State Rep. Cory Mason recently delivered an address to the Assembly that was both powerful and inspiring. He read the following remarks of former state Supreme Court Justice Edward Ryan from the 1873 speech that Robert M. La Follette often said inspired his decades of crusading for economic democracy:
“There is looming up a dark new power. ... The enterprises of the country are aggregating vast corporate combinations of unexampled capital, boldly marking, not for economic conquest only, but for political power. For the first time in our politics, money is taking the field of organized power. The question will arise, and arise in your day though perhaps not fully in mine: Which shall rule -- wealth or man? Which shall lead -- money or intellect? Who shall fill public stations -- educated and patriotic free men, or the feudal serfs of corporate wealth?”
Then in his own words, Mason said:
“Never has this warning been more appropriate in my lifetime than here today. Now, you may win this vote today. But I promise you, I promise you, that the citizens whose rights are being deprived of them, and the public who believes they should have those rights, and the members of this chamber who oppose this body, we will fight you in this Capitol and we will fight you at home in our districts, we will fight you in hearing rooms, we will fight you in labor halls. We will fight you in the smallest town and the biggest city. Until these rights are restored, we will not surrender and we will not give up on restoring people’s rights in the great state of Wisconsin!”
Cory Mason is a true statesman and new leader for Wisconsin.