LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 ST. LOUIS EXHIBIT 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 
*rafc 
 
THE MONARCH 
 BILLIONAIRE 
 
 BY 
 
 MORRISON I. SWIFT 
 
 Author of "Imperialism and Liberty," "Is It Right to Rob 
 Robbers?" etc., etc. 
 
 or THE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 57 ROSE STREET 
 
Copyright, 1903, by 
 EMILY F. SWIFT. 
 
 
P5353T 
 Wfc8 
 1403 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 or 
 
 THE MONARCH BILLIONAIRE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FOR a rough diamond Giles Wyndon was far in 
 the lead in the seaboard town of his adoption. So 
 rough was Giles that his fellow inhabitants, save 
 one, questioned disquietedly whether he was a 
 diamond. That one was Margaret Wyndon, his 
 pretty daughter, to whom alone, except money, 
 Old Giles was devoted with his soul. 
 
 Giles was reputed to be rich, "enormously" rich, 
 the envious said, but there again, as with the age 
 of Giles, all was speculation, for although he con 
 ducted large deals in shipping, manufacturing, 
 banking, and other departments of usefulness, all 
 of it was done in the name of a company, The 
 Amalgamated Fish, Ship, Iron, Transportation, 
 Coal, and Steel Company, of which, however, the 
 principal partners, whoever they might be, never 
 
2 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 appeared to interfere with the conduct of Giles. 
 He hought and sold and builded and schemed and 
 speculated and added factories to The Amalga 
 mated until the workmen it comprehended made 
 Steel Haven a city, of which The Amalgamated 
 was itself the chief and guardian thing. 
 
 But it was a rickety city, cultureless, squali d and 
 unbeautiful, and in the heart of the ricketiness 
 lived Giles with his sparkling feminine treasure 
 in a ramshackle tenement unfit to stand. 
 
 "I am too poor for a better," he said to the neigh 
 bors, with that grimace which made the children 
 run and the elders creep. They all feared Giles. 
 Some of them secretly called him the Devil s Nose, 
 he was into so many things. Preternaturally 
 weird and magnetic he was, frightening his vic 
 tims so much that they thought him Old Nick, so 
 named him "Old" Giles, though in years he was 
 just in the early heyday of middle life and tower 
 ing strong. 
 
 Four miles off and inland on the river there was 
 a seat of eminent refinement and sedate repose, 
 the town of Bernfield, with its ancient homes, its 
 families stretching dimly back, its inherited wealth 
 and its stately college for young men. Old Giles 
 hated Bernfield, hated its people, its rigid intan 
 gible memories, and its culture, and he would have 
 locked up the river just above his wharves and for- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 3 
 
 bidden the Bernfield pleasure yachts from riding 
 out to the ocean if it had been in his power to do so. 
 Those who have visited this rare carving of na 
 ture can never forget it. The mountains in many 
 convolutions and fissures bend around the town 011 
 the landward side in a protecting crescent. From 
 the clefts and ravines, each profoundly differing 
 from its neighbors, issue limpid streams that join 
 at intervals in the town, rolling through private 
 grounds or down the centre of winding, pictur 
 esque streets with flexured driveways on either 
 side, affording the architect and landscape gar 
 dener priceless opportunities for enhancing na 
 ture s marvelous effects. On account of the moun 
 tain wall Bernfield climate escaped the winter 
 bleakness of environing regions. A large, exclu 
 sive hotel prospered at all seasons on a huge ledge 
 of the crescent, admitting to its luxuries only 
 those commended by some Bernfield best family, 
 and at night the lights of this caravansary, glis 
 tened above the town like the humanized spirit of 
 an electric constellation, softening the chill or 
 gloom of storm and darkness. Prom Bernfield 
 down to the sea line sloped a rich plain laden with 
 handsome farms, many of which were owned by 
 the prosperous families of Bernfield and culti 
 vated by the higher order of tenantry, whose spe 
 cific excellence lay in politeness and appreciative 
 
4 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 humility to the owner quite as much as in virtu 
 osity on the subject of crops. 
 
 Bernfield had risen supreme to most earthly dis 
 tempers, hut its surviving sorrow was Old Giles 
 Wyndon. He was in every specification an en- 
 croacher. At a poetic distance Steel Haven,, with 
 its hlack mills helching smoke and flame 
 might be tolerable, but through the will and wiles 
 of its indomitable lord, Steel Haven was marching 
 inexorably up the river toward Bernfield, gulping 
 down lovely morsels of farm and forest like an in 
 satiable foraging demon. They kept him out of 
 Bernfield, that is real Bernfield, all the choice 
 lands where the gentlefolks lived. They did this 
 by a strictly graven compact among themselves to 
 sell Bernfield realty only to people vestured in a 
 suitable degree of culture creditably to occupy it. 
 The shaft was aimed at Giles, openly aimed, for 
 Giles was the evoker of smiles and sneers among 
 the elite. It was known from his own lips that he 
 had only with difficulty learned to read in his fif 
 teenth year ; a pagan and a vandal, by preference, 
 education and ignorance. 
 
 But every well-bred town must have its serving 
 population and they had not been forethoughted 
 enough to exclude Old Giles from the territory of 
 their servile quarter. He had quietly pursued a 
 policy which, at the right turn of events, would 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 5 
 
 place Bernfield on its knees. The Amalgamated 
 was builder and owner of a trolley system from 
 Steel Haven to the town limits of Bernfield, to 
 which the Bernfield Council, mouthpiece of the 
 superior class, had sternly proscribed entrance. 
 The real Bernfielders had their carriages and a few 
 faded families the spirit to walk. But Giles had 
 colonized the serving district with families from 
 his mills. He circled the trolley path round to th^ 
 outskirts of this section, and daily the workmen 
 rode to and from their toil. 
 
