The Crime of Caste in Our CountryDavenport, Benjamin Rush
History
The Crime of Caste in Our Country
Davenport, Benjamin Rush
Social problems; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918
The Republican party, of course, is not responsible for this. The
Republican candidate, Benjamin Harrison, than whom there is no better
example of a patriotic, earnest, honest American, Christian, father,
husband, son, gentleman, and soldier, is worthy to be an example to the
young men of our country. He was not responsible for the impression
made by this excrescence that has grown like some hideous and poisonous
fungus upon the stalwart oak planted by Abraham Lincoln. The decay
has arisen from this polluting attachment. The McKinley Bill and
Protection, while possessing many points of excellence it behooves the
country to examine with care before erasing from the statute-books, are
not responsible for the natural animosity of the people toward this
child, deformed, misshapen, Sham Aristocracy, clinging to the skirts of
the Republican party. The attack was upon this hideous tumor, and, by
its amputation by the people, the life-blood of the Republican party
has become exhausted; for the operation necessarily was made painful,
deep-felt, and severe. The Democratic party derived all the benefit
from the defeat of the Republican party, at the hands of the people,
without having contributed thereto to any amazing extent.
The result of the election of 1892 should be as the warning written on
the wall was to Belshazzar. The rich must understand, and learn now in
time, that they hold their lives, their liberty, and their property
in this Republic only by the will of the people; that the people,
Democratic always in the broad sense of democracy, are long-suffering;
but retribution, as surely as night doth follow day, may come, if
this warning be not heeded, in some more terrible shape than an
overwhelming defeat, at the polls, of that party to which the rich
attach themselves. It is not well to flaunt riches or claim privileges
or “caste” before the face of a free people.
It would be well for the rich to learn this lesson. It was taught by
the people under the name of the Republican party when they elected
Lincoln; under the name of the Democratic party when they elected
Andrew Jackson; under the name of the Democratic party when they
elected Thomas Jefferson. It was taught to rich and powerful England
when she lost a continent in 1776; it was taught to Anglo-Saxon England
when Charles I. lost his head; it was taught to France when the
long-suffering peasantry and poor broke down the barriers of “caste,”
and flooded her fair fields with the tide of blood.
It has been taught in every nation--Rome, Greece, Egypt. The people
will suffer long and much, but the resentment occasioned by “caste” and
social distinction far outweighs any advantages that money can buy them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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