The Tsars of Russia have used the Cossack and recommend him to all the
rulers of the world.
The American Cossack has been on duty for several years in some parts of
the United States. He is shameless, dangerous, effective. He will
probably be multiplied by thousands, in numbers, and by infinity, in
insolence,—within the next ten years—in the United States. _He must be
understood—by the working class._ Here is a sample:
In the anthracite coal strike of 1902, 145,000 humble miners whose
average income was $1.29 per day, struggled for a few pennies more for
their toil with which to feed and clothe themselves and their families.
In that strike the following brave deed was done by a mounted
militiaman, an American Cossack, in the service of the tyrants who own
the vast stores of anthracite coal.
A mounted militiaman, armed with a modern rifle and a powerful revolver,
a double row of cartridges and a club in his belt, rode pompously
through the street of a mining village, bravely daring the unarmed
toilers and heroically glaring at the humble women and the helpless
little children at the cabin doors. _Ready_—with him fed, petted, armed,
mounted and brutal—the _capitalists_ were _ready_, ready though the
capitalists themselves were a hundred miles or ten thousand miles away.
That AUTOMATIC TUSK of the capitalist class was on duty. Suddenly he
cried out to an old man, a “mine helper,” on strike, an old veteran of
the Civil War: “Halt!”
Then, pointing down the dusty road, “the man on horseback,” the American
Cossack, said to the hungry old man: “March! Git! Damn you, git! Right
down that road right now—and keep marching—straight ahead of me! Mind
you—I’ll be right behind you, you damned lazy scoundrel! Walk
pretty—damn you! If you make a mis-step or even look side-wise, I’ll put
a bullet through you! Now march!”
The march began at once. Thus this well-dressed, well-mounted,
well-armed young working man, an American Cossack, rode hour after
hour—for half a day—a few steps behind the weary old wage-slave, a
veteran of the Civil War,—on and on in the hot sun for many weary miles,
down the Susquehanna River (in the direction of Gettysburg). Finally,
after the long march, the noble hero on horseback called out to the old
hero on foot, “Halt! Do you see that trail over yon mountain? Yes? Well,
now, you damned old cheap skate, you scratch gravel over that
mountain—quick, too! And let me tell you one thing—if you ever show your
damned skinny old face in the anthracite coal region again, we’ll shoot
you like a dog. Now, you old gray-headed —— —— ——, git up that
mountain—git up that mountain and out of sight or I’ll shoot you. Go!”
Wearily the old Union veteran climbed the mountain. When he finally got
away from his noble tormentor he sat down to rest—and think—to think of
“our free country.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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