Possession of the Earth - What For?: We - mankind, yes, that is it: This is our earth. There is no one else to claim it. If there were we would contest the claim. We even contest it as between each other. It is not exclusively my earth, but my rights that are as great as those of any other, and their rights are equal to mine, and equal to each other. Thus we all come out in the same half bushel so far as our abstract rights are measured.

   Mankind - yes, if any one else, beast or whatever it might be, made a claim to the earth we would contest the claim. Why? Because we need it and we claim it for ourselves. No other body, however, has made a claim, and as too all other kinds, mankind is in the undisputed possession. My rights stop where your rights begin, and your stop where mine begin. Everybody's rights stop where the others body's rights begin. Still there rages a frightful conflict - nothing so appalling in dealing death and destruction has occurred since the creation of man.

   Who is it then, that is claiming the others rights? I see - it is mixed: Some claim the others rights and are figting to possess his advantages; some have trampled down the others and already possess his belongings ;some trespass; some defend - some claim the right to rule and dominate the others, and the others deny the right - all in this mighty conflict that threatens the destruction of the major portion of mankind, and if spared fromt hat, be reduced to abject industrial slavery, unless we reason, rather than follow mere naked impulse to guide us.

   How did all this hell come about? Can it be crushed, so peace, good will and universal prosperity may be restored|? Mr. William W. Clay, of Chicago, Illinois is the author of the following:

     Continental and Political Environments in America: No one can walk or march here to invade us - they must swim or fly if they come. We have surrendered neighter our domestic nor our international rights, but we have slept on both of these rights too long. A few, however, were awake all the time putting the rest of us in a vice. So we find the existingorder of things strangulating - menacing our hold on life. We have become extremely uncomfortable - even irritable. We Americans have an intolerable political condition to overcome.

   Politics and business, we were told, should be dept separate. The wealth grabbers told us that. The rank and file of us did not mix into politics at all, except to vote occasionally, and scarcely knew why we did that. But the wealth grabbers did not keep their business out of politics. We were the only ones that tried to keep business and politics separate,and the effect was that we kept out of politics altogether, except merely to vote to give politicians power. When we get down to "brass tacks," however, we will discover that business and politics should go hand in hand, and should not be separated, and that every patriotic American should be actively interested and active in politics.

     The Political: Ours was the first government to make a proper start. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and men of that class launched the ship of state, and did it on a sound political and business basis - fitted to growth and modification as conditions should change - always open to be governed by principles of eternal justice. That was in the beginning and that was the purpose of its continuance. There was nothing demagogic or selfish in the original organizers. The colonists had built up from hard luck, and political oppression from abroad. Therefore they knew the importance of good government.These serious pioneers drafted a wonderful Constitution, based on Bible principles, though later disfigured by technical court construction that smothered in part the spirit of the greatest instrument ever drawn by the hand of man.

   For a time we built to the spirit of that grand instrument, but as the virgin resources renumerated the industry of the people, and they owned more, the temptation to exploit brought into plitics demagogues and hypocrites, and crouded out statesmen. |Under the administration of demagogues, a new and fundamentally pernicious principle was injected into our governmental policy. It was the doctrine of so-called "reasonable profit" to the owners of capital, without taking into account the necessity for a reasonable compensation for the industry and production of the toilers.

   Under this destructive policy - now an iron rule, those who can possess themselves of capital, irrespective of whether it is acquired by the owner as the product of his toil, or by accident, hook or crook, become proprietors of the industry of labor, and by that iniquitous rule may take toll, limited only when labor has been reduced to bare subsistance. Upon the practice of this rule, justice in the social world has been undermined, and civilization is being destroyed, properly so if we tolerate the rule, for this earth is not a suitable place for liberty loving people of we shall be subject to its operation.

   Thank God, there have always been enough of us remaining who dare to repudiate and who will ultimately destroy the operation of any false rule.

