The Star

THE SIGNS OF REVOLUTION—FOREWARNED FOREARMED.

That the tendency of things is toward a terrible revolution in this country at no distant day should be evident to every thinking mind. Forewarned is sometimes forearmed. If the student of history will permit his learning to influence his opinions and not permit selfishness to destroy his candor, he will see clearly to what we are tending.

Among the causes that are inevitably leading to the revolution we may mention the following:

1. Increase in the proportional number of the ignorant, vicious and debased,

2. Diminution of the relative strength of the middle class.

3. Increase of the wealth, avarice and power of the few.

If this is the tendency of things no one can hope for very long life to our institutions with all the liberties they now secure to the people. That such is the tendency no one can deny. Are not the rich ten-fold richer than they were twenty years ago? Are not millionaires now as common as men worth one hundred thousand two decades ago? Are not the rich growing richer at a far greater ratio than the increase of population?

On the other hand, are not the poor relatively poorer than they were twenty years ago? Is there not a lower depth of ignorance and baseness than there was then? Are we not having a fourth class more and more distinctly marked? Fifty years ago there was not enough of the 'upper' class to be considered in the count. All were so nearly equal that, as compared with the present, they were scarcely distinguishable into rich and poor. Then no one could raise the question of the permanency of our liberties. The only source of apprehension was Southern slavery. In the South there never was a middle class. The three classes were the slaveholders, the poor whites, and the black slaves. How dangerous such a division of the people was every one knows from the terrible crisis of the rebellion.

At present we have four classes distinctly marked:

1. The aristocracy.

2. The middle class.

3. The virtuous poor.

4. The ignorant, vicious and debased.

The fourth class has been fully established during the past twenty-five years. It has received the following accessions:

1. Too large a proportion of the lowest class of foreigners that have come from Europe.

2. One-half of the four millions of negroes who were formerly slaves.

3. The importation of Coolies from China.

4. A class of Americans pressed to the very bottom of baseness by the influence and competition of the mass of imported and emancipated ignorance and baseness.

This fourth class will inevitably increase at a far greater ratio than the population if all the present causes shall be continued in their existing force. On the other hand, the wealth and power of the Aristocracy will correspondingly increase. The middle class and the class of intelligent and virtuous poor are growing comparatively weaker and less influential in our society and politics.

Great questions will inevitably arise between the producing classes and the aristocracy. On which side will be arrayed the fourth class? They will support those who will give them the most money and afford them the means of debauchery.

The effect of princely liberality upon the rabble is illustrated in Antony's oration over the assassinated Caesar:

Ant.—You have forgot the will I told you of.

Cit.—Most true: the will: let's stay and hear the will.

Ant.—Here is the will, and under Caesar's seal. To every Roman citizen he gives To every several man seventy-five drachmas.

2d Cit.—Most noble Caesar! We'll revenge his death.

3d Cit.—O royal Caesar!

Ant.—Hear me with patience.

Cit.—Peace, ho!

Ant.—Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, His private arbors, and new planted orchards, On this side Tiber: he hath left them you, And to your heirs forever; common pleasures, To walk abroad and recreate yourselves. Here was a Caesar: when comes such another?

1st Cit.—Never, never; come, away, away: We'll burn his body in the holy place, And with the brands fire the traitors' houses. Take up the body.

2d Cit.—Go fetch fire.

3d Cit.—Pluck down benches.

4th Cit.—Pluck down windows, forms, anything.

The cry sent out into the streets by the liberators, 'Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!' had no effect as against Caesar's will. They will, therefore, support the aristocracy, and in point of numbers render the first class strong enough to force the other two classes into revolution to secure their rights. Such proceedings as those of late in Mississippi and Louisiana will become general, and a bloody revolution will be inevitable.

Such being the causes of, and the process of revolution, what is the remedy?

1. Colonization of the negroes in separate territories.

2. The suppression of the Coolie trade.

3. The prohibition, if possible, or at least, the vigorous condemnation of special efforts to increase immigration.

4. The abolition of all monopolies, and the full inauguration of the labor policy as against the policy of capital.

5. The improvement of our District Schools, to insure a better practical education to all the children of the poorest classes.

It is evident, therefore, that there is a great work to be done in order to prevent an early national calamity. It is time that all the better minds and hearts of the country were enlisted in the cause. The first measure—colonization—must be attended to immediately, and the others must be kept steadily in view.