ut if any kind
friend leaves us a little money, or we can by great industry earn
fifty cents a day, we would rather buy bread and clothes for our
children than cigars and champagne for our legal protectors.
There has been a great deal written and said about protection.
We, as a class, are tired of one kind of protection, that which
leaves us everything to do, to dare, and to suffer, and strips us
of all means for its accomplishment. We would not tax man to take
care of us. No, the Great Father has endowed all his creatures
with the necessary powers for self-support, self-defense, and
protection. We do not ask man to represent us; it is hard enough
in times like these for man to carry backbone enough to represent
himself. So long as the mass of men spend most of their time on
the fence, not knowing which way to jump, they are surely in no
condition to tell us where we had better stand. In pity for man,
we would no longer hang like a millstone round his neck. Undo
what man did for us in the dark ages, and strike out all special
legislation for us; strike the words "white male" from all your
constitutions, and then, with fair sailing, let us sink or swim,
live or die, survive or perish together.

At Athens, an ancient apologue tells us, on the completion of the
temple of Minerva, a statue of the goddess was wanted to occupy
the crowning point of the edifice. Two of the greatest artists
produced what each deemed his masterpiece. One of these figures
was the size of life, admirably designed, exquisitely finished,
softly rounded, and beautifully refined. The other was of
Amazonian stature, and so boldly chiselled that it looked more
like masonry than sculpture. The eyes of all were attracted by
the first, and turned away in contempt from the second. That,
therefore, was adopted, and the other rejected, almost with
resentment, as though an insult had been offered to a discerning
public. The favored statue was accordingly borne in triumph to
the place for which it was designed, in the presence of
applauding thousands, but as it receded from their upturned eyes,
all, all at once agaze upon it, the thunders of applause
unaccountably died away--a general misgiving ran through every
bosom--the mob themselves stood like statues, as silent and as
petr