     The Capital of the United States: Our towns are important, likewise our counties, and the States each a great commonwealth. Important as all these may seem, and great is our repective States may impress us - town, county, State, all combined, influence our business affairs comparatively little when measured with the administration at Washington, the capital of our country. There we have Congress, the President with his several Executive Departments, and the Supreme Court. They rule us under the existing political practices.

   We look to Washington, then, for the great and most important things. All eyes are now on Washington. What about it? Much indeed. We shall not mince things out of the pride we have for our country. We love the country in spite of the mistakes of the administrators. We believe it is the duty of those who love their country, to point out any mistakes they may know about its administration. Love of our country does not blind us, nor close our eyes or make us refrain from pointing out what we believe to be faults in the administration. We must prosecute its faults as well as to make ooperative its virtues. If we do not do both we are not good Americans. There is more reason now than ever before for every American to attend to the rights of the people.

   We elect our own representatives, and if we ourselves know what we want and see to it that they, too, know, there will be no trouble in their truly representing us. The trouble has been largely with ourselves. We havr not known what we really wanted, while "big business" and "big Bankers" thriving off our earnings, know exactly what it wants, has abundant means, and is completely organized to act and does act in every emergency for its own selfish ends. The special interests have experts to draft their plans. Did we not see how quickly they took hold of the war, at the time it started in Europe and again when we declared war? They are always ready, because they get the earnings from our toil. They know just what they want and have always gotten our representatives to grant it to them. In the last few years they have gotten their greates increase in power because of wealth.

   Of all the coward, no other is so cowardly as the average politician, considering him in a political sense. That, nevertheless, many of our officials are bettern men morally and at heart, as well as in ability, than they get credit for. They must, however, be led by the people if we are to succeed. They dare not fight the people's battles unless the people lead them. For the public officials, to fight the people's battles is the "signal" to "big business," and "big bankers" [1] to deceive the people and get the latter to defeat such officials at the polls.

   If we lead our public officials by showing them exactly what we want, then they will know that we know, and the "big business" and "big banks" will not be able todeceive us as it has done in the past. Then the officials will act in our behalf. A progressive, thinking and observing people will find among themselves men and women suited for public officials to serve the general welfare.

     Who Says The People Rule?: Most politician who face American audiences assume that they can charm with glittering generalities, provided they appeal to a vanity which they presume all persons possess of their own importance. A favorite thing is to make the audience believe that every American citizen is his own master, and ordinarily they hit it off as follows: "The people rule: this is a government of, by and for the people."

   It was from his heart that Lincoln made such a statement. Because it came from the bottom of his heart it was honest and original with him. But he feared for the future, and his fear was well founded, for the people have not ruled. Some one must rule. It should be the people, but thus far it has not been. [2]

   Those who claim that the people have ruled slander the people, for surely no one can claim that with the enormous advantages that exist in America, that if the people have ruled they are feally fit to rule, for all along they have gotten the small end of the advantages that exist, and then think of the mess we are now in. But just the same, this Government is for the people, and it is their right to rule. It is because they have the right, that we seek to show what a dismal, lamentable failure the existing rulers have made of the Government. We do so in the hope that the people themselves may soon exercise their right to rule, and thus we would secure the advantages that really belong to us all.

   Our national territory affords us enormously greater advantages that we have had. Only here and there do we find a person who relly takes advantage of the opportunities, and even the most of those who do, seek merely the material advantages, which when carried to excess destroy the very purpose of life if it has any purpose at all. Surely life has a purpose.

   It would be useless to show the disadvantages, unless at the same time we explain the advantages that may be made to take their place. We must know them both in order to understand either. We must proceed from the individual; the unit. No government is better than its people. On the contrary, every government is less progressive than the people, for you cannot improve anything before you know how. The intelligence must precede, and that must originate in the individual, and spread to the various units and then take effect on the state. Therefore each of us must know himself first.

   The Exploiters: Leslie's Weekly Magasine published a series of articles entitled, "The Builders of America." Other magazines of the time published similar articles. The purpose was to make the public believe that certain "big business," and "big bankers" was described and eulogized in each issue, had done a great service for America.