 "Houses are scarce in Steel Haven," communi 
 cated Giles; "I don t have to pay them any more 
 wages, and it means ten cents a day the individual 
 back into the pockets of The Amalgamated." 
 
 Many of these people rented homes of the Bern- 
 field gentry, which was acceptable, and as they di 
 vided their votes between the rival factions of the 
 aristocracy at elections, and kept themselves in 
 the "Slave Quarter/ 7 as some high ladies called it, 
 and supplied servant girls to the fashion, the bet 
 ter sort suffered no painful concern at their in 
 creasing number. 
 
 As Giles expected that Margaret would some 
 time marry, from her babyhood he had given ar 
 dent paternal study to the question of her mar 
 rying right. His hatred of Bernfield and every 
 thing Bernfieldian had contributed most to the 
 
6 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 scheme for his daughter s education. Books he 
 abhorred as a Bernfield attribute,, the less of which 
 the better, and schools also, the progeny of Bern- 
 field colleges. Old Giles had done some stiff rea 
 soning in years gone. His girl must never marry 
 the kind of mimic men that ornamented Bernfield, 
 and he took a radical YOW to inhibit the event. 
 She should not be spoiled by education, for if left 
 to lipen in virgin crudity the cultured men would 
 have no use for her nor she for them. True to this 
 iconoclastic resolve Margaret was never sent to 
 school. Giles taught her to read simple words, a 
 little writing and arithmetic, and there her schol 
 arly gymnastics ceased. For six years the stub 
 born-hearted man had mourned the loss of his wife 
 before a son had come to him, and the misfortune 
 that Margaret was not a boy, but as business and 
 the infant grew he solved the problem of both by 
 determining to make a boy of Margaret. 
 
 She was allowed to play like a lad until eight, 
 when Giles began to take her with him everywhere, 
 her strong, healthy body being his delight and 
 everybody s admiration. He made her his com 
 panion among the ships and shops, encouraging 
 her to question into things and work among the 
 rough men as she grew tall and strong. This 
 pleased her father, but what gladdened him more 
 was her precocious aptitude for business. From 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 7 
 
 the time of that precious discovery he kept the 
 girl with him in his transactions, explaining 
 away the difficulties when the men he had bar 
 gained with were gone. At the age of nineteen, 
 after eleven years of this peculiar tutelage, Mar 
 garet Wyndon comprehended the profound est in 
 tricacies of Giles affairs excepting the consti 
 tution of The Amalgamated Company; he even 
 pronounced her his superior in grasp and judg 
 ment, and trusted her in large matters as he would 
 not have confided in a trained male ^partner of his 
 own years. 
 
 "She will never marry a Bernfield jay or his 
 like," he assured himself contentedly. "My plan 
 of education was right." 
 
 And yet Margaret gave him some qualms. 
 Through all this wonderful discipline, which 
 seemed a solemn and awful thing to the man of 
 concerns, she remained in much a mere child at 
 nineteen, so exuberantly young, so fresh and full 
 of irrepressible spirit, and not the least weighted 
 with the towering transactions in which she rather 
 sported than worked, as instinctive master, like the 
 careless bird building its home in the light. Those 
 colossal affairs that staggered mature men with 
 their monstrous dignity were her amusements be 
 cause she had learned them as childhood diversions. 
 How silly the care-eaten men looked to her in their 
 
8 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 sweat and torture over these little subjects of 
 money. 
 
 "It has come so easy to her/ Giles sighed ; "she 
 doesn t know or respect the brains she exercises/ 
 
 On one point Giles had been scrupulously reti 
 cent to Margaret. Although never mincing his 
 scorn for the Bernfield tribe and all their effem 
 inate gods, he had not betrayed the depth or cause 
 of his personal hatred for their leading families, 
 and this reserve came from a shrinking sentiment 
 that there were traits in him which must not be 
 revealed incautionsly to this young girl if he would 
 cherish unharmed her perfect trust for which he 
 now cared supremely ; yet he proceeded sternly on 
 his way, compassing plans that since a fearful con 
 vulsive hour had been the passionate purpose of 
 his life. In selecting a destiny a man may fore- 
 shape the physical results and miss perception of 
 what will happen therefrom within him. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ONE of the old and formerly wealthy families 
 of Bernfield had been sinking for a number of 
 years into financial decay through devotion to idle 
 ness, pinochle and luxury. Contempt for Giles 
 had not hindered the surviving patriarch of this 
 family clan from borrowing his money,, which the 
 wily financier had supplied on condition of lifting ^ 
 previous encumbrances from the estate and having 
 it mortgaged to him alone. The end had come and 
 the ancestral homestead was offered for sale. Lead 
 ing citizens had organized a syndicate for its pur 
 chase as a club house and private park, but when 
 Old Giles signified his intention to bid a public sale 
 was arranged. As the day approached it was evi 
 dent that a great struggle was preparing. With 
 Bernfield not only the coveted club house, but even 
 more the exclusion of the plebeian pusher Giles, 
 was at stake. 
 
 The Eichfont property numbered many acres 
 in the handsomest portion of town, its stately man- 
 
TO The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 sion lying far back among the mighty trees of the 
 grand park. On the day of its sale Margaret ac 
 companied Giles to Bernfield. His racy wit flashed 
 sharply in contemplation of his intended victory. 
 
 The bidding opened confidently with the Bern- 
 fielders, Giles prudently exceeding them but fifty 
 dollars. They raised a thousand and Giles cov 
 ered it with fifty. They went up five thousand 
 and Giles modestly added another fifty. This was 
 repeated four times, the excitement becoming tre 
 mendous. Then they fell back to thousand-dol 
 lar advances, Giles accompanying them as before. 
 The sum was nearing a hundred thousand with ter 
 rific strain to the spectators and syndicate bidders. 
 It was four times the initial offer. 
 
