Walter Vrooman

“ The New Democracy is not religion and those who proclaim its truths are neither preachers nor priests, but it is religion's highest product. The great religions of the world, nurtured by God's hand and growing out of the fertile and sympathetic souls of the men and women of all climes and all centuries, have at last produced a practical ideal capable of being realized in actual life. This product is the New Democracy. It is the answer to the prayers of the ages. It is God's gift granted in answer to the cries of suffering of injustice and poverty throughout the world. ”

“ On the other hand, the essentially NEW PRODUCT of our civilization is the man who does not believe in heroism, who has stifled the nobler instincts with which nature originally endowed him, and fills his whole mind's horizon with the one image of gold. Those in whose minds avarice has devoured all other instincts and desires to the point of moral insanity, are the only strange or new off-shoots. They alone are the special and characteristic product of our particular period, distinguished above all else by its complete surrender to the one passion—greed. ”

“ We should hold in high esteem the solitary student who, in past ages and to-day, gropes his silent, difficult way towards those hidden truths in science, in history or in art which will one day enlighten and beautify the world. We should be lovers of all that is beautiful, and all that is true, and all that is lov [201] able in this great world of ours. Music, painting and sculpture, the sciences, literature and history, should be to all sources both of inspiration and of light. With all our hearts let us welcome these products of man's talent and genius. ”

“ Their science teaches that IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE INSTRUMENT WHICH IS THE SOURCE OF THEIR WEALTH TO BE OF ANY EFFECT IN BEHALF OF THOSE WHO WIELD THE INSTRUMENT.
Text-book in hand they say to the people, "It is impossible for you to vote yourselves rich."
Strictly speaking, it is unnecessary for the people to "vote themselves rich." WE, THE PEOPLE, ARE ALREADY RICH. We are rich by the gift of nature and the will of God. Each scientific discovery and invention, wrung by toil, genius and martyrdom from the strange earth and firmament that greeted primeval man, has added to our riches. ”

“ The moment this wagon arrives in town every gossip, every old woman, every street gamin, every enemy of Democracy is converted at once into an advertising medium for the propaganda of our cause. The wagon, the horses, the dried beef, the apples, the whole wheat, the literature and everything that the wagon contains become subjects for conversation in the village. The Bryan wagon is the center of interest and the Volunteers who live in it are objects of curiosity. By meeting time the people are prepared to listen with open eyes and open mouths, drinking in every word of the speaker's message. ”

“ Whatever a speaker's prejudices may be against any church or against all churches, when he consecrates his life to the cause of humanity through the Democratic party, he must suppress such prejudices and regard all buildings as existing for use. And a true Volunteer is always certain that the highest use that can be made of any building in the world is to have taught in it the truths of human brotherhood and progress as embodied in the New Democracy. ”

“ The young Volunteers who forsake home, business and personal ambition to help save our Nation from the money power, starting in the name of humanity astride bicycles, horseback, afoot and in Bryan wagons, preaching the new gospel of glad tidings without money and without price, eating whole wheat, dry bread and apples, with a square meal only now and then to remind them of the good times coming, are not impelled by any strange or new force in society. ”

“ The Volunteer who aspires to attract vast audiences and transplant the hopes and thoughts that flourish in his own mind to the fertile soil of other minds, must first learn that the passion to instruct, though a noble instinct, must be curbed ruthlessly, else instead of an orator the "would-be" will find himself a bore. The passion to impart knowledge, like the other human passions, when given free rein to exercise itself unrestrained, defeats its own ends and at last destroys itself. ”

“ There is not a single monopoly nor trust that preys upon legitimate trade and commerce but has been fostered in its unnatural growth by railroad discrimination. There has not been a single reform advocated for the benefit of the common people during the last thirty years, but has been fought bitterly by the railway officials.
We cannot destroy plutocracy, we cannot fight the trusts, we cannot fight the gold standard unless we are willing to defy the railroads. ”

“ Any man who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the street hunting for another job. The business of the New York journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country and race for his daily bread, or for about the same thing—his salary. You know this, and I know it; and what foolery to be toasting an 'Independent Press.' We are tools and the vassals of rich men behind the scenes. ”

“ Not agitators, but science and invention, have pushed us away from the ancient world, with its well-worn roads and lighthouses, and where we walk now human feet never trod before. The light from our foreheads is our only lamp, and eternal truth our only guide, prefer to EXPERIMENT, OR TO BE EXPERIMENTED ON; TO BE THE SURGEON, OR THE CORPSE.
The Democratic party in power in 1900 controlled by the common people will, without doubt, EXPERIMENT boldly. It will lead our government into new and untried ways, as our enemies very clearly and very truthfully predict. ”

“ Many clergymen have told me how their hearts have bled for the victims of social injustice; how in anguish they have wept over the piteous cries for help uttered by their dying brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ; how, bursting with indignation, they have longed to strike a blow against the brutality that crushes Christ's little ones in order to grind from their bones and blood colossal and unnatural fortunes. But they said, "We must conceal our tears and swallow our indignation, though it chokes us. We dare not speak out—we could neither destroy the tyrant nor save the victims. ”

