I am here going to make those three statements. I believe them statements of _fact_. Think them over. _Study_ them. If, after, you think I am wrong or overstate the facts, then--well, then, that is your affair, not mine. Remember, I write with a _club_--not a pencil.
The first of the three statements I wish here to make is: The social and political polity which patriotic and liberty-loving progenitors gave us, established for us, has been adroitly led from its prescribed way. Today our governmental and social organizations are _rich in policemen, soldiers, prisons, poorhouses, organized charities, charity balls, owners of unearned wealth and in politicians who helped those owners to acquire that unearned wealth and who furthermore continue to protect them in its possession_.
The second statement I wish my readers to consider is: The periodical monthlies and weeklies (and a few “yellow” newspapers), which Mr. Hitchcock and his coterie of conspirators would muzzle or, by laying an excessive mail rate upon them, suppress or ruin--and incidentally, make the Postmaster General _an unrestrained censor of the country’s periodical literature_----
Those periodicals, I started to say, have given more _real_ educational benefit to the adult population of this country during the past ten years _than has been given by all the “little red school houses,” colleges, universities, and churches combined_.
I do not, as you will notice, include the “political stump.” I do not care to comment on its peculiar didactic value or fascination for fools. That means both you and me, reader. We each, occasionally, go to hear the political “stumper” tell us a lot of _“influenced” lies_.
The third statement I wish to make is: Postmaster General Hitchcock is, so far as the writer has been able to learn, a politician. Not only is he a politician, the reports read, but he is a wise, smooth and “_ambitious_” politician.
That is bad. “Why?” Well, because an “ambitious” politician is about as useful to us, to you and to me, as are bugs in our potato patch, or dry rot in our sheep herd. The “ambitious” politician is a disease, attacking either our kitchen garden or our mutton supply.
Here is one answer: It is a long way between “three rooms rear and a palace.” But even they who crawl about the earth, begging for leave to live, _see_ things, _hear_ things, _feel_ things, and _read_ things. They are beginning to _understand_ much of what they _see_, _hear_, _feel_ and _read_.