 "An even two hundred thousand," came from 
 the syndicate in a stroke of desperation. It was a 
 dizzy leap. 
 
 "And fifty/ drawled Giles. 
 
 He and Margaret were the only unexcited per- 
 bons. Margaret was studying Bernfield high life, 
 its culture in abeyance and its passions unmasked 
 in the fierce eagerness to get something. She 
 looked on wonderingly. There were the persons of 
 breeding and polish, words she had heard caus 
 tically uttered in connection with Bernfield. She 
 scanned the tense, angry faces of the wives and 
 daughters of the men who were making the fight. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. n 
 
 The men, under the spell of commercial rage, 
 showed themselves of the type that she was fa 
 miliar with in business. None of them rose above 
 the hard, vulgar level. Her eyes took an inventory 
 of the crowdi and only then rested upon a form that 
 stood somewhat aloof leaning against a tree; it 
 was a young man well attired who was also sur 
 veying the spectacle. In the course of its wander 
 ing his look fell upon Margaret and their eyes 
 met. 
 
 Bidding entered the third hundred thousand 
 and advanced gloomily. Old Giles always kept 
 his lead of fifty dollars, his lip curledi with a dia 
 bolical expressiveness. At length, as if over-bored 
 by the protraction, he took a paper from his 
 pocket and appeared to read. 
 
 The other side gathered for conference, in which 
 the young man at the tree joined, the amused, 
 quizzical look still glimmering in his face. Then 
 there was a period of dogged monotonous responses 
 of fifty dollars on each side, with occasional spasm? 
 leaping ten thousand. Sullen scowls had frozen 
 on the faces of the aristocracy. They were not in 
 the position of Giles, who could raise the price ^ 
 of some indispensable commodity half a cent and 
 clear millions by it the next day. 
 
 "Three hundred thousand," issued from the 
 spokesman of the syndicate. 
 
12 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 "Four hundred thousand," remarked Giles, 
 lighting a new cigar and stretching himself as if 
 waking up for battle. 
 
 That was too much. The magnificent Richfont 
 demesne belonged to Old Giles, but at nearly ten 
 times its normal value. The spendthrift Algernon 
 Richfont now had a pretty surplus to "blow in" on 
 fashion and racing, and the execrated pirate, Giles 
 Wyndon, was firmly planted in the heart of patri 
 cian Bernfield. There were those who were mad 
 enough to murder him. 
 
 The crowd did not at once disperse and Mar 
 garet, who was left standing alone while her father 
 completed the business, was the object of many 
 hostile and even brutal glances. She was uncon 
 cerned , but not so the young man who had seemed 
 half spectator half actor in the scene. The blood 
 flamed into his face at the insolence of the haughty 
 dames and gentlemen toward this girl. He saun 
 tered over to her and lifted his hat and began to 
 speak. 
 
 On the way home to the Steel Haven tenement 
 Margaret was ecstatic. "Are we to live in it, 
 father?" she asked. 
 
 "Live in it, child !" exploded the man in a pa 
 ralysis of wonder. "Sink all that capital in mere 
 living?" 
 
 The idea tickled him and he laughed and 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 13 
 
 laughed, and Margaret laughed too, just because 
 she enjoyed all her good comrade s moods. 
 
 But her question put a new thought into Giles 
 head. In the time to elapse before his projects 
 with the estate could fructify some one must in 
 habit the mansion, and why not themselves? To 
 live disdainfully among his hereditary foes, to cast 
 back hate in their teeth from one of their own 
 ancient social fortresses, would be a joy he had 
 not before conceived. The place had come to 
 them furnished and they need only walk in; and 
 one day they did so, taking simply their house 
 keeper and trunks. 
 
 Margaret came and went as before, acting as 
 Old Giles second business self and drawing a 
 moderate salary from The Amalgamated: for her 
 services. After a time the fine people ceased to 
 condescend even to stare their wooden rebuke at 
 her. To Margaret, living strongly and happily in 
 her own world, these Bernfielders were invisible. 
 There was one person in Bernfield of whom she 
 thought. But the days passed and in her strolls 
 through the town and explorations of the moun 
 tain ways they did not meet. The ordinary resi 
 dents were not given to mountain walks. 
 
 On the day following the sale Philip Burson 
 went to the city in the service of his own affairs. 
 These were not pressing. He was a lawyer in the 
 
14 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 pink dawn of practice, with a certain capital of his 
 own to look after. It was safely invested and the 
 work it entailed consisted in spending its income. 
 His good connections would bring him law some 
 time and he was not worrying. While he should 
 have been analyzing law books he found himself 
 trying to construe the character of a woman. 
 
 His reflections absorbed him : "They say illit 
 erate is not the word, that she is a beautiful 
 blank of civilization; she hasn t the ideas called 
 culture they jam into us ; a gipsy or a red-blooded 
 savage couldn t be freer of our fixed thoughts our 
 civilized obsessions. She is a new woman in real 
 ity, new all around, and confoundedly interesting 
 as a type that may grow in protest against hack- 
 neyism and regularity. Cultured ladies and gen 
 tlemen of Anglo-Saxon breed spoil for want of 
 the salt of courage; they are clogged with multi 
 ple interests dragged up out of the slimy past, and 
 their life work is to rake away at this growing pile 
 of stale ferment to win fame by saying something 
 new about it. We stumble ahead face backward. 
 Why don t we swing round and look to the front 
 and future? We are all mired when we lift a 
 leg to move forward the other sinks deeper and we 
 don t go. Yet one may be free from culture bar 
 nacles without having anything else, may be just 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. T 5 
 
 empty; the chances I suppose are against Miss 
 Wyndon s having a strength of her own." 
 
