor “Common People” must be changed. Their defeat at Homestead will be the precursor of a long line of victories yet to be recorded. Organizations of voters will spring into existence, instead of Knights of Labor. The nation will give birth (as it ever has, when necessity has demanded) to men of organizing abilities. The Carnegies and Fricks will find the ballot of organized voters more effective in preventing encroachment on the rights of the people than the bullets of the strikers at Homestead hurled at the hirelings of Pinkerton. As Mr. Walker so ably says, in a conflict of physical force, the people—that is, the poor—are superior; when, according to law, they deposit their ballots, they will enforce the election of the chosen of the majority in spite of all the private armies of the Carnegies and Fricks. And, should that occasion arise, the militia and General Snowden will be found acting with the people in defending the rights of the people. There will be no insolence and arrogance then upon the part of the commander of the militia; for, after an election wherein the people have legally chosen their representatives and legislators, not one militiaman would obey the orders of the “well-bred” gentleman of Philadelphia, if such orders were contrary to the will of the majority as expressed at a legal election.

The representatives of the first grade of “caste” have won at Homestead! In their “well-bred” bosoms, exultation may be the feeling of the hour. Enjoy the brief respite in the fullness of selfishness; but the hour is at hand when, according to the laws as enacted by legally-elected representatives, the people of the Union shall fill your “well-bred” bosoms with a sorrow and disappointment occasioned by your arrogance, selfishness, and disregard of their claim for respectful treatment upon your part of their representatives of organized labor. When their representatives, as organized voters, issue their mandates, no supercilious commander of militia, blessed with a little brief authority, will dare resist them.

Organized labor is defeated at Homestead. Organized labor, organized in heart and spirit, if not by an expressed Association, won a great battle November last. The victory of the sham aristocracy at Homestead was but a skirmish. The victory at the polls in November was a Waterloo and Gettysburg rolled into one. The commander-in-chief of the victorious army is Grover Cleveland. In his hands the people place the power of their support—the great majority. He represents the choice of the “Common People”—not because he’s a Democrat—not because the people have become Democratic, in the narrow sense of the word, but because Cleveland represents to their minds the opposition to sham aristocracy, “caste.”

Grover Cleveland is an exponent of that sentiment that made Abraham Lincoln President in ’61; Jackson, President in ’28; Jefferson, President in 1800. Call the party by whom he was nominated any name that best suits the fancy of the speaker. It’s the same grand old, broad party of the people; triumphant now as it ever will be, God grant, in this Republic! We want no Republic in America like that of Venice. The people have entrusted Grover Cleveland with the executive power of the nation. At his hands they will expect the righting of those wrongs which these petty tyrants, sham aristocrats, believers in social distinction and “caste,” have inflicted upon the people. They have chosen representatives in Congress who control both branches of the legislature, through whom the people shall express their will and pleasure; and the people will expect of Grover Cleveland, as they did of Abraham Lincoln, Jackson, and Jefferson, the execution of their wishes. The people have never been disappointed by the actions of their former chieftains in this matter. When made chief magistrate of the nation, every former leader of the people has executed the will of the masses, according to the laws as enacted. No former chief magistrate has ever presumed to use his power of veto contrary to the will of the people as expressed by a majority of their representatives.

The eyes of the nation are upon Grover Cleveland. In return for the defeat in their skirmish at Homestead, the people will expect to reap the fruits of their victory in the great battle of ballots last November. Long have they suffered, and now that the golden opportunity has arrived, the people are not to be thwarted. With kindly but scrutinizing gaze, the people regard their new leader, Grover Cleveland.

The New York Sun, of November 20th, in an account of the defeat of the Amalgamated Association, prints the following:—

“A prominent member of the Association was seen at his house this afternoon. His grate was piled high with burning pamphlets. Pointing to them, he said:

“‘I have no more use for them. They contain the laws and rules of the Amalgamated Association, and I have taken this means to be rid of them. I hardly think the Amalgamated lodges will be continued here, as nothing can be derived from membership in it. A potent fact in losing the strike was that too many of our men returned to work, and this helped the company to get its mills into working order. It was not the company, but our own men, that lost the strike.’”

This prominent member of the Association, who was engaged in burning the laws and rules of the Amalgamated Association, was inadvertently acting in accordance with the unexpressed thought that the people had found a surer means of righting their wrongs than that furnished by associated labor. They had learned that their power, when opposed to the rich and aristocratic, was better utilized in the exercise of the ballot than when expressed through associated labor and associations of crafts and certain kinds of labor. If the Carnegies and Fricks were wise, they would view with fear and trembling the disruption of this thing called organized labor, which has been a toy by which the people have been amused and entertained and diverted from the use of their most effective weapon, the ballot.

