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ers of our "Athens" on which Bunker Hill monument looks so proudly down, ever keeping alive in the hearts and minds of her patriotic people the memory of Warren and his brave companions, the libertyloving yeomanry of New England, whose blood (shed in the glorious cause of freedom and independence), moistened the ground on which the lofty structure stands.

It can never be forgotten that Boston was the home of Wendell Phillips, who was pre-eminently the prophet of the new and better era about to dawn upon the world. And one of her most enlightened and venerable citzens, the Rev. James Freeman Clarke,* a man very eminent in literature and one of the most erudite scholars and original thinkers of any age or country, said:

"The time will come at last, long fore-told by prophet and sibyl, long retarded by unbelief and formalism, when wars shall cease and the reign of just laws take the place of force in the great federation of mankind. Christ will at last become in reality the Prince of Peace, putting an end to war between nations, war between classes in society, war between criminals and the state. In trade, instead of competition, we shall have co-operation, and all industry will receive its just recompense."

The delightful words above quoted give emphasis to both Old and New Testament ideas that it is the only object of these essays to reiterate, amplify and enforce. That learned, Christian teacher and saint has here stated, in a few prophetic words, what, when put into law and institution, will bring in the millennial day. The "perfect commonwealth" will be but the unfoldment of Christianity-the crystallization (through a fraternal association of the world's workers), of the ideas revealed in the Sermon of Jesus on the Mount, into the pre-ordained, universal Christian republic, the UNITED STATES OF THE WORLD.

XI. Cold Steel and Cold Lead.

But the readiness of armed guards and armed policemen in the United States of America (as well as in Ireland), to shoot into crowds of unarmed workingmen and to break up public deliberate meetings, peacefully assembled and peacefully conducted-thus trampling upon the most sacred of popular rights, the right of free assembly and free speech, is, it is to be feared, only their too willing response to "secret orders in council," issued by the millionaire monopolists, and by them designed to force an uprising of the masses, which will give the classes a pretext for a declaration of martial law and the (threatened), final suppression of popular suffrage in our country, as a "military necessity."

Indeed military usurpation, it should be deeply impressed on all patriotic minds, is the only danger republics have to fear the only foe that can destroy the American commonwealth, as it has strangled human liberty everywhere and in every age. Cold steel and cold lead penetrating the warm, palpitating hearts of patriots have spread the blight of famine over India, Egypt, Ireland, and all other countries where the British flag casts its Upas shadow, and where the cupidity of selfish man holds sway, as it does everywhere under the aegis of British law, and as it is beginning to do under that of American law, which bears too near a relationship to the laws of Great Britain, being dictated largely by English capitalists who send their agents over here for that purpose.

*James Freeman Clarke passed away on Friday evening, June 8, 1888. at his home in Jamaica Plain, Boston, at the ripe age of 78. Dr. Holmes says of him: "Every utterance, every printed word of his is on the side of human freedom. A more useful, a more beneficial, a more devoted, a more successful, a happier life than his we shall hardly find."

Believing the danger to be imminent (organized capital having secured almost complete control already of the military arm of the American nation), the author has devoted large space in this volume to a careful review of the organization known as the "national guard" of the several states of the American Union (but more especially of that of Iowa, of which state he has been an humble citizen for thirtysix years), also an inquiry into the reason why our forefathers declared so positively against a standing army in time of peace, and why they were so much in favor of the "right of the people to keep and bear arms.'

There never has been a time, in the history of our country, I will say right here, when it stood the people more in need than it does today, to be prepared for the protection of their rights.

There is an old English law that our fathers designed should be an essential part of the fundamental law of each American state, that "every man should be provided with weapons and know the use of them."

The great danger to republican freedom today arises from a confusion of ideas in the minds of the American, many in reference to what is “a standing army." "Under the old idea" (General Sherman tells us) "every man should be enrolled in the militia." It would be well if we hold fast the "old idea" on this question,-the writer would venture to suggest,-even if the number of the militia should seem appalling, for the General says that "under that system the militia today would number probably one in ten, or about six million." Six million freemen, each, with a good gun above his cabin door, as our forefathers had (and as we ought to have, I will continue to insist and urge), and all well drilled in the manual of arms, popular freedom would be secure, as our fathers meant it should be. For it was as I have said, their design in founding the American commonwealth, that the people should be armed and the state disarmed, lest the state become independent of, above, and master of the people. In all despotisms (like that which domniates Ireland, India, etc.), directly the opposite policy prevails-the people are disarmed and the state is armed; and we shall find ourselves in the condition of the inhabitants of Ireland and India whenever, the state is armed and the people disarmed.