 Burson s reveries usually ended this way, in 
 gloom. Waking from one of them, in which his 
 judgment had triumphed decisively against the 
 possibilities of one like Margaret, he took the 
 train for Bernfield. A college student whom he 
 knew rode in the coach and they sat together. The 
 young fellow, a junior just ascending into the con 
 fidence of the outside college men and gratefully 
 strenuous to deserve the new-horn respect for his 
 wisdom, soon warmed to the friendly magnetism 
 of Philip and expanded on the affairs of the col 
 lege, chatting confidentially, assuming that Philip 
 was up in the news, for his name was identical with 
 the higher Bernfield aristocracy and he was inti 
 mate and popular with the college hoys, being only 
 a little older. 
 
 What Philip gathered from his self-conscious 
 reserve and energetic outbursts was this : The in 
 fluential portion of the student community had 
 gone hotly into the quarrel against Giles, their 
 anger being fanned by the young ladies of the first 
 families with whom they spent most of the time 
 they could filch from athletics. They might have 
 tolerated the old pagan but for two circumstances : 
 he did not go to church, and he and his queer 
 daughter made almost nightly parties at the great 
 
16 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 house for the lowest riff-raff., the mere work-people 
 of his mills. This showed a mean nature., or was it 
 a planned outrage on those in the sensitive circle 
 of whose sight he had thrust himself? Factory 
 wretches trailing up into the sacred portion of 
 town where they could be seen, and entering the 
 noble old Richfont gates as if they had a right to, 
 was something not to be borne. It would ruin the 
 community s character, that is its peculiar supe 
 riority to other towns where classes mixed, and this 
 would demoralize the college, for it was one of the 
 allurements offered to unhooked seekers of learn 
 ing, that half the education of that institution was 
 afforded to the students by the generous intercourse 
 of the exceptionally cultivated families of Bern- 
 field and their daughters. There was a moral 
 question, too : nobody knew what kind of a person 
 that daughter of Old Giles might be. There was 
 a good deal said and suspected. Already she was 
 deteriorating some of the weaker fellows, the poor 
 ones, who didn t belong to the fraternities and go 
 into good society. All you had to do was to speak 
 to her and she would speak back and talk without 
 knowing you. He had tried it himself, just to 
 learn, and she was fascinating as the devil. Had 
 she said anything out of the way? Nothing out 
 of the way, but think of a young lady you could go 
 up to and address, or who might even speak to you 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 17 
 
 first, if she liked your looks; there wasn t much 
 lady about that. Just a woman would have been 
 different. There wouldn t be a great deal of cul 
 ture left in town if she remained. And such a 
 girl couldn t have morality you know, if you looked 
 on that side of it. 
 
 Of course something must be done and it wa 
 going to be done the next night. Only a few were 
 onto it, fellows you could trust, but naturally 
 they wouldn t have dared to go ahead without the- 
 underground support of the heavy men of the com 
 munity. These gentlemen couldn t show their 
 hand, but if any of the fellows got criminally ar 
 raigned they would back them in the courts; if; 
 would be treated as a college prank and they would 
 be let down easy a fine at most, which the citizens 
 behind them would pay. They were going to burn 
 the house that old Wyndon had bought, as the sim 
 plest way of smoking the old hyena out. 
 
1 8 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PHILIP BURSON was one of the leading citizens 
 of Bernfield, and the youth who discoursed the pre 
 ceding information did not observe that it was 
 new to his listener, who had conversed incuriously 
 as if he had nothing to learn. 
 
 On the following day an Indian summer sun 
 brought everybody out of doors and Burson spent 
 the morning greeting his friends. All of them 
 were full of the subject of the Wyndons and their 
 carryings on, so that wherever the talk began it 
 ended with them. Under Burson s keen banter 
 some of them appeared far from comfortable in 
 mind. These were doubtless privy to the plot. 
 
 Burson held a peculiar place in the Bernfield 
 consciousness. He was different from the rest in 
 the undoubted possession of brains. His inde 
 pendence was often scandalous. They were afraid 
 of him, his good-natured badinage stung. Never a 
 censor, they felt him capable of outstripping them 
 in well or ill, they could not sound his tendencies, 
 he was a puzzle and a favorite. Some way they 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 19 
 
 wanted his approval though pretending not to, 
 but they were never sure of it. The greater 
 breadth of his mental outlook was disturbing and 
 cast both a shadow and a spell on them. 
 
 It was very displeasing to certain ones that he 
 had come down to Bernfield at this time. They 
 tried to put a brave face on themselves and found 
 it much harder to do so than the day before. But 
 the climax was reached when Margaret Wyndon, 
 dressed simply and looking very beautiful, was 
 joined on her way to the post office by Burson, and 
 then asked to walk farther, strolling by his side 
 through the very college grounds under the eyes of 
 all the young men, turning the heads of some well 
 up in the social pitch, and then going homeward 
 among the residences by other streets. The public 
 had never suffered such a shock. Nobody but 
 Philip Burson could have given it to them. 
 
 The effrontery of the Wyndon woman para 
 lyzed the feminine side of the community. She 
 enjoyed Philip in open street, dared to enjoy him, 
 and he talked to her like an equal his manner 
 evidenced it as if she were up to him and could 
 comprehend. If only they dared to resent it, but 
 who felt like undertaking to resent Burson? The 
 men looked cloudy and fell apart into groups. 
 What did Phil Burson mean? Was he merely 
 performing to mystify them ? Had the siren f asci- 
 
so The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 nated him for the instant? Of course he could 
 have nothing to do with her long. Did he know 
 what was in brew for that night? One thing they 
 realized: Burson could not be trifled with,, and 
 disregardful of the fury against the Wyndons he 
 had publicly placed himself at their side. Was it 
 to be taken as an espousal of their cause? The 
 men did not like to ask him. 
 