Organized labor and association have proved a pretty tin toy sword, which was attractive to gaze at upon a holiday parade, but utterly valueless in actual warfare. Its absolute inefficiency was never more clearly demonstrated, because it had never been so thoroughly tested in any previous contest of labor, as at Homestead.

Here is given concisely—as that most excellent journal, the New York Sun, always presents all matters of public interest—an account of the cost of the strike to the laborers, to the capitalist, and to the State of Pennsylvania. Even the most careless reader and the most superficial inquirer after truth will read in this statement the evidence of the brave and valiant battle made by labor, which was defeated because the very sword it fought with was not of the kind of metal for actual warfare. The Ballot! the Ballot! the Ballot! is the weapon of the future:—

“It is almost impossible to give figures at this time on the cost of the strike, but conservative estimates place it at about $10,000,000. Of this, about $2,500,000 were in wages to the men. The firm’s loss is thought to be two or three times that. The direct cost of the troops was nearly half a million. The indirect loss has been very large indeed.

“This contest was brought on by a demand for a reduction of wages of about 33-1/3 per cent. on certain classes of work in the open hearth departments, Nos. 1 and 2 mills, and in the 119-inch and 32-inch plate mills. This reduction directly affected only about 325 out of the 3,800 men in the works, but the others took up the matter as a common cause through sympathy, and agreed to stand by the men interested in case of a strike.

“The scale expired under which they were working on June 30th. The company wanted the Amalgamated Association, which controlled the workmen in the mills, to sign the scale at the reduction. The scale was to be renewed on January 1st, instead of July 1st. The Association refused, and the men threatened to strike should the request for the existing scale not be granted before July.

“On June 30th, the company locked out all men before they had the opportunity to strike. The wages question was soon lost sight of, and the contest for the recognition of organized labor followed. On the dawn of July 6th, the famous battle took place between the workmen on the mill property and the Pinkerton force attempting to land and take possession of the mill.

“Then followed the trying times at Homestead, the reign of the Advisory Board, the scenes of lawlessness, the calling out of the troops, their long and trying stay, the shooting of Mr. Frick by Berkman, the departure of the troops, the arrest of the Homesteaders, the beginning of their trials, and now the ending of the strike.

“According to Superintendent Wood, of the Homestead works, not more than 800 or 900 of the total number of old employés will be able to secure employment. Before the break of last Thursday, there were left in Homestead about 2,800 of the original 3,800 men who were locked out. Of these 2,800 men, 2,200 were mechanics and laborers and 600 Amalgamated Association men.”

If Carnegie, Frick, son-in-law W. Seward Webb, of the New York Central Road, and men of that class can find any comfort in this evidence that the “Common People” have at last realized the utter lack of merit in their weapons, called “Organizations and Associations of Labor,” then most heartily are they to be congratulated. Let them enjoy for a brief period their dreams of autocratic power; for there will be a sad awakening as the result of the realization upon the part of the people that the ballot-box is the place for effective battle, and not the lodge rooms of Associations and Organizations.

Grover Cleveland is the Grand Master of the great Organization of the Associated People, who legally will now enforce the demands of the “Common People.”

The defeated laborer, mechanic, and workman of Homestead has a prospect before him, so full of hope and promise, presenting a picture so pleasing to his oppressed soul, that the scene of his disastrous defeat becomes obliterated. Let him turn from those days of suffering, so vividly portrayed by the Herald of November 25th:—

“There were dozens of tables in Homestead to-day where the Thanksgiving Day bird was absent, and on many of these tables hunger was the only sauce in sight.

“To-day while plenty ruled in American homes, starvation and cold were closing their grip on the families of the Homestead strikers. While the horn of plenty unrolled its golden store into the hands of the nation, there were children in Homestead crying for bread, with weeping mothers and despairing fathers.

“While well-clothed citizens were going to highly respectable churches to return thanks, there were people in Homestead shivering over scant fires, wondering where the next meal would come from. There were men with shoes so full of holes and clothes so ragged as to barely cover them.

“The present sufferings of these men, women, and children were made all the keener by their forebodings of the future; of a winter without work, to be passed at the gates of starvation; with no work to be had at the Carnegie mills or any other mills on account of the terrible blacklist.”