“ When once the masses realize that the same class of adventurers, tax-gatherers and oppressors of labor who in this country have gotten absolute control of the Republican political machine, are the present friends, the advisers and colleagues of the despots, plutocrats and military leaders of Europe, that their families are intermarrying, their interests being pooled, their cause becoming one, their interests identical, all their plans and hopes one and inseparable, then will it be impossible for designing demagogues to mislead or confuse them further. ”

“ Even though they lose millions in attempting some audacious act, do they therefore refuse to attempt another act equally bold? Never. They see clearly that all enterprise, all progress, all victory, all increase in power and dominion, result only from repeated EXPERIMENTS. The boldest of all EXPERIMENTS was the hatching of the conspiracy that gave their present organization birth. EXPERIMENT gave them all they have. They live and grow by it. To stop EXPERIMENT is to stop action, for the modern world is a new world and in it there are no tried and beaten paths. ”

“ Many of "our great authorities" are mere sycophants of wealth, creatures of the millionaire, placed by him in the same category as his musician, his ballet dancer or chaplain, all valuable dependents. The money lord of creation often builds the college (Chicago University, for example) , places the poor book-worm in the position that makes him a "recognized authority," and the "authority" must dish up statistics as a cook dishes up his delicacies to suit the taste of his master. If he refuses he loses his job, and is no longer a "recognized authority." ”

“ Even if the church or any part of the church or priesthood or ministry attempts to oppose us, we will simply laugh with God at every futile effort to stem the flood, the source of which is their own teaching through nineteen centuries. For the church, or any part of it, to oppose or belittle or criticise the New Democracy, [169] is for the tree to disclaim its own fruit, for the rivers to disown the sea, for the fountain to dry up its stream, for the mother to cast aside her child. ”

“ Therefore, let no speaker listen to advice from the timid and over-modest, who shrink from the sneers and taunts of the over-nice, but at every meeting let them pass around the hat after the manner of our forefathers. We must also remember that in every audience, however small, there may be some penitent Croesus awake to existing evils but as yet with no clear vision of a remedy, with power and will to help but lacking knowledge as to where such help should be given. Sudden conversions are not unknown where the message of truth is delivered with sincerity and simplicity. ”

“ Not only do opinions differ, but the history, statistics, and facts, advanced by the defenders of monopoly and the gold standard contradict the history, statistics and facts discovered by the champions of the people. There can be only one truthful history of [209] the crime of seventy-three, and the seventy-three other crimes of the shirkers against the workers. Figures do not lie. Only one set of statistics, as to the rise in the value of the gold dollar, can possibly be correct. Facts do not conflict. When men contradict each other upon a question of fact, one side is wrong. ”

“ And now the very men who sold out the people, who defeated the cause of American independence and fastened upon our nation the rule of the European money power for four more years—these same men, led by that adept in low cunning, that master of political knavery and arch enemy of popular rights, David Bennett Hill, are trying to get a foothold again in the party they have just defeated, are again trying to gain the confidence of the millions whose liberties they sold, and whose children they are now trying to betray into perpetual slavery. ”

“ PRACTICAL POLITICS.
In a cause as holy as ours, false modesty is as unwise as false dignity. When we realize that money represents human effort, that it gives multiplied power either in war or peace and that the possession of money, with its accompanying power to an almost unlimited extent, is enjoyed by our enemies, it is well for us to admit at the start that we, every Volunteer of us, must make constant efforts wherever speaking or working, to raise funds, on however small a scale, for the great work before us. ”

“ So now there are devotees of religion, so inured to the gloomy slavery of poverty and injustice, so in the habit of praying for relief, that when the bold servants of God strike down with their ready hammers the prison walls, and freedom's air and sunlight stream in, these poor souls are horrified, paralyzed by the very light and atmosphere for which they have been praying. "Go away," they say, and, crying, they clutch their cell walls refusing to be free. They, too, have become maniacs. But the majority of the human race will [167] not refuse freedom's balmy breeze or the sunshine of liberty. ”

“ Let the money heretofore sent by our religious friends to teach the naked savages of foreign islands to be ashamed of their nakedness and to desire clothes, be applied now to the conversion of America to the conviction that every citizen of our own country who wants clothes should have a chance to earn them. If America is destroyed by that arch-devil worship, gold idolatry, if our Republic goes down amid the horrors of a violent revolution and military despotism, following in the footsteps of Rome and Greece and Egypt, what will result from our missions in foreign lands? ”

“ If the lawless, irresponsible dictators of industry and commerce are successful, then liberty, constitutional government and personal security are at an end, civilization is derailed into an abyss, and retrogression displaces progress through [173] another age of barbarism. Gold becomes the only God, and bayonets the only prod to duty. The university, the press and the pulpit will all be made permanent attachments to the one despotic machine which is to control every source of communication and instruction, and stifle all thought and aspiration that does not strengthen the ruling power. ”

“ THERE CAN BE NO SUCH THING AS A GOLD DEMOCRAT. The Democratic party stands for the abolition of the gold standard and every other monopoly by means of which scheming monopolies rob the public. A gold Democrat is as much an impossibility as a round square, white lamp-black or a red-hot icicle. The plutocrats who left the Democratic party and enlisted under the banner of Mark Hanna, will never join us except for the purpose of defeating our plans. ”