FIGHTING THE FOES OF DEMOCRACY
Corrigan, Walter D.
Fighting the Foes of Democracy Special Interests Oppose All Measures of Progress, Corrupt Newspapers and Dictate Editorial Opinion By WALTER D. CORRIGAN (Attorney-at-Law, Milwaukee) For...
...The same forces bitterly contested this in Congress and the courts...
...But the foes of democracy, by their insidious methods and power, stayed the hand of the people again...
...Hogging Natural Resources THESE lands were given in trust, the conditions of which were most favorable to the trustees, and yet the trusts have never been performed...
...Instead, companies have been organized or those already organized have been preferred, and the lands have been stripped of the best timber to the great profit of favored moneyed men and politicians, and the rest left for destruction by forest fires...
...He is a thorough student...
...The railroads got the land and a part of the profits of the timber...
...No one can deny that there is such a division now...
...Wisconsin is the guilding star amongst the constellations, to which all lovers of democracy may point with pride...
...We wanted representatives to represent and not to defeat the will of, the voters...
...It has long since been established and no one dare gainsay the fact, that the money interests have ingeniously set themselves up as middlemen between the producers and consumers of the land...
...In a recent address Mr...
...It has done much...
...Men and women who appreciate life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...
...When we stood for a railroad law, first in Wisconsin, and later in the Nation, which would destroy their court made doctrine known as the Fellow Servant Rule, they opposed it...
...La Follette, the legislature of 1901 was manipulated by the forces of what my dear old friend Judge Webb called barrel politics, so that the platform promises were defeated...
...for instance, are planning to burn corn during this coming winter, which would feed the starving millions of the world...
...When we foughs for fair and just railroad rates, they fought to maintain the continuance of this special privilege...
...He points out that the farmers are being maligned by these same special interests today in an effort to escape just measures of taxation and reforms.—Editor's Note...
...I believe that the rank and file in our great democracy can be trusted to be fair and just, and to live in accord with the great fundamentals of which I speak today...
...The farmers of Minnesota...
...This long and continuous fight here is but a part of the great fight always on everywhere between these contending forces...
...The enemies of democracy always set up scare crows against progress...
...To that end we proposed such laws as the Employers' Liability act...
...Another all important proposition demonstrates the same alignment...
...Objects of Hatred THE men who dared to undertake the mighty task...
...The vote upon this adjournment resolution discloses, perhaps better than any dozen previous tests, the real friends of the people in that body...
...Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty...
...The Interstate Commerce Commission was gijen the mandate to increase rates so as to make the guaranty good, and it has started to do so...
...The trained railroad managers offered their pretended patriotic services to run the roads for the Government and so far as serving the public in transportation, mismanaged the roads far worse than before the war...
...they are even called free-love advocates...
...Here in Wisconsin, aided by the packed caucus and the manipulated convention system, they controlled politics and public policy—wrote the railroad laws, taxed themselves and others and cast the burden on farms and home owners...
...Corrigan reviews the contest in Wisconsin between the people and special privilege...
...I pause to ask you what a profound difference it would have made to this day had our legislation on this subject always been standardized to fundamentals and our public servants always been mindful of real public service...
...The consumer of farmer's products, however, pays a price which takes the last hard earned dollar at the end of the month to-pay the bids...
...They will claim, as has been claimed, that to preach plain American democracy, to teach everlastingly the fundamentals of the forefathers and our constitutional principles, is teaching class hatred and is demagogy...
...The controlling politicians fought the Civil War over in every political campaign, arousing patriotism on past events and settled propositions, while they industriously kept their real purposes under cover and selfishly undermined the representative government of the forefathers...
...Accordingly they tried to recess the Senate for practically a month, because that appeared the only way to prevent consideration of and a record on pending progressive measures.—The Searchlight...
...It has strangled commercial enterprise throughout the country and destroys all prospects of prosperity...
...They have long anchored themselves in political power...
...Most of the old companies through un-scrupulous officers, farmed out to subsidiary companies, made up of their own men, the building of sections of their road at prices which enriched the few in power, bankrupted the roads, brought on foreclosures and froze out and defrauded the rank and file of the stockholders and many legitimate claimants...
...Men and women who ciaim that everything that is, is right, or that it is better to suffer the ills we have than to fly to those we know not of, are not friends of democracy...
...We are taxed now by freight rates in order that the roads may earn dividends on nothing—for this $7,000,000,000 is less than wind and water—it represents absolutely nothing...
...The Railway Grab THE Government was thereby made to guarantee to the roads an income for six months equal to the rental during the war...
...To further speak as they have will be plain confession, and though good for the soul, silence would betray less...
...they oppose the application of plain fundamental principles in the enactment of laws...
...Reactionaries Are Organized IN our own day this undemocratic and reactionary element has been carefully organized and thoroughly financed, to oppose all measures which the progress of the human race along democratic lines demands...