The question will arise in the mind of the poor man, when recalling HIS Thanksgiving dinner, With what did Andrew Carnegie and H. C. Frick feed their families that day? With what kind of conscience did they bow the knee and raise their voices in their costly churches and address the throne of the lowly Jesus, who left in the records of His life, utterances like these:—

“If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.” “Sell that ye have, and give alms.”

The answer which will force itself upon the minds of the “Common People” will not be such as to lessen or moderate the demands which they will make for the fruits of their victory in November.

They have endured much; they have starved at Homestead; they have been cold and hungry; they have been led astray by false gods; but the Land of Canaan is now spread before them. The ballot-box has become their guiding star and hope. The bitter experience endured that Thanksgiving Day will prove a benefit to them in removing from them the danger of relying upon the tin sword in future. Every line of this article in the Herald is full of danger to the insolent power of the rich, arrogant, sham aristocrats. It is brimming over with a lesson that the blindest is bound to read by the light of the recently-achieved victory of the people:—

CANNOT LEAVE HOMESTEAD.

“Dozens there are who cannot leave Homestead or its vicinity. They are under heavy bonds to appear in the Allegheny County courts on charges of murder, treason, and riot. To stay means starvation, because here they will find little or no work. To go means to be sent to jail, because bondsmen are fearful and do not relish the idea of forfeiting thousands of dollars.

“Most of the storekeepers in Homestead have ceased to give the locked-out men credit. If they did, it would mean bankruptcy. All of them are already creditors for hundreds and in some cases thousands of dollars, with poor prospects of getting any of it back for months, possibly years.

“The last strike benefits that will be paid by the Amalgamated Association have been received by the idle men. Right here be it said that these benefits were by no means as reported during the strike. Not one-half of the men got $4 a week, and the majority received about $2 a week.

“The Homestead steel-workers and their families are in need of almost everything that goes to make life comfortable. All need clothing more or less. One man I met to-day was trying to prevent the biting wind from sweeping a well-ventilated straw hat from his head.

“Then there is fuel. There is hardly a street or roadway in Homestead on which there did not stand a house or several of them in which the cold stoves made the temperature more frigid by contrast. Those families that did burn coal or wood did so through the kindness of the neighbors or the good-will of the fuel merchant.

PLAYING THANKSGIVING.

“In walking through Homestead to-day I passed a vacant lot on Fourth avenue, in which a fire was burning. The fuel consisted of logs dragged from the river. Surrounding the fire were ill-clad boys and girls. They were keeping warm and roasting potatoes. One of the boys told me that ‘Maw hadn’t much for dinner at home, and we are playing Thanksgiving.’

“This was their feast; they were children of the strikers, who lived in a clump of shanties near by.”

Playing Thanksgiving! God of justice! look down upon such a picture. Playing at praying! Absolutely making a game and jest of thanking Thee! So cynical has become the hearts of even these children, caused by the oppression and injustice of the oppressor, that they would make a game, a jest, of giving thanks to the Giver of all good things! because the good things were on the tables of Carnegie, Frick, Webb, and others, while they, somebody’s children—poor, “Common People’s” children, perhaps—were cold, ragged, and hungry; making a feast of half-burned potatoes, veritably, in a spirit of irony. So hard and desolate has become the destiny of the poor of our land that the children cease to be natural, loving, gentle, and sincere, and have become ironical, sarcastic, holding so lightly the respect due to the God of all men, that they make a jest of the day consecrated to rendering thanks to the Giver of all good things of life!

A picture like this, for which the sham aristocrats are absolutely responsible, does more to arouse a feelings of socialism and anarchism in the breasts of even the best citizens, than all the ravings of crazed nihilistic leaders. Stop such scenes now! Socialism and anarchism have no foothold in America. Don’t allow these dangerous “isms” to form an entering wedge. Such scenes as those poor children, playing Thanksgiving, are the greatest allies of the socialists and anarchists.

The gentleman (?) known as Ollie Teall should receive, at the hands of the disciples of anarchy and socialism, a medal for his valuable services in attempting to present a picture to the delectation of the assembled “Four Hundred,” of the children of the poor feeding (as animals, poor creatures!) in Madison Square Garden, last Christmas. This man, Teall, may have no qualities to recommend him other than this, that he is a superlative example of those who would create a state of anarchy in this country.

