Hellraisers Journal: Ben Hanford on the Republican Party, Bill Taft, and the Unemployed: “Go and Eat Grass!”

The unemployed were clubbed by the police
under republican Mayor Busse in Chicago
and under democratic Mayor McClellan in New York.
-Ben Hanford, 1908
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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday June 28, 1908
Chicago, Illinois – Republican Party to Unemployed: “Go and eat grass!”

From the Socialist Montana News of June 25, 1908:

Ben Hanford and Republicans
—–

“GO AND EAT GRASS” IS ADVICE.
—–
Socialist Candidate for Vice President
Scores Hypocrisy and Vulgarity
of Wall Street’s Recent Convention.
—–

“Go and Eat Grass!”

“If the people have no bread, why don’t they eat cake?”

So says the national convention of the republican party to the more than five million unemployed men in the United States. What sweet consolation to them and the twenty millions of people dependent on them.

We are a prosperous people, declared the leaders of the convention.

We have wealth to the value of $110,000,000,000, more than one quarter of all the wealth on earth.

We make more than one-third of the world’s modern manufactured products.

The republican convention was opened each day with prayer, and by a different clergyman—but there is no evidence that it was closed with a benediction.

The delegates considered themselves “the people”, and therefore they could truly say “the people” were prosperous. It was a convention of lawyers, office holders and millionaires. Why shouldn’t Senator Burrows be prosperous? For thirty-nine years he has drawn pay from a city, county, state or national treasury. Why shouldn’t Senator Lodge be prosperous? He graduated from Harvard Law School thirty-three years ago, and has been fed at the public crib for twenty-five of the years since past. These worthies fear lest socialism would “have the nation own the people.”

It was worth while to look at the delegates, also their women folks. The noticeable things about the latter were their grossness, stoutness, fatness—and dullness. The next thing to be noticed about the women was their clothes—or the lack of them. The men were not nearly as gross and vulgar looking as the women. Men in politics must lead active lives, even if they are wealthy, and the result is that most of them keep the fat well worked off. But how cruel they looked. Cruelty and craft were their most prominent characteristics. A glance at these republican delegates showed that they were individualists indeed. They belonged to the species of the birds and beasts of prey—vulture, and jackal and wolf, and tiger. These are the real individualists—the men who win by tooth and claw. And Just as the great beasts of prey are disappearing, so in due time—not far distant—shall these men and women of prey disappear likewise.

Of the country’s $110,000,000,000 of wealth, the people who attended the republican convention had their full share—and in addition to their own share they had the share of these five millions of jobless men. Why should they not declare their “confidence in the plenty and prosperity of the future?”

Why should they not “hail with confidence the signs now manifest of a complete restoration of business prosperity?” They had plenty. They were prosperous.

Why should they not after a column of fulsome laudation of Roosevelt and the republican party, very modestly declare their “gratitude for God’s bounty”—particularly as it cost them nothing. Doubtless those delegates would have thought it sacreligious to have expressed their gratitude to the men whose labor produced that bounty.

The national convention of the republican party has demonstrated that the party’s leaders are mad and blind. Old Burrows talked of a “temporary panic” while five millions of desperate men were vainly searching for work. He babbled of the 4,000,000 of immigrants who had landed on our shores months past and while he was talking emigration exceeded immigration.

Senator Lodge was eloquent over the traditions of the Grand Old Party, and Burrows drooled out a phrase to the effect that the candidate must have the qualities of a Lincoln and a Grant—then the convention nominated the Taft-Injunction Bill Taft.

And not one word on the floor of the republican convention, and not one word in the republican platform about the five millions of men out of work.

And why should there be? If the republican party had anything to do for the unemployed it would have been done long before the convention. The republican party has been in control of all branches of the federal government for years. The republican party controls the United States supreme court—that makes the blacklist lawful and the boycott unlawful. The republican party controls the United States senate by a majority of 29 out of 91 members. The republican party controls the United States house of representatives by a majority of 56 out of 391 members. The republican party controls all the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the federal government. For years the republican party has had power, and it must not be allowed to shirk responsibility. It should be held no less responsible for the decisions of a republican supreme court than for the acts of a republican president and the laws of a republican congress.

And this republican party, without a single decent attribute except a name stolen from the graves of its dead—this republican party had the power before congress adjourned to provide productive and remunerative employment for every idle man in the United States. But it did not one thing for the relief of the man out of work. And when congress adjourned its members came to Chicago and in convention assembled told the millions of hungry people in the country that owns $110,000,000,00O worth of property to, “GO AND EAT GRASS!”

I ask every jobless man in the United States to note the difference between the republican party and the Socialist party in the way they look at the problem of the unemployed. The national platform of the Socialist party contains the following plank:

1. The immediate government relief for the unemployed workers by building schools, by reforesting of cut-over and waste lands, by reclamation of arid tracts, and the building of canals, and by extending all other useful public works. All persons employed on such works shall be employed directly by the government under an eight-hour work day and at the prevailing union wages. The government shall also loan money to states and municipalities without interest for the purpose of carrying on public works. It shall contribute to the funds of labor organizations for the purpose of assisting their unemployed members, and shall take such other measures within its power as will lessen the widespread misery of the workers caused by the misrule of the capitalist class.

Every unemployed man every hungry man, who is threatened with reduced wages, every man who is in danger of losing his job, can see clearly how the carrying out of that proposition of the Socialist party would help him—and help him instantly. The republican party had the power to do all those things for the unemployed. It has done nothing for their benefit. Instead its officials have not even allow the unemployed to march in the streets and hold meetings to petition the government (the republican party) for a redress of grievances. The unemployed were clubbed by the police under republican Mayor Busse in Chicago and under democratic Mayor McClellan in New York.

Speaking of the democratic party, Senator Lodge declared that its watchwords had become the “epitaphs of policies which are dead and damned.”

Of the republican party it can be truly said that all its good is dead and all that remains is damned—not excepting In-junc-tion Bill.

“Go and Eat Grass!”

So says the republican party to the unemployed.

[Photographs added.]