the Russians to the Japanese-the Russian conscript slaves winning not one battle.

Why do the lords of England build high iron fences around their castles the old moats having dried up and drawbridges fallen into decay and portcullises out of repair? Shutting themselves in, they put up the signs "Beware the Dog!" and "No Trespassing! Keep off the grass!" Accursed are such men! Dante gives them no desirable quarters in his "Hell." What is wanted is public sentiment that will roast him, like a pig on a spit, who puts on airs above his fellowmen, wasting the substance of the people in needless display. There must prevail absolute equality-absolute democracy; nor shall the President of the United States ride in a special coach nor shall there be "Jim Crow" cars for any class of citizens of whatever color; but all shall fare alike and no man shall sit down to a better meal than another.

And how will this come about? Not by any compulsion from without; but by leaven from within. It will be the ripened fruit of our Christian culture. Shame will come to redden the cheeks of him or her, as death to Ananias and Sapphira, who "keeps back a part” and who continues to be better to do than is his or her neighbor. It is as we have been taught to think and believe. See how the Doukhobors are controlled by their beliefs; how Christian martyrs by the million have given their lives for their opinions. There is nothing that marks a savage like gaudy feathers in his hair. The feathers we adorn our persons with are trappings beyond the reach of the many-automobiles, grand palaces, etc. Yes, we build great mansion-houses large enough each of them to shelter all the suffering poor in the municipality-the latch string drawn in, and, too, clubs and costly suppers prevail-the wayfarers in the highways and hedges not even invited, let alone "compelled to come in." (Luke XIV:23.)

When we shall have embraced the religion of "doing the will of the Father" will the true democracy result-true equality "my abundance for your want," etc. (II Cor. VIII:14.) Soon all men will see and believe that the philosophy of life presented in the New Testament is transcendentally perfect as are all the other ideals-that of sculpture, poetry, architecture, oratory, history, etc.-preserved to us from the "Masters"-the grandest the world has known-and all will conform their lives and actions to the supreme ideal, "Christ dwelling in us"-the mind that was his being ours. Then shall God's Kingdom come in-the New Heaven and the New Earth.

There was for a long time, distrust of and dissatisfaction with the national guard on the part of the corporations that employ labor and through whose dictation the guard was instituted. When it was attempted to "nationalize" the guard and this attempt three times failed by the refusal of the lower house of congress to pass the measure that had passed the senate, to empower the President to send the guard from one state to another to shoot strikers, the corporation tyrant lost confidence in the efficiency of the guard to do the work of bloodhounds of the corporations. If nationalized so that the Iowa guard could be sent to Pennsylvania to shoot strikers there, and the Pennsylvania guard sent to Iowa to shoot strikers here, then would the guard be indeed a regular army of the United States.

But the purpose on the part of the accursed corporations who are the slave lords of the world a hundred fold more cruel and oppressive

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than were ever the chattel slave lords of the South, is to hold the workingmen prisoners of war and work them at the bayonet's point for less compensation than was given the negro slaves. The negro slave had assured to him the essentials of life-food, raiment and shelter while well, a physician and careful nursing while sick. It was as much the slave owner's interest to keep his slave in good physical condition as it is the owner of a horse to keep it in good condition. But not so with the incorporate tyrant who works wage slaves. By the action of the employers by conspiracy and design, at least one-third of the workers are kept out of work, made into tramps, so that the number applying for work is legion. If fifty men are wanted to do a certain work on the streets or in the gutters, or for any job, five hundred men would apply. That was the state of things until the present "flush times" caused, as were the good times during the war, by “inflation”—then of Greenbacks—now of national bank "water" or so-called "bank currency." It was so all over the United States and it has been so ever since 1873, when first "resumption" began to operate as a poison to the commonwealth. This gold conspiracy for the destruction of equality and of the prosperity of the many, the centralizing of the wealth of the nation in the hands of the few, is one of the links in the chain-the army another-the chain that it may take a mighty effort to break, with greater cost in blood and treasure than it took to destroy chattel slavery in America. It were a thousand times better that chattel slavery was in vogue than that a regular army be built up and brigades of regulars be stationed in all the great labor centers. Why station a brigade of regulars in Des Moines? It is to shoot down the workingmen if they strike. What does that mean? It means war. It means that every man employed on railroads or in the mines is a prisoner of war. It means that the strike is the deadline. Cross that line and you are shot and bayoneted by regulars. This is the plain English of it and no man can deny it. It is plain and transparent. The citizens of Des Moines donated five hundred acres of land in order to induce the President to station regulars here! Donated. By whom? By the railroad and mining corporations. But what ought the people to do? They should organize as minute men precisely as our forefathers did when British regulars were sent to Boston, and resist this most wicked encroachment of the corporation kings upon our liberties as our New England forefathers resisted King George III., rather than submit to enslavement, for our fathers did right in resisting the stationing of regulars on Boston Common-if not, why not?