 At eleven o clock that evening the moon set and 
 Philip Burson crossed the Wyndon grounds from 
 his own place which adjoined. Keeping in the 
 shadow of trees he approached the house, with 
 which he had been familiar from childhood. The 
 only point where fire would successfully take was 
 in a many-angled frame extension somewhat to 
 the rear, and Philip placed himself where he could 
 command the avenues leading to it. His post was 
 between the mansion and a group of thickly vined 
 summer houses in whose shadow the incendiaries 
 could advance unseen. 
 
 That night Margaret Wyndon had retired to her 
 room at an early hour. Throwing a long dark 
 cloak about her slim form she had then without 
 her father s knowledge passed out by a rear door 
 and entered the labyrinth of arbors. Old Giles 
 sought his couch and slept in solid peace ; the faith 
 ful woman who was their only servant tossed sleep- 
 lessly on her bed. Only Margaret was aware that 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 21 
 
 this woman had a daughter in Bern field, the 
 stenographer and general helper of a Bernfield 
 gentleman with literary pretensions, in whose 
 house she lived. She had ambition herself to do 
 something in letters and the position was advan 
 tageous. Knowledge of her mother s service with 
 the Wyndons would have caused her dismissal, so 
 the relationship had been concealed. Her em 
 ployer s son was one of the plotters against Giles, 
 he had convoked some of the meetings of the 
 young conspirators at his home, and one day 
 when alone at her work in the quiet library, the 
 girl heard words from the next room that drew 
 her in dismay to the slightly open door where she 
 had learned the students purposes, and had con 
 veyed them to her mother. When Margaret was 
 told these facts she had enjoined the woman to 
 say nothing of them to Giles, fearing the results 
 of his savage temper if he should know. She 
 would show herself to the depredators, and, of 
 course, they would run. Probably they would be 
 masked, but as she already knew the names of 
 several through Mrs. Eector, she could visit those 
 who lived in town the next day, and compel a 
 bonded guarantee from their parents that the at 
 tempt would not be repeated, on pain of exposure 
 and legal action. 
 
 She had been in concealment for some time 
 
22 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 when a step ground slightly on the gravel and a 
 figure moved by toward the house. Straining her 
 eyes to distinguish it, and expecting others, she 
 prepared to move out upon them. The man ad 
 vanced a few steps and then paused, leaning 
 against a tree. Although his face was turned away 
 the pose was unmistakable: it was the same that 
 had imprinted itself on her mind at the sale, the 
 careless ease of Philip Burson was a vivid mem 
 ory. Margaret put her hand before her eyes and 
 sank back upon the seat. The man who had arisen 
 in her life to awaken strange feelings of trust was 
 the subtlest traitor, for he could only be there to 
 join others in committing a most dastardly act. 
 She leaned her face into her arms on the railing 
 and gave way to a great agony. Then she mas 
 tered herself and with numb feeling waited. For 
 a time Philip kept his position by the tree and 
 then approaching the arbor rested against it 
 hardly two feet from where Margaret was. His 
 features were outlined against the night, and the 
 girl could see them plainly. A moment before she 
 had imagined that she hated him, but now the 
 feeling was gone ; there by her side something from 
 him pervaded her and it was good, and then, 
 though proof had been strong against him, she 
 would have believed in him. 
 
 It was a soft fall night, and all the stars 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 23 
 
 beamed brilliantly. The glory of the vision lifted 
 the young man s soul, quickening it to the tender 
 solicitations which seemed to come to him from 
 every part of that sublime still nature. Perhaps 
 the motion of her spirit who was by him pene 
 trated him with its indefinable waves. He 
 thought of her compared with the women of his 
 sphere. They had their multitude of trivial re 
 finements, graces one could learn, but the great 
 refinement, did he know one who had that? The 
 picture of the tigerish Bernfield ladies at the sale, 
 women usually so perfectly modulated, rose in his 
 mind Margaret Wyndon was worlds their 
 superior, if he could read women she was one in 
 the great sense. His strong face must have re 
 vealed the swell of emotion that bore through him, 
 for Margaret with a sudden impulse reached out 
 her hand and almost touched his hair. 
 
 The night wore on, and Philip kept his vigil, 
 pacing backward and forward or seated by the 
 summer house entrance, and the girl whose free 
 and forceful spirit had never felt the need of pro 
 tection, watched him lovingly and felt protected. 
 The marauders did not come, and when the morn 
 ing began to break Philip went home to sleep. 
 On the two succeeding nights he resumed his 
 guard, Margaret, however, remaining indoors, 
 stationed where she could look out from a window 
 
24 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 upon him and keep him company. She could not 
 have passed a second night of such nearness with 
 out revealing her presence. Philip was now satis 
 fied that the project had "been abandoned, and re 
 turned to his ordinary habits. 
 
 Margaret was experiencing a new life. The 
 ample expanse about her home,, with its many 
 fresh autumnal vistas was ceaselessly fascinating, 
 and won her to long explorations. Burson, wan 
 dering restlessly among the fine old elms of his 
 place, one day came within speaking distance, un 
 expectedly to each. He crossed the barrier and 
 joined her, proposing to pilot her to an especially 
 lovely spot. In the depth of this seclusion there 
 was a rustic seat, and here they talked until the 
 chill of approaching night drove them in. With 
 out precise agreement, they met in the same place 
 the next day, afterward coming regularly to spend 
 hours together. 
 