It was his proposition, so it appears from the newspapers, to make a kind of horse-show at Madison Square Garden, wherein the children of the poor should perform the part of the horses, the animals. It was proposed to sell boxes to the rich, that they might sit around and behold the exhibition of the animals! To the originators of this novel exhibition is due the thanks and praises of the anarchists, who have sought a haven here, for they played into the hands held by the anarchists with wonderful precision.

We must all respect the courage and manliness of one man who, justly conceiving his duty as a teacher of the doctrine of his Master, arose and protested. Yes, and he was worth more than a brigade of soldiers in quieting the wrath of the people, the Rev. Dr. Rainsford, of St. George Episcopal church, in Brooklyn, and let his name be remembered for his courage in denouncing the most damnable exhibition of the tendency of the “Four Hundred” of New York. The name of the Rev. Dr. Rainsford, of the St. George Episcopal Church, will ever be remembered by the poor as that of a man, a Christian, an American, and a gentleman. Vigorous was his denunciation of the spectacular exhibition of the feeding of the poor like so many cattle.

Yes, fair “Four Hundred,” as the nobles of France told the peasants to “eat grass” and were amused at their attempts of the performance, so you would feed a lot of poor children in Madison Square Garden, and take stalls and boxes to look on at the peculiar performances of the hungry eating! You know that each child is but the coming American man or woman. You would make a Roman holiday to exhibit the necessities of the People, who are your rulers. Delightful entertainment for the exclusive “Four Hundred,”—to sit around with their many millions and gaze at the ravenous appetites exhibited by the children of the poor. It was a holiday like the holidays in Rome, when the nobles assembled to see the persecuted Christians torn and mangled by every form of beast that, by research, could be brought to the Roman arena. Dr. Rainsford, thou art “a man for a’ that.”

Do you wonder, millionaires, why the people whose children you would exhibit to create a carnival for you, did not vote with you November 8, 1892? Of the purchasers of the boxes at Madison Square Garden for this unique performance, ninety per cent. were Republicans. Shades of Abraham Lincoln, look down and see the strong oak of thy creation benumbed by this parasite entwined around it! Imagine the creator, the originator, the father of the Republican party, this high priest in the hearts of the “Common People,” Abraham Lincoln, at such a scene. He would have been down with the children. In his loving arms he would have held the children of the poor. And these “Four Hundred,” a little better than the “Common People,” would look on at the feeding of the “common folks,” and, from their assumed exalted position, view the performance gotten up by their money, and would have had a sensation of almost hunger aroused where abundance had produced satiety. The proposition to hold such an exhibition as the feeding of the poor children in Madison Square Garden was in itself an insult to every American citizen. Imagine, fair lady, as you loll in your carriage drawn by your high-priced bays on Fifth avenue, how pleasant it would be to have your little curled and perfumed darling, left at home under the watchful eye of some imported French bonne, exhibited as a freak in a dime museum. Think of the tears that should be shed on a mother’s bosom, being paraded before the public as an object of amusement. A child’s sorrows and its joys are as sacred as the law of God delivered to Moses on Sinai, for a child has more of God in it; and you would make of the children of the poor, and their wants, and needs, and appetites, a spectacle that you may pay so much money and see?

The lisped prayer of the child of the poor ascends to the throne of God as surely, though it proceed from a hovel or the gutter, as that from the downy couch of the ease of luxury in the palace on Fifth avenue. Do not the poor love their children with the same earnestness and fervor as the rich? Have you to learn this lesson anew? Need you wonder, you people who seem astonished at the result of election, why the mighty voice of the people should be raised against you? You who wonder why the party of you, “the respectable,” should have been so overwhelmingly defeated, recall to mind the contemplated carnival you would have held in Madison Square Garden, feeding like pigs, the children of the poor, and thank God that the volcano upon which in seeming security you rested found a vent without tossing you heavenward. There would have been rivers of blood instead of lava; the ballot of 1892 was your salvation.

Slumbering wrath was in the breasts of the people. One Robespierre or Danton would have set aflame this feeling, and the “Common People” only need a leader, an organizer who will teach them under form of law that their mighty voice is paramount, and the sham aristocracy will be crushed and annihilated, as was a better aristocracy in France in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Don’t let history repeat itself.

Can such pictures as depicted in these few lines of the Herald about those poor children’s Thanksgiving dinner, the feast proposed by the “Four Hundred” at Madison Square Garden, be accurate and represent scenes in free America, the richest, freest, best country on earth? or are these some occurrences seen in poor, starving, Czar-ridden Russia? A bow of promise was in the sky that Thanksgiving Day, however. The people had spoken a few days before. They had selected their representatives to make laws relieving them of the presence of such scenes as above described. They had selected an Executive of unquestioned honesty, who will execute such laws as will emanate from the representatives of the people.

