Page:Justice and Jurisprudence - 1889.pdf/109

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Justice and Jurisprudence.

the royal diadem in the presence of an enfeebled minority? Is Protection or is Free Trade to wear upon its baby brow the "round and top of sovereignty"? Shall Transportation, the august grasping tyrant, who has immanacled and so "grievously ransomed" Trade ever since he has held dominion over her, when he spies advantage, not add the immortal title of king, with crown and coronet, to the sovereign greatness and authority of his empire in America? Why should the claims of the oligarch of Labor be overlooked, with his shreds and patches; with well-placed words and reasons not unplausible, but without broad-minded consideration for the interests of the greatest number; with fair pretence of friendly ends, but with stolid ignorance of the laws of industrial progress; with his implements of commercial war and subjugation, and with the solidarity of the labor vote in his favor,—why should the claims of an imperious oligarch be discarded who, under the sanctimonious veil of the Brotherhood of man, because this race antagonizes special labor classes, disfranchises the intelligence, character, and capacity of its seven millions of producers?—why should not this sun of glory, this light of men, aspire under combination of favoring circumstances to bear the "golden show"? Although "the conception of the nationa government as a huge machine, existing mainly for the purpose of rewarding partisan service," was "so alien to the character and conduct of Washington that it seems grotesque even to speak of it," does it need great forecast to predict the reign, in the near future,of the royal political plutocrats of the spoils system and practical politics?

With a title to kingly glory far exceeding in power and importance that of all these mighty Cæsars, came yesterday, a formidable shape, a hunched venomous creature, of savage temper and grim aspect, large-bodied and round-backed; "what seemed his head, the likeness of a kingly crown had on;" a pretender to the throne, resembling a huge industrious spider, spreading his web over every highway obvious to commerce. He has secured, by a combination of indirect, crooked ways and by paths, a majority in numbers and values. His ravenous maw is filled with the vitals of trade. He never shuts his eye. His appearance turns values to stone. He utters vapid platitudes