 They were frequently seen in each other s com 
 pany on the public streets, everybody in town 
 knew and severely commented on this ; only Giles, 
 immersed in his own concerns, did not know it. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 25 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OLD Giles meanwhile matured his purposes. 
 For years he had been figuring to turn Bernfield ^ 
 into a factory town, and the scheme was near con 
 summation. The large stone mansion he had pur 
 chased would be an admirable wing of the exten 
 sive brick structure he intended to raise beside 
 it. The stream coursing through the estate would 
 supply power; the encumbering oaks and elms 
 should fall, and rows of useful workmen s dwell 
 ings, brick and two stories high, take their places. 
 He was envious of the water force wasted, though 
 it might have been utilized below the little city. 
 But that region was evilly sacred to him: he had 
 had a mill there once, by his hand there should 
 never be another. 
 
 He meant to have a good many factories going 
 in Bernfield before he ceased expanding it. The 
 first of them would spoil the value of adjacent v / 
 lands by half or three-fourths, which would be 
 rich for him; these mossed-over estates hung on 
 
26 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 a fictitious thread, beauty; he would cut the cord 
 and plump them down to plain productive level; 
 he would squeeze the emotional valuation out of 
 them. Most of their squeamish, tissue-paper 
 owners would not be able to abide in an atmos 
 phere of usefulness, and he exulted in the trans 
 formation: place after place would drop to him 
 for a song; the exorbitant sum he had paid for 
 ., the first had got the wedge in, next would come 
 Burson, who might be thankful for ten thousand 
 for his property. Some prospective purchasers of 
 residence sites had already been turned away from 
 Bernfield by the private tip of Giles agents. 
 
 There would be opposition, glorious intoxicat 
 ing opposition. Battle was what Giles fed on, it 
 made him drunk with energy. The aristocrats 
 would vengefully resent his invasion, they would 
 fight; he thirsted for it, he would drag the strug 
 gle out and mash them slowly; they should be 
 robbed of their dozing hamlet with its pretty 
 charms and proud exclusiveness. 
 
 Old Giles was ready for the fray. Inferior 
 Bernfield, the lower elements, as they were 
 ticketed, now well outnumbered the rich and 
 high, thanks to his process of grafting, and were 
 all on his side. At the local election just gone 
 dependents had quietly returned a majority 
 of the councilmen. If the courts were petitioned 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 27 
 
 to intervene., the immense interests of The 
 Amalgamated would stay their hand. 
 
 Giles had completed his estimates and it only 
 remained to sign the contracts with the builders. 
 One pleasure had been postponed,, that of disclos 
 ing his magnificent designs to Margaret. There 
 would be no demur of course not,, she was as 
 modern as himself, but he couldn t be blind to 
 some instincts of hers, apish tendencies he re 
 garded them, to wander among trees and gaze at 
 them. Moving to Bernfield had possibly been a 
 mistake. Coming home from Steel Haven he 
 resolved to inform her of his projects that very 
 afternoon, and walking through the classic ave 
 nues, picturing to his mind the impending bene 
 fits to mankind from filling these idle thorough 
 fares with mill hands and factory operatives, he 
 reflected that the college structures would make vx 
 splendid woolen mills, and he speculated on what 
 the owners would sell for later. On the other side 
 of the broad street some one walking with a young 
 man passed without noticing him, and Old Giles 
 stopped stiff to gaze at them: it was Margaret, 
 and with her Philip Burson. Then Giles Wyndon 
 swore, and proceeded home with a strange conflict 
 lowering in his face. 
 
 Twenty years before, Giles had been himself a 
 resident of Bernfield. Having worked and saved v 
 
28 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 and invested, he was at that time, in his twentieth 
 year, the owner of three thousand dollars. On a 
 prospecting tour, perceiving the rich wasted forces 
 of the Bernfield river, he had raised twelve 
 thousand more among men who believed in him 
 where he had grown up, had adopted Bernfield as 
 his new home and erected a mill below the town, 
 investing everything in it. In those days the late 
 Potter Burson, Philip s father, was the man of 
 ruling influence, being mayor of the place and 
 weighty in State, industrial, political and social 
 interests. Under his guidance the village citizens 
 had rather encouraged, at any rate, permitted, the 
 youthful Giles to push forward his schemes with 
 out warning or disapproval, stretching his credit 
 to a total of seventeen thousand dollars, a big 
 sum of money to him, on the certainty of profits 
 to come ; and when all was ready and the operatives 
 had arrived from a distance, they had pounced 
 down on him and established their ownership of 
 the river and its tributaries in the entire town 
 ship, fortifying themselves behind State legislation 
 that had been quietly got while Giles was build 
 ing. 
 
 Thus they had shrewdly estopped his use of the 
 stream when his every resource was buried in the 
 works. Not a dollar could he raise to fight them 
 at law, not a lawyer could he find to assume his 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 29 
 
 case prospectively. Giles was an upstart adven 
 turer before the respectability of Bernfield, whose 
 influence with Bench and Bar was an upper law., 
 all-powerful, and the people of consequence over 
 the State for the matter roused wide interest re 
 joiced in his suppression. 
 
 The mill was dismantled to pay a percentage 
 on the debts, and Giles Wyndon found himself 
 a bankrupt ruined in business reputation, just 
 when the worst of his hardships seemed to be 
 clearing away. 
 
 Margaret was born a little while after the col 
 lapse came. It was a period of savage stress to 
 the young husband and wife; with nothing to 
 live on and triumphant hostility greeting them 
 everywhere they were hounded by vicious creditors 
 who charged Giles with fraud and tripped him in 
 every effort to gain a new footing even of the hum 
 blest kind. He was forced to leave his wife and 
 go where he was unknown to find the lowest day 
 labor and earn bread. He believed that his Bern- 
 field enemies had moved the creditors to this base 
 persecution. 
 