An advance guard of Red Coat Cavaliers have pitched their tents today in Wall street, New York, instead of on Boston Common, as of old, and they are secretly engaged in the unrighteous task of building up, contrary to our fundamental law, a standing army, in our country in time of peace, as an instrument of corporate tyranny, to be controlled and used against the American producers by the agents of the European gold syndicates, that own a controlling interest in all of our railroads, telegraphs, mines, oil lands, great manufactories, bonanza farms, etc. This is being done under the false, but seemingly plausible and patriotic pretext of "organizing an efficient militia force," (sheep's clothing concealing a ravenous wolf.)--the people forbidden to "drill or parade with arm, in their hands"-the secret purpose of the foreign enemy being to subvert the liberties of the American people, and to establish, on the ruins of our beneficent republic, a "stronger government" of money and bayonets, auxiliary to the British Empire, to be tributary to England forever. This declaration the author would make with great distinctness of utterance and impressive emphasis, so as to be heard by all patriotic Americans. If the bill to "nationalize the militia," that passed the Fedearl Senate last winter. be got through the house of representatives and signed by the president, that most devilish engine of corporate tyranny will be completed and ready for use, that is to say, a standing army; and the American people will awaken to find themselves prisoners of war. Any attempt

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by them to regain their lost liberty will be construed, by the corrupt courts, as "conspiracy against society" and a "strike" will be the deadline in the prison-pen of monopoly. Does the reader start at this? Let him look at the condition of Europe and Asia today-the condition of four-fifths of the human family. Nearly all are prisoners of war to a few heartless tyrants and robbers. But those tyrants and robbers are no worse than are our railroad, coal and oil barons who, in many states, are the acknowledged dictators of all legislation, notably in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois, and who control the United States senate, twenty-five of its members being, as has been already mentioned, millionaires, who secured their places, not by their superior abilities or devotion to the public good, but, it is commonly believed, by the corrupt use of money.

XII. Coercion is Barbarity.

Whatever institutiors will not stand without being propped up with swords, bayonets and Gatling guns, ought to topple and fall to the ground, never to be set up again. Let the laws be made for the welfare of the many instead of the aggrandizement of the few, and there will be no need of soldiers or armed policemen in any country under the sun, to keep the people under control, and prevent “labor riots." Peace officers and the citizen posse-comitatus are all sufficient for any emergency in a free state.

This one lesson must sooner or later be learned by all, viz: that coercion is barbarity, that pains, penalties, imprisonments, and punishments are savagery; for God has indeed given man but one prerogative in his dealings with his fellowmen, which is to "return good for evil," since that is the unrepealed and unrepealable law of Jesus Christ. The fundamental idea of Christianity is to give only love for hate, to overcome evil with good, a doctrine that so appeals to the God-like in the heart and brain of universal man that it is not denied in theory, by any, and never has been denied, in ancient or modern times; but it is admitted by all men to be as correct as a demonstration of Euclid.

Why has not this sublime doctrine been put universally in practice? There is but one correct answer to this question, the "love of money— the root of all evil"-has been the only hindering cause? But is not this cause always operative? And will it not forever stand in the way of the enforcement of this divine doctrine? Well organized society, operating by concordant voluntary motion, akin to the instinctive, harmonious movements that distinguish a colony of honey bees, in a word, democratic order displacing autocratic anarchy-displacing the systematic robbery (by means of coercive laws) of the many by the few will cure the disease-chronic, because it has ever marked the degree of man's barbarity; for civilization is only another name for social order resulting not from coercion, but from equilibrium of interests, the even poise of the steelyards in the hand of Justice, bestowing upon each an exact and equal share of the benefits of machinery—upon each an exact and equal share of God-bestowed manna.

This, I insist, will bring unalloyed peace, concord, and fraternity, will extinguish all violence, discord and hardheartedness. As sugar sweatens water, so will the acceptance by mankind of the Christian law -the Golden Rule-as the essential law of the new social system, sweeten all the relations of life. Our old social system is based upon selfishness that is to say, upon Paganism. It is just the opposite of the Christian system, in which "no man has anything he calls his own, but all is common." The pagan system, (which Christianity was, in my opinion, intended to uproot and utterly destroy from the earth), is that system by which a few have everything which they call

"their own" and nothing is common. That Christianiy has not yet fully displaced Paganism, is too plain to admit of denial. And that is what ails the world. "Jesus," Edward Atkinson says, "established the equality of all men under the higher law, to which all forms of government, all statutes, all judicial systems, must of necessity be adjusted in order that they may have any duration among men. He thus laid the foundation of a true democratic principle of government which must ultimately control the relations of men to each other, and which will slowly but surely make way for peace, order, and industry, good will and plenty among all races of men."

