People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1895 — HE HITS THEM HARD. [ARTICLE]

HE HITS THEM HARD.

WHAT IF CHRIST CAME TO CONGRESS? Howard Defend* H!m»elf Against the Attacks of the Plutocratic Press and ' Points Ont the Sonrco of Unjust and Corrupt Legislation. When a man enters congress he must choose one of two things. If he wishes to be courted and feted by Washington society, if he desires the praise of the plutocratic press, if he is looking after fat places for his relations and friends, if his heart longs for the smiles of aristocracy and the fawning of sycopants. he has only to be the willing tool of plutocracy and all these things are within his grasp. If thus he chooses, his future pathway is strewn with flowers, and for him there is the purple and fine linen of Dives. On the other hand, if he champions the cause of the people, and stands up for the nation’s toilers and antagonizes Shylocks who are enslaving the honest yeomenry of the country, he will be called a crank, an agitator and an anarchist He will be scorned by society, maligned, abused and ridiculed by the plutocratic press and treated discourteously and snubbed by those in power, and given to understand that he has no Influence with the administration. This condition confronts every man who is chosen to represent the people and he must become an ally of the aristocracy of wealth and desert the people or stand up for the rights of the people and be hated by the money power. Surrounded by lobbyists and corruptionists, with unlimited money to purchase votes, with avenue after avenue to luxury and ease continually open to the mental vision, surrounded by vice and profligacy, is it to be wondered at that so many of our public men fall victims to the temptation, and forget the poor toilers who labor in the mines and factories, the vineyards and the fields, and who are looking to their leaders with such intense, tearful suspense? Here lies the great danger. This i 6 the very root of the evil, the source of all our ills.

So long as the trusts and monopolies hold such unlimited power, just so long will our legislation become more corrupt and vicious. The greedy, unscrupulous grasping, trusts have entered the halls of congress and they have polluted the men whom the people have trusted, and instead of a government by the people, it is a government by a money oligarchy. The capital city of our nation is reeking with rotteness; corruption and bribery stalk hand in hand with luxury and licentiousness. The man who sells his vote loses his honor and becomes the prey of vicious habits. Once started on the downward road there is no stopping and he becomes the easy tool of the money power. Thus it has come to pass that the congress of the United States is ever ready to foster the robber trusts while the people are starving. We talk of reform along certain lines, we hold monßter meetings and petition congress for the passage of certain laws in the interest of the people, and we wait and fondly hope for good wholesome legislation when the very men who are to pass the laws have sold themselves to the money changers. We must break the hold which the money power has upon this nation ere we can hope for reform. We must scourge the Shylocks from the capital even as Christ scourged the money changers from the temple and we must turn out the unfaithful servants, and with them the corruptionists, the lobbyists, the rogues and prostitutes who make of the great capitol building at Washington a veritable den of thieves. If we would have the stream pure we must purify the head waters, so if we would have just laws, passed In the interest of the men and women who have produced the wealth of this nation, we must work a reformation among those who gave us the laws.

With an earnest desire to reveal to the American people this most shocking state of affairs and to show them the source of the great danger which menaces us, I wrote my book “If Christ Came to Congress.” The pictures there drawn are no doubt vivid and startling, but this is because they are true —taken from real life. The plutocratic press all over the country is heaping abuse and vituperation on me for drawing aside the veil so that the voters of this country might look upon this shocking scene of corruption, shame and debauchery, and I have been threatened with ostracism by Washington society and expulsion from congress because of the revelations and exposures I have made, but in spite of all this I propose to wield my pen and raise my voice in behalf of the honest toilers who have elected me to congress, and to “cry aloud and spare not” until every man in the land shall be acquainted with the true situation and stirred to action. Let me conclude with a picture of the closing scenes of the session of congress which expired March 4. It was the holy Sabbath day and the church bells were ringing merrily over the city. In the capitol champagne flowed like water. Committee rooms became temporary brothels. Women of ill-re-pute swarmed the corridors and sang songs in the public restaurants with inebriated congressmen. "I have sev-enty-five dozen glasses out,” said Tom Murry, the disgusted caterer of the house restaurant. “That tells the story of the committee rooms better than any words I could utter,” In front of the main door is a perfect cloud of gentlemen interested in legislation. Some of the faces are familiar and have been seen here for the Mat

twenty years. Some are comparatively new. Thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars are to be won or lost w ithin the next few hours. Around at the other door are more lobbyists and among them are some women. Backed up against the marble pillars everywhere are members but-ton-holed and on the defensive. Some of these women are notorious. The very fact that they are brought to boar upon any item of legislation is enough I to stamp it with condemnation. There are poker games in the comi mittee rooms, and the side-boards are j stocked with the best liquid refresh- ! ment which could be bought with the ' contingent fund. There were the house i and senate bars where every one from the most respected citizen to the lowest strumpet could obtain a drink. An aged senator passed into a private i room with a hilarious member of the 1 demi-monde on each arm. A congressman was carried away by I friehds fighting drunk. A woman, with I her daintily booted foot elevated on a ! committee table, and a glass of chamI pagne elevated in her hand, was sing- | ing a merry song, while a dozen memj bers and their friends sat around smoking and enjoying the society of the real lady. But this is enough. I will cease. All of this beneath the jeweled dome, between the marble walls of the temple of liberty, amid the royal surroundings of art expressed in bronze and marble and the expuisite touch of the painter’s brush. God pity the people when such scenes as these are possible.. “When the wicked rule, the people mourn.” Sons of sires who bled for liberty, beware, for even now, if you will only listen you may hear the clank of slavery’s chains which are being forged for you and your posterity. Toilers of America this is a goodly land, we are vastly superior in numbers to the hosts of Shylock, so let us go up and possess it. Ere it is too late let us vote for freedom. M. W. HOWARD.