It Is The Poor Who Rule

Wlien a man tella you that it is the men of wealth that eontrols this nation, lie is telling you something he knows notliing about. It is not wealth or wealthy men wlio control the affairs of thia country. It is the anarchist and the bigot who preaches that thinf?. Let ns look into this matter and see about it. In this country all men who have the right to vote are on a dead level on election day. A rich man can vote but once. A poor man witli a cottage and a bit of ground, or without either the one or the other, is the peer of the millionaire wlien lie stands before the ballotbox. Poor men in congress, poor men in every public station aro Ear more nnmerous then tliar. rich men. The United States senate has been called a club for millionaires. Yet there are more poor senators than rich ones and there alwavs have been. Poor men are in the raajority on the bench of the Supremo Court. Poor men are almostinvariably elected President. Lincoln, especially was poor. So was Grant. The friends of Garfield gave him money with which to meet, the personal expenses of hs campaign. Cleveland was poor when lic went to Washington in 1885, however rich )ie may be now. The richest man in thia field was George Washington, of Virginia, he was worth, as the saying goes, something like .000,000. He had broad acres and many slaves aud lived in a line mansión. He drank Freuch wineand wore English clothing. From a purely selflsh point of view George Washington onght to have been a Loyalist iustead of a Patriot. By throwing bis sword on the side of the strugglingcolonists George Washington placed both bis head and fortune in jeopardy. Ivo man since bis day, rich or poor, has been as patriotic and unselfish as George Washington. The presidency of the United States begun in richea bas continued, in the main, however, in respectable and dignified poverty - not the poverty that is dependent and revolutionary, but the poverty that is independent, self-respecting, patriotic, and generally able and intelligent. John Adams wrote many letters to his splendid wife, Abigail, his wife at home on the farm, counseling frugality, and thus John Quincy, bis son, by the father's counsel and the mother's thrift, came to be a rich man. Thomas JefFerson was wealthy, for a man in his time, bnt he died poor and his patriotism underwent no cliange. ïliere was no money measure to bis devotion to liis country and I1Í3 eountrymen. He was ïiot eulogized when he was poor ; nor was he denounced when he was rich. After Jefferson carne tlie son oí those Irish Qiruigvants, the Jacksons; then Harrison, the court house clerk of Hamilton county, Ohio; theu Taylor, the soldier on a soldier's pay; then Fillmore, the wool-carder ; then Lincoln, the splitter of rails; then Johnson, the tailor; then Grant, the obscure lealher rnerchant, and then Garfield, the carpenter and bellringer of Hiram. From the beginning until this very hour American thought and legislation have been led and shaped by men who were poor in pnrse, but rich in honesty, capability and patriotism. And so long as the majority of the American people are poor or are in moderate circumstances, and they always will be, and so long as men vote and money doesn't, the republic will be safe and solid and laws will not be made for the strong and against the weak. AVhat this country needs to-day more than anything else is the eradication of class intolerance and class prejudice. The total number of men who served in tlie üaion anmy auring the war is placed by carefully revised figures at 2,128,948. The deaths m battle were 67,058, froiin wounds 43,012, and froni disease 224,580, leaving to be mustered out 1,794,292. The number alive a year and a-half ago was reportad at 1,209,908. l'robably not more than half the vast anny that preserved an undlvlded country a,re now alive. The confedérate fcilver lialí dollar is reekoiiied as ono oí the rarest of Ajnercan coins. Only four of sucli coins were struck. The confedérate silver half dollar bea-rs the date of 1801 and was struck at the mLnt in New Orleans fust before that institution was closed by tho i'ederal troop. It has the goddess of libcrty oa ono side, and a etalk of cane, ono of cotton and the etars and bars of the confederacy in a coat of anns on: tlie other. When th aldennen tliink it over we presume they will not deem it best to eend a juaket to Lansing1 to lobby for or against any bilis. In bo they would be spending the taxpayer's momey for defeatlng the ■-ry thiings sonne taxpayers want, or for f avorimg thlngs some do not want. They miglit run up against the same kind of an injunction the Detroit coun- cil did om their $2,500 junket money. Aun Arbo.r has a representative at Iansuig able to look after the interests of the city.