   Any one who understands the economy of things could appropriately paraphrase the title of the articles to embody the true meaning of the text but use the same personal cuts and call the title, "The Cancers in American Business and Banking," and show by the text, conforming it to the true facts, that the subjects of the articles are the "Destroyers of America's Independence." That fact notwithstanding, we have no cause for condemning these men, but instead we should change the system that makes them and their like certain to exist. Emphatically, we should not let them make us believe that they are, "The Builders of America," but on the other hand we should make them under stand that we know they are the "Cancers in America."

     They Try To Justify Their Actions: They say to us that we all have an equal opportunity, and that it is our fault that we do not become rich. They seek, however, in every way possible to prevent us taking the only opportunity we have to all become successful, for they know that if we did, it would end their exploits. It is our fault that we do not take the advantages, we have, for we can never all, or even any proportionally large number of us be successful if we follow their plan, and that is what we have done. They keep in politics, on the sly, to force us to follow their plan. Under their plan but few can succeed.

   As pretended proof that there i an equal chance of success for us all under their plan, they cite Rockefeller with upward of $20 million annual income upon his billion or more of capital, an income admitted by his own agents and generally supposed to be three times that; they cite the late J.P. Morgan who had nearly as much wealth; they also cite other wealth grabbers, grouping several, each of whom began as poor boy: "look at these men," they say to the public, "go, each one of you, and do likewise."

   It is the "special privileged" who tell us to "go and do likewise," but they know to a certainity that it is only possible, here and there, for one of us to do it, and that it can be done only under their system, for their system takes the wealth from the rest of us. Therefore if we all "go and do likewise," we will have to find a new world with a vast population that will let us play that "skin game" on them.

   It is like as if the government would set aside in the far West out of the public domain, a tract of 1 million acres of the best land there, and say to the poor people in New York City, "the first of you who can get there and put foot on that land may havr it." Now that presents an equal opportunity for them all to begin with, but the one first in the race who puts foot upon that million acre tract would exclude the rest. So when Rockefeller grabs off a $20 million or $60 million block of profits anually, he takes what many thousands of others have been excluded from, and the unfortunate thing of it is that he did not earn it while they did.

   Oh no! The evidence which the wealth grabbers offer as the proof of an "equal opportunity to all," is positive proof to the contrary. It proves the success of the masses to be impossible under their plan, and, as we have seen, it is their plan that we are working under. The wealth grabbers did not produce what wealth they have. It is impossible for any one person to earn so much, or even any considerable portion of it. They simply extort it from the products of the toil of others, and the laborers secure that much less of what actually belongs to them.

     The Exceptions: Some persons are inventors, and discover new methods to apply human energy that secures better result in the way of production. They are entitled to certain credit for whatever of advantage they give to humanity. Edison, Ford and other persons of genius, who devise plans for improvment come under that designation. It is not against the man or the plan, when the plan is good, that we object, but we do object to predatory wealth running our nation as it is certainly doing now - politically as well as industrially.

   No one who gives it study doubts, for instance, that the manipulations of the Rockefellers, J.P. Morgan and Co., Kuhn, Loeb & Co., and the others of their kind, deprive the laborers of most of their earnings, and incidentally in running their business these big speculators are forced to employ able assistants to aid them in their schemes. Some of these assistants have become immensely wealthy preying upon the countries business. What is true of these speculators is equally true of most great fortune grabbers.

   It is true that existing laws and business practices do give a few of us a remote chance to acquire great wealth. A few are slick enough speculators to get it; others get it by accident, but these laws and the practices under them absolutely destroy the opportunity of the masses.

     Charity: There is another form of justification offered by themselves for the favored class. It is that with their fortunes they found colleges, churche, elemosynary institutions and chazritable works of different kinds. Even if the beneficiaries of such institutions felt entirely free, which in many cases they do not, to regard themselves independent of obligation to their founders, and would deal with the public as free men and women should, even if this were so, are we who labor in the various fields of enterprise to consent to be deprived of our earnings; are we willing that any man or set of men, however, good and liberal they may be in giving away our earnings, shall by force of circumstances and practice, be able tot ake the products of our toil as they see fit, to use them for any purpose whatever? Certainly not. Those who earn in the sweat of their toil should be able to dispose of their own earnings, and not be forced to see others do it for them.

