a great many ways of getting hold of the other fellow's property. One way is by confiscation, which means to swipe, to hook, to take the other fellow's property without saying "Thank you," or "Please Mam," and without batting an eye. And we Socialists have the reputation of being the first confiscators that ever came down the pike. If it were not for the grand old Republican Party that stands like a rock on the shore, throwing back the waves of confiscation and repudiation, the Socialists would have swiped John D. Rockefeller’s grease business long ago.
Certainly the Republican Party never confiscated anybody else’s property. But let us refreshen the memory of our Republican friends. About 1863, when that party was still young, it confiscated five million chattel slaves, valued at one billion dollars, and belonging to the Southern people. Here was property, private property, holy, sanctified private property, recognized as such by the constitution of the United States, and upheld by every decision of the Soo-preme Court of the United States, yet our Republican friends went down to Dixie, hooked and swiped all that property, and never paid a counterfeit nickel with a hole in it to the rightful, legitimate owners. The men who defended private property in 1863, were called rebels and traitors, and our Republican friends even used to sing a cruel song about hanging Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree, and yet the only crime committed by Jefferson Davis and his crowd was, that they defended private property in black men.
Certainly, our Democratic friends would never do such a thing. But about three years ago, in the State of Oklahoma, that party had 40,000 majority. It was then that these good Democrats voted for prohibition. By doing so,
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