SHALL THE SPECIAL INTERESTS RULE?
Kittle, William
Shall the Special Interests Rule? BY WILLIAM KITTLE I. THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT. 1. Is the Republican Party Breaking Up? 2. Is the East Also Insurgent? By Ray Stannard Baker in the recent...
...leadership of exactly the same quality as that of Adams and Henry before the American Revolution, and that of Wendell Phillips and Abraham Lincoln before the Civil War...
...BAKER states that "the conservative people have been sitting like some vast, silent jury, awaiting the full presentation of the evidence...
...Through their subserviency and agency, the power of the Special Interests has enormously increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished...
...Kittle will tell about "The Joke's on You," an article by Samuel Hopkins Adams which appeared in the American Magazine Cor May, 1910...
...Next week Mr...
...Bristow had arrived...
...Shall this government of our fathers be a government of, by and for the people, just as Lincoln meant...
...La Follette, Bristow, Cummins, Beveridge, Clapp, Dolliver, Lenroot, Nelson, Murdock, Norris, Everett Colby, Winston Churchill and the others are in this great contest to carry forward the historic and established doctrines of American economic rights and political freedom...
...The Insurgents or Progressives would make the government representative and democratic just as Jefferson and Lincoln meant and just as the people today without regard to party want...
...control of states by railroad companies...
...BAKER says that the aggression of capital is driving the Insurgents—the people—to a closer organization...
...AS A PREPARATION for these two articles, Mr...
...A calm, steady people, they awaited the full proof of what they suspected...
...He found Insurgency self-conscious, articulate, and aggressive...
...He had "precipitated the first of the 129 roll calls in the great tariff debate...
...it is a moral movement which is now sweeping re-sistlessly forward and entering upon the national stage—the final stage...
...During the last fifteen years, they have radically revolutionized the government...
...La Follette gave this message to the empty seats—and to the nation: "Seats now temporarily vacant m&y be permanently vacated by those who have the right to occupy them at this time...
...disclosures of the foul methods of insurance companies...
...Baker traveled for several months in Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Wisconsin, Indiana, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania...
...The Senate sat up and took notice...
...These were facts and facts were what the people wanted before they acted...
...Leadership in Middle West MR...
...The "Regulars" in Congress would abolish a government of, by, and for the people and give us a government of, by, and for the steel trust, the sugar trust, the beef trust, the Standard Oil Company, and all the other special interests that take the "Profit of Privilege...
...Aldrich and Cannon are the true radicals and Revolutionists...
...Bristow asked again and saw several other Senators recognized...
...It is common knowledge that the great co, porate interests arc reaching out to seize water-powers, sites, absorb coal mines on government lands, grab the remaining timber, occupy mining lands, get firmer control of public franchises in cities, and of great insurance and banking institutions...
...He did not visit the State of Washington where the Progressives have a live association of newspaper editors, a candidate (Miles Poindexter) for United States Senator, and an organization soon to dominate that State...
...La Follette was the first live Insurgent in the Senate...
...the sugar trust as a common thief and corruptor of government officials...
...Kansas is proud of Bristow...
...or a Government of, by, and for the Special Interests just as Alprich and Cannon mean...
...Baker's articles were published, a portion of that "vast, silent jury" has rendered a verdict on the evidence submitted...
...Senator Bristow of Kansas is the true Insurgent...
...They are strictly conservative in this economic and moral conflict for all that is best in American public life...
...In the recent tariff debate, he asked, "What is orange mineral...
...leadership marked by courage, ability and integrity...
...These showed over and over again and pilrd proof upon proof that this government had become a government by privileged property interests, that it was not really a people's government at all...
...He says, "this Insurgent movement is not mere economic restlessness...
...By Ray Stannard Baker in the recent February and March numbers of The American Magazine...
...During the last five or six years the logic of events has yielded voluminous evidence:" exposures of corruption in city politics...
...On the occasion of his first speech in that body, the Aldrich-Hale-Lodge crowd, in an effort to insult the new member, herded into the cloak rooms...
...That defiance was a prophecy which he has helped to fulfill...
...It will give you a glimpse of the System at work in Congress—an inside view of the devious manner in which "jokers" are concealed by Aldrichites and Cannonites in bills demanded by the people.—EDITOR'S NOTE...
...He asked the third time and got no answer...
...He left out California where the Insurgents are an aggressive minority...
...The whole movement for conservation of our national resources has no significance save as it is an effort to check the aggression of private capital upon public wealth...
...But he traveled many thousand miles in the Middle West and in-the East, talking, as he says, "with all sorts of people, politicians, editors, lawyers, business men, labor leaders, —and both Conservatives and Progressives...
...This is the inner meaning of the Pinchot-Ballinger controversy...
...He has read the roll calls on the System Senators from New York to the Pacific coast...
...Since Mr...
...The Real Issue in 1910 MR...
...A Congressional district in Massachusetts and another in western New York have overwhelmingly condemned Aldrich-ism and Cannonism...
...the beef trust, the private-car monopoly, the coal trust and the steel trust, all taking their "Profit of Privilege" and oppressing labor and the consumer...
...Cause of the Progressive Movement MR...
...BAKER found the leadership of this movement in the Middle West...
...Then the tall, lank, grim Insurgent Senator addressed the chair in a voice that could have been heard three blocks off, and shaking his fist at Aldrich said, "I represent in part a State of almost 2,000,000 people and I demand a roll call on this paragraph...
...revelations of graft and greed by the Standard Oil Company...
...He did not go to Oregon where fundamental democracy is an achievement...
...Nobody paid any attention to the new-comer...
Vol. 2 • June 1910 • No. 22