     You; Yourself: Ho There - You!: Are you a farmer, rancher, wage earner, or engaged in any of the occupations required to be filled with industrious men and women in order to fufil the many necessities of life? If you are; why do you let capital, a product of your own toil, sit on the throne of human industry as the master of all to determine your place in life and assing you to drudgery, even to war if it choooses to do so.

   There is a reason; you should know, for it is due to you, the real laborers and producers, to sit on the throne where provisions should be made to safguard the rights of humanity. Under the rule of the "dollar" human life has fallen to its lowest value. But time heals all things. No longer will the masses accept, "Error for truth, darkness for light, wrong for right, or lust for love."

   "The masses of humanity" formerly "symbolized by the stupid ox, are begining to awaken to a realization of their rights and long withhed privileges." [3]

    I do not seek to give you my opinions, but ask you to make a call upon your own. In the depths of your own soul is stored thousands of the best things in your life and that you have not yet called out to your conscious mind. When you call out your own natural talents, your country, too, will have additional splendor; a splendor which you cannot appreciate until you have discovered your own best self. Know more about yourself, for it will give you more confidence, a better understanding of the world, because you do not differ from others so much as you may believe, besides you are much greater than you have yet discovered.

   Dig out your innermost thoughts; the simplest of them, because they are the natural ones, and the greatest. They will help you; me and others to solve the disturbing elements in life, the things that bother us all. It is the arbitrary things; the ones that have been created by men contrary to what's natural, that makes most of our trouble.

   You may be a farmer; you may be a rancher; you may be a wage earner; you may be in any one of a thousand different occupations, but that makes no difference in what we are looking for. We look for the men and the women. We find them in you and in me. The point of interest is; what's in us, for there is much that is the same in us all. We have mutual necessities unfulfilled which may be supplied if we understand each other. Every one of us can bring him or herself within the rule; high or low, rich or poor, all may be benefitted.

   To the intelligent reader, it is easily understood that everything produced in any given generation is paid for in the generation of the then living. After we have departed this world, we cannot pay or receive pay. Whatever we have done on earth is closed. If the generation produced more in value than it consumed, the succeeding generation inherited that much without cost to it. Of course the generations are not distcinctly separated, but wedge into each other.

One may work for you now receiving merely your promise to pay him. As long as we both live we have an opportunity to be paid, but if the worker dies he will never be paid. If the employer dies the worker will be paid only in case the employer leaves something with which to pay. If both dies then everything of theirs is left over for others to fight over.

It has been said that evreything is paid for in the generation of the living or never. That means in a physical snse. It is the natural law, but in conflict with it mankind has created an arbitrary law by which we contract "paper debt," and agree to pay a premium (interest, dividends or profits) that never has been and never can be earned, but is simply extortion. That kind of a debt can be and has been heaped increasinly upon the people of each succeeding generation. It was heaped upon us more heavily than upon any previous generation. Unless we revoke it, we will pass it on to the next generation as a still greater burden to it, unless the people than shall possess the good sense to equitably revoke it.

Thos who have not considered the subject from the side of humanity, or who value the perpetuation of property accumulation, more than the preservation of human intergrity, may object to the term "revoke," as we have used it, but we use it advisedly, after the most serious consideration. Unhesitatingly, we declare it to be the most solemn duty of the State to establish a system to liberate mankind from the existing banking slavery.

The masses cannot be liberated from banking slavery  without revoking many of the existing practices. It is not meant that individuals on their own responsibility should have the power to revoke, but the State must exercise that power justly to all mankind. It is utterly indefensible that we should gon on piling up debts under an arbitrary system which it is impossible to physically comply with except by reducing the masses of mankind to a constantly lowere and lower banking state. A new system to liberate the workers need work no hardship to any one. The products from the industry of the workers in a very short period measure immensely more in value than all that has been accumulated.

