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DON’T UNCHAIN THE TIGER

“Don’t Unchain the Tiger!” was the trumpet blast that terrified triflers at a perilous period of the late war. It was the title of a fly sheet of warning which was not unheeded in those days.

The warning has again been heard: Don’t unchain the tiger!

A warning to the fools of fortune, squatted on their golden piles amid the surging hordes of starvelings: Don’t unchain the tiger!

A warning to the ruck of millionaires whose millions have been racked out of the men by whose muscle they were created: Don’t unchain the tiger!

A warning to the huge, grinding, swindling corporations, which disregard all right and every man’s rights in their vampirish lust: Don’t unchain the tiger!

A warning to the gamblers in men’s food, men’s toil, men’s land, and men’s lives, who grind the faces of the people that fall in their tracks: Don’t unchain the tiger!

A warning to all who live by the organized brigandage of the times: Don’t unchain the tiger!

The tiger is gaunt and hungry, as he restlessly trails his chain.

The tiger got loose for a moment in New York, in the summer of ’63, and we who remember the week of the draft riots are not likely to ever forget it.

The tiger got loose again in the summer of 1877—the year of the continental railroad strike—and it took a hundred thousand armed men to scare him back to his lair in the jungle. Don’t unchain the tiger!

The tiger is not mankind, though he may lurk in the heart of the community. He is bred there by wrong; raised to life by it, and is stirred to action; he would have no being but for it.

The right thing to say to the wrong doers now under warning, is not, “Don’t unchain the tiger,” but don’t breed the tiger; don’t raise him to life; don’t stir the hot-bed out of which he grows; don’t let us have a tiger among us that needs to be chained; let us have neither tiger nor chains; away with the wrongs by which he is generated. Sure as death, in the long run, he will be here if they are not put away.

But what of the men who, in the interest of mankind, ought to put them away? Congress and the Legislatures are full of schemers who reck not of aught but their own ends, and think of naught but the bribe-giving corporations upon which they fatten.

The people themselves must take things in hand. Chain up wrong, and chain it strong, before it breeds the tiger.—John Swinton.

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The above words by a well known representative of the labor interest, contains much truth. The Cincinnati riots during the past month have added another illustration to the ferocity of the “Tiger” when brought to life.

But though wise men and good men may cry aloud and warn of the dangers ahead, yet the warnings will not be heeded. The love of money will still further grind and the love of power will lead to still greater frauds until the Tiger, bred of almost despair, will devour and destroy his adversaries.

Yet this, with other evils, will work out for mankind a deliverance and under the guiding hand of the New King will prepare the way for the rule of righteousness, when Justice shall be recognized and the GOLDEN RULE govern among men.

That present governments will be overturned by this “Tiger” is the united testimony of the prophets. Thus God often causes the wrath of man to praise Him.—EDITOR.

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— April And May, 1884 —