...They oppose the development of America...
...They were willing to blast the lives of the children yet unborn in order to keep up dividends...
...Through the manipulations of politicians inspired by money grabbers, we are left the devasted land, and as the heritage, the right to buy it at prices far in excess of any limit which would have been considered fair or reasonable to satisfy the purpose of the trust at the time of their creation, though they were even then born of fraud...
...The trust which was created to build the roads was further shamefully violated...
...they have brought support politically through manipulation in the public service...
...who believe in government with the consent of the governed, who believe in equal rights to all, who are willing to fight special privilege and are for the very life of democracy, will better serve these great fundamentals than men or organizations of the other type...
...No one who believes in real democracy need thereafter be troubled by their opinions...
...They were caught red-handed, but have since pursued their course by methods which are no more honorable but more suited to the genius of these modern enemies of a free press and a real democracy...
...We could suffer mismanagement in times of peace...
...I answer that the claim betrays them...
...When the farmers organize to locate and exterminate this octopus to our national life and our individual happiness they are damned even worse...
...When we fought rebates, a type of special privilege and a denial of equal rights, they fought to preserve this shameful graft...
...The simple truth is that the whole legislative situation was getting beyond the control of the Old Guard leadership...
...They are denying the facts of history, the history of their own country, and well known facts which live on with us every day and every hour...
...Democracy is progressive...
...Standing alone, this attempt to adjourn the Senate would mean very little...
...They have dictated and inspired editorial opinions...
...They demanded the destruction of the packed caucus and manipulated convention system, and the substitution of a real democratic primary in which every citizen would be entitled to participate in government...
...Instead they have been shamefully violated...
...and between money and men...
...Wo wanted our government to meet the ideals of the patriots who made it...
...Of what God gave this nation, of what our forefathers saved to us in patriotic service, we have left the right to buy devastated land at fabulous prices...
...This was all for the purpose of breaking down any prospect of continued Government control or ownership...
...which respect the inherent rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the doctrine of equal rights to all and special privileges to none...
...This is done manifestly to save dollars...
...The same interests have long sought to substitute for this wholesome measure a so-called Workmen's Compensation Act...
...We believed in the abolishment or modification of unjust common law defenses...
...It will serve no useful purpose—not even the selfish purpose of the enemies of democracy—to cry out that it is inconsistent for men to preach real democracy and to legitimately acquire property...
...There are men and newspapers who will declare that this is said to array class against class...
...The forces of democracy here made their first fight a fight for real representative government...
...I pray that some day the producers and consumers of this land may be able to co-operate through their organizations and otherwise...
...I do not believe it is possible to build up a bad organization out of so many good men...
...They have been lied about, called creators of class hatred, demagogues, socialists, I. W. W's., labor manipulators, free-love advocates, office seekers, prosperity wreckers, destroyers of representative government, and traitors...
...Both passenger and freight rates have been increased so that nobody ships who can avoid it, and people find it easier to walk or stay at home than ride...
...for to earn and so acquire is one of the fundamental rights for which democracy stands...
...Thus on actual physical value the roads are made to earn 9 or 10...
...If those reactionary doctrines had prevailed, democracy would never have been born...
...Then came the infamous Esch-Cummins Act—unfair to labor in every respect—and the most gigantic steal of this age on the American people...
...Every inch of the way, it has been bitterly opposed by the interests which might profit by the continuance of the evils it was designed to destroy...
...Lodge Moves to Adjourn THE most significant roll call so far taken in this session of the Senate was on July 5. Lodge, Republican leader, then proposed that there be "a summer recess...
...God had given to us and our children in plenty of these great national resources, but special privilege has assaulted the great work which God had done for us...
...They have corrupted news from almost the source...
...When we stood for fairer methods of taxation, they fought to save the dollar, the god spelled with a small "g...
...For timber and lumber we go to remote parts of the earth...
...Right in our state, but a few years ago, they went boldly forth to purchase that part of the press which they had not theretofore commanded or owned...
...Much that was done was done insidiously—underhandedly...
...We recognized the value of life, and allowed for the proportionate measure of fault...
...THERE has been a constant warfare since civilization began, between autocracy and human rights...
...They would give less value to the blood and flesh of working men...
...The United States was also made to guarantee a net profit thereafter of 5 1/2 or 6% per annum, figured on aggregate value—which is $7,000,000,000 higher than actual value...
...They paid little heed to their vote or public affairs...
...For that which we ought to have at home we pay excessive freight and fabulous profits to middlemen...
...a government in which the will of the people 6hould be the supreme law of the land...
...Under that guaranty the Government has made good to the tune of nearly $600,000,000 in cold cash...
...they have nourished and organized the press of the country, including the magazines, through which they have endeavored to mould public opinion, until today the press is rightfully without the power and influence a real American free press would have...