It is not necessarily the purpose to take from those who have to give to those who have not, for that would be no remedy. All that is necessary is to adopt a system that will enable those who produce to secure the benefit of their production, and not force them to continually remain the prey of a toll levy made by centralized wealth. Give us a system that allows us to keep what we earn. If that is done we can take care of ourselves. We have an apt opportunity in the conduct of the government, or at least a much more just one, than is now practiced. Wealth saw to it that the conditions would be created that would make it practically impossible for us to avoid a future war between the government and its citizens if the government continues to follow the old practices, and it is these old practices that wealth insists on following; and they control Congress, Courts, and Administration, therefore the war appears to be inevatible. Wealth is so greedy that it continues to build greater fortunes, even if it took the sacrifice of millions of lives, and entailed suffering on more than nine-tenths of the world's population. What is that demand?

It is the demand of wealth that we should prepare a great Navy and a great Army in order to enforce a proper political and economic system not only upon ourselves, but upon all the world; present and future. It requires that we should impress into the service of such a war, every available man and woman at nominal pay for their time. What did wealth offer in return? It offerst to loan money to the government if it pays interest and provided it would raise the interest if later bonds should draw more. It offered other things provided always there was a profit to wealth, and it considered itself patriotic because it did that.

Is any government justified in impressing men and women into war service at the lowest of pay for their time, if it does not also impress the surplus property of the wealthy? Strange, inconsistent, even lower than criminal is that prafctice of the governments which take the lives and the liberties of their citizens to impress into war, when at the same time tey pay a premium in the form of interest or otherwise for the property of the rich to be used in carrying on wars around the world.

No one with an ounce of brains, unless filled with injustice or a mere hireling, will defend such a practice, for when peace is restored the loans of the rich Jewish bankers burden those who risked their lives and the families of those killed. When our country needs us, we should respond, but it is not to be expected hereafter we will be willing to permit the lives to be sacrificed and the hardships of war to fall almost entirely upon the ordinary people. We were imposed upon in the past, but with the more general intelligence of this generation, we should not be so supinely stupid now. The property of the wealthy should be taken the same as we conscript the individual. The conscript is not paid the value of his time, say nothing of the risk and exposure. The taking of property or money to pay the costs of the wars should begin with the largest of the fortunes, and as these are scaled down to equal the lesser, then conjointly they should be scaled down to take in the lesser still, and so on the process should run until all the greater fortunes pay in full the material costs of wars. Those with comparatively small means should pay nothing until those with larger means have been reduced to their equal. That is the only just rule.

If that rule had been the law over the years, there would have been on careless and reckless, and, as it was in some cases wanton, traveling upon the high sea in the danger zone by neutrals, notwithstanding that the rights of the seas should be and are of right inviolable. The rich owners of the ships woul dnot have taken the risk to carry passengers if that had been the law. They would not then have tempted any of the belligerents to violate the internaitonal laws in defiance of America's rights.

To take the centralized fortunes to pay the costs of the wars, would in addition to the justice of compelling wealth to support wars, usually of its own making, relieve the plain people of the levy that is made upon them at all times for interest and profit on the excess wealth. Surely, it is not possible that any of us in this day are so stupid as to not understand that those who do the necessary work to sustain life and its requirements, really pay with their toil the extravagances of the existing system.

Because of its supreme importance to be understood by every citizen, so that no one shall be longer imposed upon without his eyes open, we repeat that we pay in physical expenditure the full price of everything we produce. In order to have some of the things that we need, we are obliged in some cases to construct what will last thousnds of years, andpay for it in full when the work has been performed. True, we issue bonds and have been stuid enought to think that that pays the debt. It only adds to the burden, and as President Jefferson said in his day, "Spending money to be paid by posterity, is but swindling futurity;" or perhaps you may like Ruskin's statement better, that, "National debts, paying interest are simply the purchase by the rich of the power to tax the poor."