And here it may be truly remarked that the degree of civilization of states and enlightenment of individual minds is indicated by the degree of their approximation to the Christian plane of their acceptance of the divine rule of overcoming evil with good. That nation is savage, pagan, barbaric, that advances to dominion through coercion, war bloodshed, as Great Britain does; and that man or woman is a savage. a pagan, a barbarian, who upholds such a policy; for it receives no countenance or support from the teachings of the New Testament; and there is not a theologian in Christendom who dare call in question this statement for a moment. Give justice and freedom to Ireland, India and Egypt-give justice and freedom to every people and to each and every individual under the shining sun, and swords will be beaten literally into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks, and the prophesy will be at last fulfilled. "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

Yet, O my reader, it is a mighty conflict, the great anti-slavery struggle renewed, the conflict of the ages, that is now before us. The people must immediately "fall in" at the beat of the long roll and repel the enemy with vigor at the ballot box, or soon nothing will be left them but anarchy and revolution as the inheritance of their children. The causes are actively at work that will inevitably produce this effect, unless prevented, as it will be, I trust, by the vigilance of a most patriotic, intelligent and energetic people, determined to preserve their inalienable rights now menaced as never before.

XIII. A Final Inquiry.

Let us inquire finally, shall the constitution of the United States become an engine of tyranny and a bar to progress, its original object changed, its great purpose annulled by the usurpation, on the part of one branch of the triune government, of all the prerogatives and powers of the other two branches-the judiciary becoming tyrants?* The people appeal to the courts against the injustice of railroad corporations, for instance. A jury decides justly for the people. A corrupt judge sets aside the righteous verdict of an intelligent, impartial jury. The people carry up the case to the supreme tribunal. This corporation-controlled tribunal sustained the uprighteous decision of the corrupt lower court, and thus the sacred obligation of a plain and positive contract, the unrighteous courts, by collusion and wicked design, in the interest of corporate greed, annul, on the false plea of "public policy”—a dictatorial decree the act of supreme tyrants, not of righteous interpreters of existing laws.**

From the days of the Stuarts the (English) judges were servile, timid, and enemies of personal liberty. Over and over again Parliament has interposed to sweep away precedents which have coerced natural liberty and interpretations which have violated justice. For generations it seemed that the worst enemies of public and private liberty were these courts, whose duty it was to adjudicate equitably and to state the law with fairness. "Six Centuries of Work and Wages."-Rogers.

** See case of E. H. Crane vs. N. W. R. R., Iowa.

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Shall corporations unduly influence legislation? A law clearly unconstitutional is passed. A standing army is created under the false name of "militia." A select body of "state regulars" are enlisted for five years and paid in Iowa to drill and parade in time of peace, though the supreme law of the commonwealth positively declares: "No standing army shall be kept up by the state in time of peace; and in time of war no appropriation for a standing army shall be for a longer time than two years." The courts wink at this sweeping nullification of supreme law, because a mercenary army of "state regulars" is demanded by corporate monopoly to shoot down strikers and overawe and coerce the workers into slavery. Has not the arbitrary will of a corrupt judiciary become our only law, and the so-called judges, are not they kings as absolute in power as is the Czar of Russia?

Ermined tyrants, supported by the bayonets of armed mercenariesthe minions of monopoly-are the "bloody anarchists" we have most cause to fear. Exact justice by the state to each individual will preserve everlastingly the public peace. When government "fears the people" to the extent that it must arm detectives, policemen, and guards to overawe them and shoot them down, does "government of the people, by the people and for the people," really exist? Shall the executives of the states and of the nation become permanently supple instruments in the hands of corporate wealth to oppress the toiling many, exalting the military above the civil power at the demand of monopoly?* And, lastly, shall the democratic masses become actual prisoners of war to the plutocratic classes by the passage of the bill to "nationalize the militia," which is now before congress and which has already passed the aristocratic senate of the United States?

ESSAY IV.—THE CURTAIN LIFTED.

I. Anarchism, Socialism and Individualism.

The red flag of Anarchy, I insist, must be left to wave on the other side of the German ocean; for Americans will never look kindly on the display of any flag in our country but the stars and stripes. The flag of our country, to our minds, is the only emblem of freedom. Millions of brave men have given their lives to consecrate it to liberty. Our sons, brothers, fathers and comrades have been wrapped in its sacred folds. Let no man, who expects to be considered any other than an enemy to American freedom, display any flag but the star-spangled banner among us--any colors but the red, white and blue on any public occasion. The problem of free government for America is being solved right here in the United States, and neither Europe nor Europeans can help us solve it, except by seconding the efforts of patriotic Americans, enlisting and fighting under our starry flag. Its correct solution depends upon the growth and advancement among us of American, and not of European ideas. But the madness of egotistical foreigners on our shores must not be made a pretext by the supple instruments of corporate greed (chiefs of police, mayors of cities, judges of courts and governors of states), for the destruction of popular freedom-as has been done in the monopoly-controlled state of Illinois.

We expect the stars and stripes to become the flag of the United States of the World-not forced upon mankind by bloody conquest, as the British flag has been, but gladly accepted by them through universal acclaim as the emblem of peace, unity and love; monarchy and aristocracy having perished from the earth, and democratic liberty having become the inheritance of every people beneath the sun. *See case of Gov. B. R. Sherman vs. Auditor J. L. Brown, Iowa.