The people had given no sign, but in silence had been thinking of scenes like that proposed at Madison Square Garden. They had voted November the 8th in silence.

Silence is often more dangerous than utterance. The deadly cobra gives no signal before he strikes. “General apathy” and the silence of the people was deadly earnest, and you know whether it was forceful or not. And if the party that the people have put in power will not do the will of the people, then the people will put some other party in power which will execute the desire of the masses. It is a quicksand that the rich tread upon. So accustomed have the rich become to the patience, long-enduring suffering of the poor, that they deem it impossible that any condition could exist other than the present. Only remember that Charles Stuart, Louis XVI., Tarquin, all thought it was impossible that aught could interfere with the set order of things; but righteous indignation, the wrath of the people, like a whirlwind may obliterate the little edifices of dust built upon the past.

The rest of the story, so vividly portrayed by the Herald, is worthy of consideration and attention:—

“I visited the house of J. W. Grimes, a striker, on the hillside, above the mill. He had a pair of rubbers on his feet. The rubbers were worn away and had been sewed together with twine. ‘You see, my shoes are so bad,’ said the mill-man, apologetically, ‘that I have to wear these rubbers. Jim Sweeney threw them away, but I found them and sewed them up,’ and he exhibited a shoe that would almost have fallen from his foot, but for the rubber which held it.

“Grimes was doing the family washing when I met him. His arms were covered with soapsuds. He told me his wife was very sick. He had been injured in the mill before the strike and had been able to save but little. Since the strike he has been able to get only a few days’ work, and his wife took in washing and did scrubbing to keep the family in bread. Now she is near death’s door, a mere apparition, while her husband has no work and there is little in the house.

“I went to the house of Bridget Coyle, who, during her testimony in the Critchlow case the other day, said she would not tell a lie for all the money Carnegie is worth. Two of her boys worked in the mill; one has secured work in another city, but is making barely enough to keep himself. Another son is at Homestead, and idle. ‘We have enough in the house to keep us another week,’ said Mrs. Coyle, ‘but after that the Lord knows what we’ll do. I just got a little coal on trust, and do wish I had a pair of shoes.

“‘We own this little house; my son paid the last on it just before the strike.’ She had rented, out a couple of rooms to Joshua Bradshaw, a mill-man, with his wife and four children. ‘They owe me six months’ rent, but Lord, I know they can’t pay it, so I don’t ask them. They are poor people, and the missus is badly sick.’

“Patrick Sweeney, another ex-striker, who can’t get work in the mill, and who lives on Sixteenth street, has been hunting for a pair of shoes for several days. Those he has were shoes once, now they are tatters. Sweeney, like dozens of the other men, has paid no rent for several months, and lives in daily dread that his family will be evicted. Being blacklisted, he cannot find work in Homestead or elsewhere.

“William Davis, of Fourteenth street, told me there wasn’t a pound of coal in his house, and a little less in the house of his mother, who lives alongside of him.”

AN APPEAL FOR AID.

“The instances mentioned are only an index to the suffering. Through personal pride most of the misery in Homestead is hidden as yet. When winter sets in, dozens of cases will come to light.

“On Saturday a meeting will be held to issue a call for aid. It has been called by Elmer Bales and John Wilson.

“Mr. Bales said to-day: ‘There is positive suffering in Homestead from lack of food, fuel, and clothing. The sufferers will not speak of their distress to you or any other outsider, but we who live here know of it only too well. In a week or two it will be much worse.’

“Hugh O’Donnell did not eat any turkey in the Allegheny county jail. There was no observance of Thanksgiving in his case. He was compelled to put up with the regular prison fare, which is not fattening to those who have tried it.”

Capital has vanquished labor at Homestead; but the skirmish left scars which will long remain unforgotten. Labor suffered, and learned that the power of the people resided in their presence at the polls on election day, when Carnegie, Frick, Webb, and others of the sham aristocrats and believers in “caste,” became of no more importance than each poor laborer, workman, mechanic, clerk, shopkeeper, or farmer, to whom on other days they assumed an air of superiority. The learning of the lesson was worth all the suffering that it cost the “Common People,” as represented by the workmen and strikers at Homestead, Pa.