We like Jefferson's definition the best, because it applies not only to national debts, but to all debts. What Jefferson said applies to us. We are what was to hum "futurity," and have been mightily swindled as he had fortold. Jefferson and Ruskin were both great men, but while those statements were true, they were not profound, for even the commonest of us certainly should see how we have been swindled as Jefferson said we would be, and we continue to be to this very day by the existing debt system.

What? Did we hear you say that this of which we have spoken, gives employment to lots of people? That is an insult to the intelligence of any thing,ing person, yet that statement is excusable as long as we continue the exiting business and political scheme. As things now are, the main thing aimed at by the wealth grabbers is to use us; to make of us mere machines to wear out in producing wealth for them. Our children are to be dragged into our useless places and we dropped into mother earth; "ashes to ashes," "dust to dust," good-bye.

If that is all we are for, then God bless the Kaiser, the late Czar, the Kings, "Big Business," "Big Bankers" and all the "Big Boys" who caused America's wars. It will at least be interesting while it lasts. If we are made simply to wear out in their service, the harder and the more dangerous our occupaton the sooner will our ashes be scattered to the earth, and serve vegetable life better, to bud in beautiful foliage of the grasses, the trees, and the flowers. Well did Benjamin Franklin say:

     "In whatever country Jews have settled in any great numbers, they have lowered its moral tone; depreciated its commercial integrity; have segregated themselves and have not been assimilated; have sneered at and tried to undermine the Christian Religion upon which that nation is founded by objecting to its restrictions; have built up a state within a state; and when opposed have tried to strangle that country to death financially, as in the case of Spain and Portugal.

     For over 1700 years the Jews have been bewailing their sad fate in that they have been exiled from their homeland, they call Palestine. But, Gentlemen, should the world today give it to them in fee simple, they would at once find some cogent reason for not returning. Why? Because they are Vampires, and Vampires do not live on Vampires. They cannot live only among themselves. They must subsist on Christians and other people not of their race.

     If you do not exclude them from these United States, in this Constitution in less than 200 years they will have swarmed in such great numbers that they will dominate and devour the land, and change our form of government [which they have done ‑‑ they have changed it from a Republic to a Democracy], for which we Americans have shed our blood, given our lives, our substance and jeopardized our liberty.

     If you do not exclude them, in less than 200 years our descendants will be working in the fields to furnish them sustenance, while they will be in the counting houses rubbing their hands. I warn you, Gentlemen, if you do not exclude the Jews for all time, your children will curse you in your graves. Jews, Gentlemen, are Asiatics; let them be born where they will, or how many generations they are away from Asia, they will never be otherwise. Their ideas do not conform to an American's, and will not even though they live among us ten generations. A Leopard cannot change its spots.       Jews are asiatics, they are a menace to this country if permitted entrance and should be excluded by this Constitution." [4]

But no, we have not yet sunk to mere abject passive beings, even if our occuapations in many cases would, standing alone, prove that we have. We are in a big measure industrial slaves, but we are not mental imbeciles. We still have our heads filled with brains, and they act when we command them. We all know that if any particular work or employment is unnecessary, nothing could be farther fromt he truth then to claim that it was justified because it gave employment, yet, even in spite of our knowing the truth we do not live up to it, so as to force its importance into a realization in our concrete experience.

     Did You Forget Conservation?: Only a few years ago, America went wild on "Conservation," properly so. We pretend even now to be conservationists, but we practice the grossest kinds of waste. A few words however, on that subject: In many places we have parallel railways where one could serve the traffic at less cost and equally well if properly managed; we have thousands of banks, but one-third that number could serve the business needs equally well and with less than on-half the cost; practically every town has too many business houses, which increases the cost of their output. The success of a town or city does not depend on the number of inhabitants, but upon their thrift. [5] The real purpose of business is to coordinate everything. If that was done, we could support a population of five times what it is now, and with the greatest possible success. [6]

     A Sudden Reminder: You yourselves, plain American citizens, what happened to you when the European war dogs leaped at each others throats? The majesty of your America sprung to your minds; your respect for its past; your confident hope in its future continued greatness, fully justified and supported by your loyalty and patriotism; filled you with just pride for your country, with its peaceful pursuits. That was what first happened to you.