 While he was away, his lovely young wife died, 
 destroyed, Giles vowed, by the iniquitous malice 
 of these inquisitors. Hurrying home distraught 
 by grief and feverish rage, Giles had confronted 
 his chief antagonist, charging him with murder- 
 
3O The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 ing his wife with his barbarous cruelty and de 
 manding the inside reasons for such hate. Giles 
 was hardly more than an impulsive boy, preco- 
 v ., cious only on the patriotic get-on-in-the-world 
 side; his character was unformed; but he was 
 trying to open his eyes to the wonders of des 
 tiny, and affliction was doing its usual work. 
 
 Before him in the elegant parlor of his home, 
 whither Giles had come, sat Potter Burson, the 
 deep, immaculate man of the world, his steel-cold 
 penetrating look forcing into Giles a bitter con 
 sciousness of his own manifold incapacities. But 
 if implacable and sometimes inhumanly stern in 
 his purposes, Burson s intelligence was too large 
 and self-reliant for him to trifle with himself or 
 others. Without a particle of feeling or a reserva 
 tion, he dissected the situation before Giles Wyn- 
 don as if the latter were free from part or in 
 terest in it. 
 
 "You are a crude youth or I should not have 
 to explain to you," Burson began slowly. "You 
 entered business of your free will, did you not? 
 What right have you to cry when you get hurt? 
 Is business a missionary society, or a hospital? 
 Did you suppose men were in business to do good ? 
 To love others? I can inform you they are there 
 to smash others and elevate themselves. All can t 
 rise. Rising is right, crushing others to rise on 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 31 
 
 their commercial corpses is right, for rising 
 couldn t occur without it. It s war. War is hell. 
 Hell is bloody and foul and cruel. There s no 
 love in war, it s all hate that s also business. 
 Do you go to war in a swallow-tail and carry your 
 feelings in your shirt-bosom? What kind of a 
 soldier would you make if you did that? 
 
 "But hell and blood and dirt and cruelty are 
 not sweet things to live in all the time. Men of taste 
 and station want variety, a little respite from hell ; 
 some of us even would be glad if the blood and 
 hell and filth could be dispensed with. We don t 
 see how they can be in this world, so we must 
 put up with them and use them for our good as 
 God Almighty intended. It s bad for the other 
 fellow, but God evidently intended that too. 
 Nevertheless, we can have oases where we don t 
 see hell and cruelty in action, and that s the aim 
 of the cultivated and religious. The proper or 
 dering of life is the limitation of business battles 
 to battle-fields, and not letting them reach all 
 / places like a stench; keeping the dead and 
 wounded, the filth and garbage, out of sight as 
 much as possible. The modern world allows re 
 finement to one side of nature only the commer 
 cial side can t be refined, so that absolute separa 
 tion of the two is the choice of wise men. 
 
 "Bernfield was built as a haven of escape from 
 
32 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 commercial hell. When we retire here, it s to 
 forget the foulness of active life in which we have 
 to pound and scratch when we return to the mart. 
 y You undertook to bring the mart down here and 
 that s your crime. In the industrial battle camp 
 we re no better than you or anybody else, we re 
 all black as tar and mean as sin ; but here we are 
 better, for your nature has only one side, the 
 battle, dirt, blood side; you re one who would 
 make every spot in the world a Hell-Common for 
 trade and profit. We hate your kind and will 
 prison you into limits though your whole nature 
 is exactly counterpart of half our nature, and we 
 know it. To crush you when you crawl out of 
 your sphere is our purpose, to maim you so that 
 you ll not come again as we did. 
 
 "And we use war ways, the necessary universal 
 all-hate and murder-wide ways of the mart, to do 
 it. There are some elements of hell in this process, 
 several of them. Quite true ; finding a number of 
 such elements in commerce we take the right to 
 fence ourselves off from them somewhere and save 
 an acre where they don t reign, nor do we fear to 
 use the ways of hell to guard that acre, we prize 
 the taste of better things so highly. 
 
 "If this statement isn t in the track of your un 
 derstanding let me offer you a perfectly tangible 
 thought. We refined people know that mill life is 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 33 
 
 beastly and brutalizing, that those who follow it 
 can t help being beastly and brutal. Yet it must v 
 go on, for we couldn t be refined if it did not. 
 We get our wealth from it, which is the nursing- 
 bottle of refinement; without its milk, which is 
 the beastly and brutal toil of others, refinement 
 would cease. But do you think we shall tolerate 
 having these facts under our nostrils? slapped 
 daily into our faces ? 
 
 "Do you imagine that a man of true feeling is 
 happy among these deformed operatives, or can 
 endure living where the debased creatures swarm 
 the streets? They flaunt his crimes in his face.y" 
 It is the requirement of a developed nature to put 
 ugliness and wretchedness out of sight, and we 
 find the economically necessary wretchedness much 
 more offensive than the accidental, because we 
 cause it." 
 
 Giles passed from youth to manhood in this in 
 terview. His life had been free from domineer 
 ing purpose ; he had worked and adopted industry 
 as the needful thing for a competence, but with 
 no absorbing ambition for power or riches; now 
 all the rugged forces of his nature set in an iron / 
 resolution ; and he let himself out in speech which 
 bore fiercely over Burson and made him quail : 
 
 "You have opened my eyes to the hell of life 
 and your glad part in it. You, Potter Burson, 
 
34 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 man of refinement and murder; yon killed my 
 wife as straight and sure as if you had stabbed her 
 heart through. Do you think I ll forgive you or 
 yours or let you rest? From now till death I ll 
 spend my powers to rip and tear you out of this 
 spot of paradise where you flee from ugliness and 
 plot the damnation of others. I see I never un 
 derstood things, the great principles of human 
 society ; I do now ; you ve given me the key to your 
 kind and my force and hate shall hunt them down. 
 Culture is the mask you shrewdest fiends put on 
 to trick and spoil the world. I ll rip it off of you 
 and lay you bare for those you fool and mock to 
 trample you." 
 