...Middlemen have made the price so low, and the Esch-Cummins ]aw has made the rates to high, that it is cheaper to burn it than to buy coal and pay the freight...
...A brief review of the history of the 25 years of this fight right here in Wisconsin will suffice to demonstrate the old, old alignment of forces contending for and against the great fundamentals of democracy since civilization began...
...But this powerful political organization did not stop here, nor do they ever stop anywhere, or for anything...
...I long for the day when labor will be thoroughly well organized...
...They have opposed and lied about every organization or effort which has sought to bring producers and consumers nearer together or which might make possible the handling, transportation, and delivering of products at a fair profit to those who render the service...
...They have wrapped the flag around their unholy selves and cried "patriotism" while they lined their pockets with the profits of war...
...We wanted to make political platforms, contracts, and wanted them fulfilled...
...Selfish leaders who were lining their pockets and building up vast fortunes were devoting much time profitably to politics, while the rank and file of our citizenship—farmers, laborers and business men—were so busy with their own affairs as to forget that their government was their own...
...On the other hand, the producers of the metropolitan centers—laboring men—gain scarce a livelihood and yet their products reach the farmers at prices which despoil the scant earnings on the farm...
...The farmer's food products have scarcely furnished a price to him, save in the stress of war times, by which he could gain a fair wage for his toil...
...between selfishness and greed on one side, and the common interest upon the other...
...The great inherent rights would have existed only in theory, and never in fact...
...The trust imposed that preference be given to sales to actual settlers...
...They proposed to purchase, outright, cash before delivery, the editorial columns of country newspapers and have their editorial matter prepared by their trained hirelings in the Eleventh Story league...
...I ask them to search their own consciences for the reason by which they speak...
...Then when the war was over they laid their mismanagement to the Government, and preached for the return of the roads to private control...
...Their moneyed confederates and politicians got the rest...
...It was then called socialism or some other "ism" for anyone to attack the manifest evils or advocate government ownership of the railways...
...When we fought to regulate the employment of women, they contested to hold the privilege of taking money out of lives of the mothers of the future human race...
...We wanted real representative government...
...We could stand this better in pioneer days, but as the state developed in spite of them, and society became organized, the burdens we had come to bear became manifestly oppressive and there came a time for another kind of reaction —a reaction to the real representative government the forefathers intended we should have...
...We may expect rates to go up, and wages to go down, and other wrongs to prevail, till the long suffering American people arise in their democratic wrath and power, and take the roads over, either by virtue of some form of real government control or by Virtue of actual government ownership...
...Money Control in Wisconsin MONEY so controlled right here in Wisconsin down to 1900 that one leading lobbyist for the money crowd made his brag, and truthfully, that in twenty years not one piece of legislation has passed, which they had opposed, and not one item of proposed legislation had failed to pass which they had supported...
...I am not assuming by any means that all men in politics or in business were dishonest in those days...
...but back of it, and involved in it, was the fate of several measures of vital consequence...
...Not Voting—Bursum, Calder, Colt, Culberson, Dial, Edge, Elkins, Ernst, Fletcher, France, FTelinghuysen, Gerry, Harrison, Heflin, Hitchcock, Jones, N. Mex., Jones, Wash., Kendrick, Keyes, King, Ladd, Lenroot, McCormick, Mc-Kellar, McLean, Myers, Newberry, Norbeck, Overman, Page, Penrose, Phipps, Pittman, Reed, Sheppard, Shields, Smith, Stanfield, Stanley, Swanson, Townsend, Wadsworth, Weller, Willis, Wolcott—45...
...The fight for representative government went back to the people in 1902, and in spite of the fabulous expenditure of money and dispensation of federal patronage "there was another victory...
...He has been through the thick of the fight against privilege in the Badger State...
...Their lobbyists did things in those days that made the patriots of '76 turn over in their graves...
...it has much yet to do...
...they oppose all propositions which would promote development along fundamental lines...
...This means Ws or 6% of $7,000,000,000 of water and wind...
...They have forced the small owner of bonds to place them in their hands for collection under contracts that are worse than those taken by pawnbrokers...
...We were sick of betrayal here in Wisconsin...
...It is a case of "A man's work goes with the sun, but a woman's work is never done...
...People Finally Win THE fight went on and in 1903 and 1905, after the most strenuous battles of political history, the people ruled in Wisconsin We have backslid on occasions...
...But for the great fight of organized railroad men and the help of such men as Hoke Smith and La Follette, this travesty on justice, an act designed to exempt employers from liability to the extent of 75 to 90 per cent of just compensation, misnamed a Workmen's Compensation Act, would now be a national law...
...We fought the idea that platform promises are mere scraps of paper to catch votes...