The raging battles gave you no fear, but suddenly another cloud appeared. It had appeared in a thousands wars before, but you had forgotten about it; Crimes, crimes, crimes; the most terrible to report. Which were true and which were false the majority of us will never know. [7] But we are morally certain, as we had a right to be that the very devil himself was at large as he had been in other wars, and that women and children, the old and the crippled as well, were helpless in the path of destuction. We know that mothers and daughters were made slaves to carnal brutes. Every war has produced something of that. All these things and terrible others are presented to your mind.

With all these visions before you, you could no longer be calm. You had a right to be worked up, and were.But have you thought of the entire world, the responsibiliuty that rests on us as American citizens? We are at war now, but unknown to most Christians; the task that confronts us to win in the battlefield is small as compared with the task that confronts us to win liberty and prosperity to all in America. We stand united as against any foreign military foe. We cannot think that, in any other than in a military sense, we have any foe among the plain people, for the interests of the plain people everywhere are the same when we place ourselves on a true economic basis.But there are foes within our own country far more dangerous than those without, nad there is a wide difference of opinion as to how we should deal with our domestic foes.

It is not wars alone that trouble knowledgable Americans for they know there are other troubles even more dangerous. They also know they are not represented; that the government acts independent of us. We have petitioned our Senators and Representatives to secure redress from certain evils. We petitioned them as our respective local representatives and also as the Congress. We find them unwilling, and we may add with certain reserve, unable to act upon matters that are most vital to protect and promote our countries best interests.

They have made rules and adopted practices to prevent themselves from governingthemselves except through their own leaders. These rules form the excuse given by our local seanators and representatives for their failure to successfully initiate legislation in our favor when it is opposed by the super wealthy. However, there is a way the leaders have of "riding over" their regular rules when they wish. They have a "special privilege utility committee," which is called the Committee on Rules. This committee sets aside the regular rules whenever it wishes to bring any matter before the legislative body, the regular rules notwithstanding. Congress has tied itself up, so that it is not a representative body as it should be, and we seem never to get enough independent Senators and Representatives in Congress at any one time to cut the knot and make Congress free. Therefore, it fails to act for the American.

At sometime, somewhere, somehow, our nation will have to take a step towards civilization or the country will go down in ruin. We beleive that now shows the how, that this is the time, that ours is the Nation, and that civilization process must begin with the nation that is to lead; we have been slack in action. Lowell said: "Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide; In the strife of truth and falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight; Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right; And the choice goes by forever, 'twixt the darkness and the light."

The President is the only representative of the people, officially free fromt he influence of local conditions. Every other representative elected by popular vote, is a part of and elected from a section less in extent than all of the United States. Therefore, we must place our cause before him as our servants, calling on you to give executive expression to our demands. The President is of us; selected by us, and have our consent to lead us. But we are not blind followers, for should he attempt to lead us the wrong way we will not follow. We are the Sovereigns, Represent The Republic, in Fact, Constitute The Republic, (although many have forgotten that fact, and have allowed themselves to become the servants of government) and do not intend that the Republic shall be a hollow mockery by leavint to its Presidents the whole responsibility. Please, therefore, take notice of what we demand of our Presidents.

We know that he says must be carried in the press, on radio and television if he wishes it. We know that no others, that can, speak for us will be given space in the full media if they speak in our interest. Therefore, he must say what we wish, which affords us the only means of communicating our desires so as to make them common knowledge and sufficiently understood to secure concerted action among us. That is the only way at the present to secure our best interests. He must know from us our common needs; what our reasonable demands are. We do not need him to tell us, for we are up against them every day. But we do need him to give expression to them. We will stand by him when he speaks and acts for us.