The men who talk the most about “sound money” and the “nation’s honor” are the greatest tax-dodgers. Take the corporation lawyers out of the important offices in this country and about two-thirds of them would be vacant. The banker has no more right to regulate the quantity of currency that shall be used by the people than he has to limit the number of cattle that shall be raised. Enforced poverty is taking many a man out of the ranks of yellow-dog politics and making an independent voter out of him. It always gives me a pain in the left hind foot to hear a man who wears a hoot-owl look on his face, a quid of tobacco in his mouth and a double-barrel patch on the bosom of his pants talk about “money that is good in Yurrop.” About the only thing that Bryan can reorganize out of the Democratic Party is a bob-tail flush, and that is just what the Republicans want him to do. A stand-patter is a fellow who is too lazy to move, or who has plenty of feed in his own trough and doesn’t care for anyone else. The Beef Trust might possibly make good its plea of innocence, were it not for the fact that it has been “caught with the goods.” The cotton growers who met in New Orleans in January decided that the Wall Street “bear” was worse than the Texas weevil. Yellow-dog politics is the spirit that moves a man to ride to hell in a two-wheel cart drawn by the Democratic mule or Republican elephant, rather than to go to heaven by the independent route. It is gratifying to know that a real effort is being made to “control” the railroads. The failure of such an effort is the best evidence that it can’t be done. Then will come public ownership. The government has no more right to farm out to the bankers the privilege of issuing money than it has to grant to a few rich farmers the exclusive privilege of breeding short-horn cattle. It is said that gold furnishes a stable currency, but history teaches that it is the most cowardly money ever used. In time of war, when it is needed most, it hides itself and paper money fights the battles. The glory of war is a relic of barbarism. It differs only in form from the ghoulish dances of the aborigines, or the fiend-like performances of the Dervishes. “War is hell.” Its spirit is of the devil. Nine-tenths of the wars could be avoided. They are caused by the selfishness of man. In this day of progress and invention no man can define radicalism. That which appears radical today is conservative tomorrow. The leaven of a higher and better civilization is working in the hearts of the people, and the day of emancipation from false systems draws near. In the past ten years in this country the railroads have killed and crippled more people than all the wars in which this government was ever engaged. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, and then howl against government ownership.