...Having- obtained contrel of the bonds under such mortgages, they evolve a so-called plan of reorganization, the effect of which is to give them large compensation for themselves and their attorneys, and to compel other small investors to either employ them or submit themselves to the tender mercies of a foreclosure action in the federal courts...
...This same crowd has fought every effort to obtain a "fair marketing bill, every effort for an investigation into this condition which everyone knows is rotten...
...Hundreds of thousands of acres of timber and timber lands were obtained by land grants through the favor of those who were supposed to represent the people, but whose nomination through the convention system was dictated by political bosses who were high in the moneyed organization which sought special privileges...
...We wanted real representatives of the people, not representatives of special privilege...
...Control by Wealth PERIODICALLY the trust companies of New York and their officers and directors have organized themselves into a self-constituted reorganization committee and have in turn solicited through advertisements and threats the deposit with themselves of bonds, held by innocent clients and investors throughout the United States...
...We would have no great fundamentals—no basis upon which to build a progressive democracy...
...Fight Farmers' Rights EVERY effort labor has made to find a remedy for this manifest wrong has been met by the assault of the money power which has its hands on the situation that lies between...
...What Lodge proposed was as follows: Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that when the Senate adjourns on Thursday it stand adjourned, until 12 o'clock meridian on the 28th day of July, 1921...
...The movement, which has to some extent taken hold throughout the nation, to right similar conditions and undo similar wrongs, had its start right here in Wisconsin...
...The roll call upon it showed: For Adjournment—Ball, Brandegee, Cameron, Cummins, Curtis, Dillingham, Fernald, Glass, Harreld, Johnson, Knox, Lodge, McCumber, Moses, Nelson, Oddie, Poindexter, Robinson, Robinson, Shortridge, Smoot, Underwood, Walsh, Mont., Watson, Ind., Williams—24...
...When we fought for the preservation of child life by the regulation of child labor, they fought to hold the privilege of reaping wealth out of the lives and health of growing children, and the generations to come...
...they have bartered offices through the appointive power, for selfish political ends...
...Conflicting ambitions have sometimes sacrificed and stayed progress, but on the whole, Wisconsin remains the most progressive state in the Union, the best example of real democracy in the wond...
...They would rather save dollars, by hiding behind the alleged negligence of a telegraph operator one hundred miles away, than to see an injured employe compensated for a wrong done and the life and happiness of his wife and children promoted...
...Now they are planning to lower the wages of the railroad men under other provisions of this same iniquitous measure...
...When long existing railroad mismanagement was demonstrated by the necessities of war, the Government took over the control of the roads...
...As a result of methods developed by modern genius in the great financial game, the great moneyed interests of the East as a result of activities, have succeeded in having themselves named as trustees in a large majority of railroad and public utility mortgages in which the savings of the whole people of the United States are involved...
...Against Adjournment — Ashurst, Borah, Broussard, Capper, Caraway, Gooding, Hale, Harris, Kellogg, Kenyon, La Follette, McKin-ley, McNary, New, Nicholson, Norris, Owen, Pomerene, Ransdell, Simmons, Spencer, Sterling, Sutherland, Trammell, Walsh, Mass., Warren, Watson, Ga.—27...
...La Follette's Fight For Labor WE proposed to help those who were com-pelled to suffer the extraordinary hazard of active railroading, to a square deal...
...In spite of an pverwhelming victory at the polls in 1900 and platform promises as binding on every legislator as on Gov...
...who threw their lives and their fortunes into this great movement have, of course, been the objects of all the hatred of special privilege...
...The powers entrusted to them under these mortgages give them a firm hold on the savings of our people, and I assert that the trust companies of New York and their connections, by reason of the facts to which I have called attention, control more capital than any other combination of men or institutions in the Uited States, but as is to be expected from men who come to occupy positions as trustees, as a result of solicitation, they have performed their duties questionably and to their own grossly large financial profit...
...Hours of service with him are from before daylight until after dark, and with farm women it is even worse...
...I long still more to see the farmers thoroughly organized...
...In case of death they were willing the wife and children should suffer the humiliation of becoming public burdens, and that society should take over the whole obligation...
...the silliest booby cry ever uttered by the scared and unscrupulous monopolistic outfit...
...Fighting the Foes of Democracy Special Interests Oppose All Measures of Progress, Corrupt Newspapers and Dictate Editorial Opinion By WALTER D. CORRIGAN (Attorney-at-Law, Milwaukee) For twenty-fire years Walter D. Corrigan, a prominent lawyer of Milwaukee, has devoted much of his time to the progressive cause in Wisconsin...
...Their voice and power and influence lay dormant while the enemies of democracy and of the very principles "which made and make us a great nation —were twisting our state and country out of line with the ends and purposes of our constitutional forefathers and revolutionary patriots...
...In the early history of our own state, they stole the lands and the forests...
Vol. 13 • September 1921 • No. 9
