The Moral Of Coxeyism

From the Pont lae Post. The true character of the Coxey movement and the spirit that prompted the "commonwealers" is shown by the fact that many of them left good paying work to join the "army." In several tovns through which the "army" passed notably Postland, Oregon, there were regularly established relief bureaus that offered. to all persons out of work comfortable lodging and board for a certain amount of work to be performed each day. The bureaus in sorae cases even undertook to keep them till permanent position on farms had been secured for them. These offers were in all cases scornfully refused. It should be obeserved that this movement was strictly an American movement, the principal leaders being native Americans and the army coming mainly from states where the foreign element is least. When we contrast this spirit of childish, unreasoning, sniveling dependence on government with the sturdy independence of the men and women of a generation ago, our own fathers and mothers, who with gun and axe marched, not in armies but in little family groups, into the western wilderness, there to engage single-handed in the battle with nature and with savagery, a most serious question arises in the mind of every thoughtful man, viz., what has caused this alarming decline in American manhood? In this connection we wish to remind our readers that from the foundation of our government down to 1860, the American people, even when undergoing all the privations of pioneer life, never thought of asking the government for anything more than a good title to their lands. We remind them also that free traders have always held that goverment aid to private business under the name of protection would surely beget a race of mendicants. We submit the following questions to thoughtful protectionists to consider when deciding who is responsible for Coxeyism: (1.) "Have y ou not, ever since 1865, been telling the workingmen all over the country that the amount of their wages depended on the result of the presidential election, and that, in voting for your man, they would be putting money in their pockets ? (2.) "Have you not, through every form of human expression, also taught them that it was the most solemn duty of congress to lay such taxes and to pay such bounties as would enable all sorts of busness to make good prolits, and have you not represented to them that in default of sueh government aid no business could prosper; that, in short, the chief function of government was to enable industrial enterprises to employ plenty of men at good wages? (3.) "Have you not sinee the present crisis began ascribed it wholly to the belief that congress would modify the McKinley bilí, thus making it appear that without the McKinley bill the country would go to the dogs ? (4.) "Has not your chief, ex-President Harrison, declared within a few weeks, in one of his thoughtful speeches, that it was the áuty of the government to flnd work for the unemployed ? (5.) "Have you not also maintained for thirty years that when a manufacture did not flounsh in America, it was because it did not get enough help from congress, and have you not always advised the owners of such enterp.iises to go to Washington, see the committee, and get the piïces raised ? "