Just the moment the army of a hundred thousand regulars is built up and the troops stationed at the great labor centers will the American republic end. From that moment will we be under bayonet rule. The great trusts will "tax us without our consent" and any kick of the suffering masses will be answered by the Gatling gun and the people mowed down in windrows if they attempt to make any resistance to trust rule.

Let there be no army but the militia. Let every man over eighteen and under forty-five be enrolled in the militia and be armed with the best modern repeating rifle and each keep on hand a thousand rounds of fixed ammunition. Only under this condition can we hope to preserve a remnant of our rights. That is as our fathers designed. "Every freeman is expected to have some kind of arms and know the use of them" is an English law almost as old as Magna Charta. Let every man keep a gun above his cabin door. Whoever objects to this is not an American.

The imperialist would disarm the people and arm a select corps of bloodhounds of the corporations-"a regular army." The men who pushed the measure through congress to build up a regular army of a hundred thousand in the United States and destroy the militia are public enemies.

YE 253D LESSON.

A Military Post.

The old buckskins-the men who, under Colonel Fry, Colonel Stark, General Putnam and Colonel Warren fell at Bunker Hill, in an effort to break up a military post at Boston in the days of the fathers, if they, above us, see and know what is being demanded for Des Moines, what do they think? Surely that only madness possesses the minds of the commercial class. A military post for Des Moines! It is, as with Israel of old: "They demand a King." Will a military post be any more beneficial to us than to the people of Boston at the dawn of the Revolution? In what respect? Not commercially. In view of the seeming demand for a brigade of blue-coats to be permanently stationed in or near Des Moines, it seems strange and unaccountable that the people of Boston, and of all New England, should have not welcomed with rejoicing the landing of the British regulars there. What fools our forefathers were. Why did they not deed to King George III. Beacon Hill and from four to six hundred acres of land surrounding it to induce his majesty to locate an army post there? The fathers were British subjects and the red-coats British regulars, and yet the fathers repelled at the bayonet's point those red-coats, in spite of the "commercial advantages" of their location on Boston Common. Strange beings our fathers were! "Jealous of their liberties" history says. But who is the historian to speak of our jealousy" of our liberties to-day? Why, money, money, money is not money and money-making the all in all of human existence! Liberty! Good heavens! Why talk of liberty!

is what is wanted; not liberty.

Money

What harm were the red-coats to Boston? Did not their presence benefit the merchants and the farmers? Did they not buy butter and eggs? Did they not patronize the grog shops and the baudy houses, as our regulars do? Surely their presence was a "great commercial advantage" to Boston and New England. And yet Concord and Bunker Hill and the siege of Boston attest the imbecility of our forefathers, who took down from above their cabin doors their old flintlocks and drove the red-coat regulars to Halifax-broke up the army post!

Who has any brains and cannot see that the fathers did right? Who has any brains and cannot see that the same motive that placed the red-coats in Boston places the khaki-coats in Des Moines? What was and is the motive? It was and is to overa we the masses. Το what end? Robbery. Who are the robbers? Incorporate wealth. Then it was kings and lords against the buckskins. Now it is king corporation and the villianous blood-suckers in and out of office against the toiling millions.

Why are regulars planted in the great railroad, mining and manufacturing centers? To shoot strikers. To what end? To enslave labor. All men know this to be the very truth. This thing must stop. Liberty cannot survive in the presence of armed bloodhounds of incorporate tyranny-a regular army! Look at Germany; look at France; look at Russia; yea, look at all Europe-the toiling millions slaves to a few-held down by military power. But the people of Des Moines donate four hundred or more acres of good land to "induce" whom? The railroad and coal mining corporations to plant their minions of death and damnation here in our midst to shoot us down if we do not bow to the yoke. What does the constitution of Iowa mean that says "No standing army shall be kept up in Iowa in time of peace?" Why did the framers of our constitution insert in it that clause? "It will pay to have an army post at Des Moines," is the cry of hypocracy and cunning. It is a lie. It is the most dangerous and most villianous move ever made. It means death to

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337

liberty. It means slavery of the toiling millions. How long will liberty survive here in the presence of the power that has destroyed it everywhere and at all times, in ancient as well as modern days?

Are we to sit still and see this thing carried through without protest? I think not. Of course the "Commercial Exchange" is a big thing. About a hundred men of Des Moines belong to that organization. It represents whom? Not the people. It stands for speculative interests. What do the speculators care for the common welfare? Nothing at all. Who ensalve mankind? The speculators. Who would destroy popular liberty the world over? The speculators. For whom did Tommy Atkins fight in South Africa? The speculators. Who deprived the Filipinos of all their rights and placed them under an absolute alien tyranny? The speculators. Who own seventy-five per cent of the wealth of America and pay but ten per cent of the taxes? Two hundred and fifty thousand speculators. Who control the machinery of the dominant party? Speculators. Whose nod do president, governors, congress, legislatures and courts obey? The speculators.' Who are the speculators? Stockholders of corporations. To corporate greed must the millions succumb, enslaved by military power? "No! by the immortal gods, no!" Thus the revolutionary fathers spoke. Let us speak as the fathers spoke.

