698 



CONSERVATION 



ferred to an era in which social and in- 

 dustrial policies are controlled by a 

 handful of millionaires, while a multi- 

 tude of common people, when per- 

 mitted, do their bidding for a scant 

 subsistence. 



If the Denver champions of ex- 

 ploitation for the benefit of the few will 

 inform themselves, they will ascertain 

 that this new school is abroad in the 

 land. 



Were it not invidious, names of its 

 representatives might be quoted at 

 length. 



Among them would be found leaders 

 of contemporary literature at bome and 

 abroad. 



The roll would include names high 

 in the lists of the clergy, here and else- 

 where. 



Representatives of this school are 

 writing the modern drama, and pack- 

 ing great houses night after night. 



At last, after an era of proscription, 

 they are being heard in American col- 

 leges and universities. 



Others of them address select audi- 

 ences in the parlors of the rich and cul- 

 tivated, and multitudes from the most 

 influential platforms. 



Further, the spokesmen of this 

 school are to-day found in legislative 

 halls. 



In the last session they well nigh 

 captured the American House of Rep- 

 resentatives. They speak in thunder 

 tones in the United States Senate ; and, 

 while representatives of the old order 

 flock to the cloak-rooms, the great 

 American people stop and listen. 



The Denver school may sing its song, 

 but the song is that of the dying swan. 



It may boast of the fight that is com- 



ing in Congress, but soon, under the 

 dome surmounted by the Statue of 

 Liberty, it will meet its Waterloo. 



The people are not dead. Neither 

 are they willing to pass on to their 

 children a land looted and despoiled 

 of its natural resources, and ruled by a 

 few great trusts. 



They have not read in vain the his- 

 tory of the Mayflower Pilgrims, who 

 "sailed wintry seas to found Christian 

 states." ■ 



The stories of Samuel Adams, Pat- 

 rick Henry, and James Otis were not 

 taught them for nothing, nor are the 

 names of Wendell Phillips, William 

 Lloyd Garrison, and Harriet Beecher 

 Stowe meaningless. 



And they still recall a President who 

 declared that this Nation could not live 

 half free and half slave. 



And what lessons would we draw 

 from such history? This, for one: 



That the United States of America 

 belongs to the people who occupy its 

 territory, and not to a small percentage 

 of them. 



We would learn that, while exploiters 

 and industrial freebooters may thus far 

 have helped themselves to the wealth 

 vouchsafed us all by bounteous Nature, 

 the people meanwhile passively acqui- 

 escing, the day of passive acquiescence 

 will not continue. 



That day, in fact, has already about 

 passed. The people are reasserting 

 themselves. 



Again, they are preferring their 

 claims to that which is indefeasibly 

 theirs ; and, henceforth, we may expect 

 them to insist upon the right to live 

 normal, healthful lives, and upon the 

 preservation of the opportunities which 

 alone make such lives possible. 



