People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 November 1895 — VOTE AS YOU PRAY. [ARTICLE]

VOTE AS YOU PRAY.

What the Ballot Might Accomplish Toward Answering Prayer, When the next general election comes I expect to hear our general master workman sound another bugle call, commanding us, in the name of God and humanity, to stop protesting; to cease being protestants, rally at the ballot box and there demand our rights. Labor has the power, the votes, and can obtain its rights whenever, it will. One year from next November we can elect the president and vice-president, every member of the lower house of congress, all the state legislatures, thus securing many United States senators. We can change the method of electing senators, or abolish the senate altogether. We can soon change the character of the Supreme court. We can establish the initiative and referendum. We can settle the land question, the transportation and all other questions in short order. We can burn up the constitution and write a new one. We can burn up all our present statute books and pass new laws, based on equity and justice. We can make this government what our forefathers designed it should be—"a government of the people, by the people, and for the people” instead of as now, a government of the moneyerats, by the moneycrats and for the moneycrats only. We can make it a land where all are "born free and equal,” and where all have the “right to life, liberty and the pursultof happiness.” The workingmen can do all this ene year from next November, if they only will. They can now convert this very hell on earth into the paradise of God. They can answer their own prayers, which so many of us have so often prayed, “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” All this can be done practically at the ballot-box. If the moneycrats, the politicians, the federal judges and office holders don’t like it, why, let them do the protesting. Let them turn protestants. When they get tired of that, they may emigrate to Russia, or go to Money Island and start a Fool’s Paradise. But will workingmen sink their differences for their own interests, standing together at the polls like honest, intelligent men, and supplement their protest at the ballot-box? Will they? I guess not. They have not sense nor brains enough for that. That is what the capitalists say about them, and capital knows labor better than labor knows itself. You can always rely on the capitalists standing together and voting together at the polls. But then, the rich man has a quart of brains, the workingman less than a thimbleful. The workingman will quarrel with his fellow-workmen and divide his vote. He will listen to the old-party politician abuse the other party and talk about his love for the dear workingman and how he is dying to make some sacrifice for him. —Rev. Thomas Hines, of Trinity Church, Manistee, Mich. • There is one thing which the leaders of the two old parties never try to explain. Since 1865, although blessed with abundant crops, debts have increased, money has appreciated in value, but all the products of labor have decreased. With undeveloped resources such as no other country possesses, millions of men and women are idle. In the midst of plenty we are in want. If the democrats of Texas had been competent to pass an anti-prize-fight law that would have stood the test there would have been no necessity for a special session of the legislature at an expense of twenty thousand dollars.