The People Asleep.

The people are as a great giant asleep, whose thews and sinews are bound with fragile wisps of straw. Once aroused from slumber to a conscious sense of bondage, and the fetters will be rent into a thousand fragments. When they generally comprehend the integrity of their cause, myriads of tongues will proclaim the grievous oppressions so long patiently endured. Then the ballot will commence its perfect work, and numbers, majorities, and votes will demand that interest on capital shall be more justly proportioned to the gains of labor.

By the unjust standard of money, the profits of labor are so absorbed by capital as to produce a suffering that humanitarians cannot avert or relieve. They in vain strive to rear a firm superstructure on a defective foundation. Their earnest efforts are baffled, and end only in temporary and hurtful expedients. Such is the balefulness of the money standard, that the appeals of Christianity for eighteen hundred years, however deeply they may page break have furrowed the seed, have not as yet brought a large harvest of fellowship.

This is a question for the intelligent, earnest action of the people, but a more profound knowledge must first prevail—not of books—of science—of literature, but of the effect of a few simple laws within the comprehension of the most unlettered. No constitutional objections have force, for the people may change the constitution.

When that time arrives, true men everywhere, regardless of party, will unite to overthrow selfishness. Then, the thin gossamer which has so long united man's honest efforts to the unjust interest of capital, will be brushed away as a web, and for all time, the value of brain, hand, and sinew will rank superior to past accumulations.