DEMOCRACY AT HOME
Follette, Robert M. La
DEMOCRACY AT HOME An Editorial By ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE WE ARE fighting "to make the world safe for Democracy" and it behooves every American citizen in the coming elections to vote for, and only...
...Wherever there was a contest, whatever the local coloring or leadership the issue was to bring the Government back to the people...
...There you have it in a nutshell, and this is the blessed land of equal rights and equal opportunities for all...
...The coal, oil, mineral and timber lands were in the grasp of monopoly...
...Is there a man anywhere in this country so densely stupid that he does not know that these same special interests, typified by Standard Oil, the Morgan Combination, United States Steel, the International Harvester Trust, the Packers, and other like business organizations, have in defiance of every principle of American Democracy preyed on the American people and their Government for more than a generation of time...
...The contest assumed national proportions and Wall Street money was in every campaign...
...There were very many other issues of great moment fought out in that \ovz struggle,—every one making for a more thorough-going Democracy...
...We fought for the just taxation of railroads and other corporations, which, under laws enacted at their dictation, were defrauding the State of millions in taxes...
...two million people own sixty per cent of all our wealth...
...Where did they stand on the issues in the long fight for Democracy in Wisconsin...
...The farmers found their profits restricted to an increase in the land values...
...Search their records, investigate the'r business and professional connections...
...DEMOCRACY AT HOME An Editorial By ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE WE ARE fighting "to make the world safe for Democracy" and it behooves every American citizen in the coming elections to vote for, and only for, candidates who by every act of their lives, public and private, have proven their devotion to the cause of American Democracy...
...Are they smirched with political services for special interests...
...The casual observer on the side lines understood that much at least...
...You cannot set up an invisible government of such magnitude in a day...
...Throughout the long struggle for Democracy in whatever country or time, whether in civil arena or the field of battle, there never was a cleaner issue, a fiercer fight than that in Wisconsin...
...It is high time for us to be on guard as never before...
...this is what has befallen since our boasted American Democracy became a thoroughly Monopolized Democracy...
...Is there a man anywhere in this country -who 'would knowingly have voted to commit the cause of American Democracy to the special interests and their representatives...
...We were fighting for the right of self-government,—for real Democracy...
...The fight for just and equal taxation is always a fight for Democracy...
...Labor, drugged with a nominal increase in wag*9, found the purchasing power of actual earnings steadily reduced...
...That was a fight for Democracy...
...We shall then do well to concentrate all our power and dedicate all our patriotism in the task of "making these United States safe for Democracy," not a Morganized Democracy but a Democracy where the will of 'he people is the law of the land—a Democracy in which there shall exist no trace of privately owned monopoly and no type of special privilege...
...In this new country with its fat soil and thrifty population, an industrial oligarchy was firmly established before the people were fairly conscious of its scope and power...
...With the true cost of manufacture actually reduced through invention and higher efficiency, the industrial combinations year by year rapidly increased prices upon the consumers, and what is the net economic result of the control of our country by this mighty power...
...There were notable contests in a number of States: Wisconsin, Oregon, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, California, and New Jersey...
...When we shall have gotten through with the somewhat large undertaking of making the world safe for Democracy, we shall find something to do for Democracy at home...
...Transportation rates, wages, food, fuel and everything necessary to life were brought under control by this centralized power...
...Even after it was entrenched in power behind the forms of our political democracy, it was dislodged here and there in the control of Municipal and State Governments...
...Their henchmen had the backing of railroads and all public service corporations, sleepirig car companies, express companies, insurance companies, telephone and telegraph companies, the banks, the manufacturing interests, and press of the State...
...Voters of Wisconsin in this critical hour, I ask you to remember how the lines w*re drawn and where men stood in that great struggle...
...As I began, so I close with an appeal to voters everywhere: We are fighting to make the world safe for Democracy, and only those who have proven their loyalty to real Democracy should be trusted in any position of official responsibility...
...equal rates for all, free passes, secret rebates and other special privileges for none, were all hotly contested issues...
...It required time to bring about the gr-'it change...
...That was a fight for Democracy...
...At the same time the great bulk of the wealth has been gathered into the hands of a little group of the very richest, constituting in fact but 2 per cent of our total population...
...The balance is unequally distributed among the re-maining ninety-eight million...
...Adequate service for all, reasonable rates for all...
...Wo fought to secure for the voter the right to name his own candidates for office through the direct primary, under the Australian ballot, and to overthrow the delegate system so easily controlled by the money and manipulation of the agents of special interests...
...They knew something was radically wrong...
...In the elections now on in Wisconsin let the voter beware...
...There are those who hate every principle of Democracy who are now seeking place and power, and cloaking their real designs with patriotic phrases which may mean much or little...
...The Government of Wisconsin was reconstructed and given back to the people...
...No one questions the authority of Professor King who says that 65 per cent of our people have become so poor that prior to, this war, their annual income was less than $200.00 per capita...
...We fought to control the rates and services of railroads and other public service corporations...
...The special interests were in absoluce power throughout the State...
...We won on every issue...
Vol. 10 • August 1918 • No. 8