YE 254TH LESSON.

Bayonets vs. Ballots.

What must result as the outcome of the Spanish and Philippine war? An increase of popular welfare or of plutocratic despotism? An ex-adjutant general of Iowa writes me: "You are on the right track. The military reorganization bill is the culmination of the war scheme. If 100,000 men, then why not 500,000? Either this government will be run by ballots or bayonets. If by ballots, then there is no need of an army; if by bayonets then there must be enough to control-little Russia!

As you

"The national guard, or militia of the state, must be an exclusive state organization, entirely under state control. This is a state right that holds the balance of power in this government. say, the army bill will be drafted by those interested in centralized power in the general government."

Every patriot knows that the words quoted above-the words of a true patriot-are true. My blood boils and every fiber of my flesh quivers with patriotic indignation when I think of what is designed by the Drexels and Morgans, the Hubbards and Hewetts, the Fricks and Pullmans, with the aid of traitors, whom we in our imbecility, call "representatives of the people." Wall street controls the present administration and congress and the supreme court body and soulthe ruling power of the nation voting away their own manhood and the people's rights, making the speaker of the House the one to do for all, abolishing the House of Representatives, and placing all legislative power in the hands of one man, the tool of plutocracy.

But these plutocrats must rule, by the help of a standing army. They cannot, they well know, hoodwink the people always. As when George III., determined to rob our forefathers of their chartered rights. he stationed an army of regulars, under General Gage, in Boston, so would the enemy now place a brigade of regulars in every railroad and mining center and every labor center. For what purpose? Who does not perceive the purpose in view? Read the history of our country. Read the life of Joseph Warren. Have you ever heard of Bunker Hill? Was not that battle fought by the yeomanry of New England, to drive the regulars out of Boston?

But the regulars must stay somewhere! Yes, and so must the pest hospital be stationed somewhere. But our fathers did not want the "pest" planted on Boston common; neither do we on Des Moines common, in this great railroad and mining center to overawe the slaves who turn brakes and dig under ground? If not treason, then were Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold not traitors! What difference in stationing regulars in Des Moines in 1899 than in Boston in 1775? It is the same thing, and has the same object in view-enslavement of the people. And as our forefathers met the regulars of George III., so ought we receive the armed minions of plutocracythat is, with the same positive spirit if not with guns.

as

It is the purpose of the enemy-the incorporate tyrant of the ageto place the United States under the power of the sword, as soon the enemy can no longer carry elections by fraud, bribery and falsehood.

You cannot speak to an intelligent, disinterested patriot anywhere to-day who will not acknowledge that the country is now governed by speculators; that the United States is the reserve of Wall and Lombard streets.

So, as soon as the present scrap with poor, old Spain is settled, we shall see established a standing army of (at first) 100,000 regulars, to be increased ultimately to 500,000.

YE 256TH LESSON.

The Dollar's Damnable Doing.

The dollar is an arch fiend, the foe of all good. He has hypnotized society and is crushing out the life of Liberty. All men are prostrate in front of his car of juggernaut. Nothing is done that is not of his dictation. Nothing is sought but his benediction-his blessing. The rights of man are lost sight of in the rage to be among his worshippers. Men whose brains are not addled look on and say "rotten!" There is nothing left but rottenness. All is decay-party, yea, many, many old time associations, corporations, etc., and the dollar stands in the way of the setting up of the better. The laundry workers of Des Moines organized a "union." The treasurer ran away with the funds. Foul murders are committed and the dollar saves the rich murderer from the gallows. But a poor boy of sixteen becomes crazed with unrequited love and kills his sweetheart. He is hung. The dollar was not there to help him. The boy must die. O, dollar! why go to Rockefeller and leave the widow to starve! Why do the few have thy blessing and the many beg in vain for crumbs that fall from Dives' table?

But the evil will not be lasting. It will end soon. The dollar in the end will meet defeat. Liberty will triumph. But today what do we see? As the bleeding and dying on the battlefield cry, “water, water!" so is every fool (and all are fools) crying, dollar! dollar!" Yes, the contagion has reached the many. Clerks of election place their own names on the jury panel in violation of law because they think the dollar calls them to come up to the countyseat. The court indignantly casts them all out and appeals to the lawmakers for help, the jury system broken down by the dollar. Bridges are built, library buildings erected but the cry is "graft!" So, too, of paving contracts. The contractors, 'tis said, get more than they give and the work poorly done. But nobody is prosecuted. Who get away with the funds? The library board? The board of public works? The bridge commission? Why are not grafters indicted and punished?

But no, the dollar has something more to do than to destroy public