 Saying this, Giles Wyndon strode from the 
 room and house. 
 
 Potter Burson was neither a moral nor physical 
 coward, yet after this scene he was for a long 
 time disturbed. A young man whom he had 
 despised and thought to snuff out and end had 
 loomed before his eyes into a figure of danger 
 ous strength. It is unpleasant for even the strong 
 to have implacable enemies. Had he understood 
 his man earlier, or tried to understand him but 
 the boyish face with the large, trusting, innocent 
 eyes, how could he have gone behind it to discover 
 the smouldering fires of practical genius and in 
 vincible will? For in their brief defiant colloquy 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 35 
 
 Bursom had seen his enemy with a flash of inspira 
 tion and recognized the qualities of the commercial 
 giant. Then he would rather have had almost 
 any one he knew opposed to him than this ignorant 
 youth,, denuded of every material help. 
 
36 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 THE shipping interests of Bernfield Harbor, as 
 the river mouth was then called, were owned in 
 those days by the wealthy families of Bernfield. 
 Potter Burson was the proprietor of a ship-yard 
 there and heavy share holder in a line of freighters 
 plying on the ocean. Ten years after the meeting 
 described in Potter Burson s house this line passed 
 over to The Amalgamated; soon after the ship 
 building works followed to the same bourne, and 
 Potter Burson, with a number of the old-school 
 Bernfield gentlemen, retired from business on the 
 seas and invested the shrunken assets from their 
 shipping properties in other and they hoped more 
 lucrative sources of income. Old Giles Wyndon 
 he was already long denominated Old Giles had 
 frozen them out, and the deep successful man of 
 commercial genius celebrated his victory by sever- 
 ing Bernfield Harbor from its verbal association 
 with Bernfield and giving it the imposing title of 
 Steel Haven. 
 
 All the world around had watched this huge 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 37 
 
 ten-years prize-fight between the old-school Ti 
 tans and the single-handed new-day pugilist with v * 
 keen relish. Giles had routed them hy the intro 
 duction of larger and swifter vessels. He had 
 slashed freight charges down below cost and caught 
 their trade in every port, defraying his vessel losses 
 from the profits of other industries already tabu 
 lated in long schedule under the Amalgamated 
 Fish, Ship, Iron, Transportation, Coal and Steel 
 Company. 
 
 It had been ten years of cankering strain on 
 Potter Burson. They were irremediable. In those 
 years he never got away from business cares, and 
 Bernfield with infernal mockery soon ceased to be 
 the haven of rest and strength that he had found 
 it. He had seen Giles Wyndon, the raw youth he 
 once imagined he had blotted out, mount into the 
 firmament and remain there, while he and those 
 he led, in spite of superhuman efforts, had fallen ^ 
 earthward. It had hurt his health, and the sense 
 of being the personal creator of that monster 
 Giles and the marplot of his own life, started a 
 wearing inward sore. The Bernfield gentry in 
 vested what they had rescued from their ocean 
 enterprises in other fields, but the centre of gravity 
 of the financial world had shifted and their weight 
 was no longer predominant ; although still opulent 
 the newer men were out-marching them. 
 
38 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 After his signal triumph Giles seemed quiescent 
 toward Bernfield, devoting his strength to amass 
 ing great new enterprises under The Amalgamated. 
 Was he placated by the painful evidence of Pot 
 ter Burson s weakening frame, as the years went 
 by, that the shaft had struck home ? Before Giles 
 moved a second time against his Bernfield adver 
 saries, Burson died, at a period of life when his 
 powers should have been at their ripest. On the 
 afternoon of Burson s grand funeral, Giles drove 
 alone to a little neglected cemetery where Mar 
 garet s mother lay, but what he thought or did 
 there no one knows. Perhaps he vowed again to 
 wipe out the beauty of Bernfield and sweep away 
 its ancient families, and if so on this day of 
 his resolution to acquaint his daughter with his 
 grand plans the vow was about to be kept. 
 
 Hence the strange terror of his emotions on see 
 ing Margaret walking publicly as if in established 
 friendship with the son of his fallen but unfor- 
 given enemy. 
 
 He went home with set teeth, his thoughts strik 
 ing him like trip-hammers. There was no anger 
 in him toward his daughter; he had scrupulously 
 concealed from her the facts of his great life mo 
 tive and no fault was in her ; but if this fatuity of 
 his should now cause her to rise in his way . It 
 was impossible ; Burson, with his layers of culture, 
 
The Monarch Billionaire, 39 
 
 could only be amusing himself with a girl like 
 Margaret, who was utterly barren of it all. He 
 steeled himself in his conviction that her child-like 
 ignorance of whatever people in the fine world 
 prize would save her and conspire with him. 
 
 When Margaret came in, Giles called her to him 
 seeking information in her face and focusing all 
 his native shrewdness upon her. She was not a 
 commercial problem and no constructive insight 
 rewarded him. Her remarkable beauty struck him 
 as never before. 
 
 "Margaret, love," he said very kindly, almost 
 pleadingly, "don t let it go that way. Philip Bur- 
 son doesn t want you for his wife; he is only 
 amusing himself with you, and if he were true 
 and honest about it, I would rather see you marry 
 a seaman out of my ships, a man of work and life, 
 or a plain honest mill hand from our mills, than 
 him. This one isn t true and sound in at the 
 core, his kind ain t you don t know what I do, 
 I ve dealt with them. Meanness, treachery, pride ^ 
 are mixed with their varnish more than half ; cul 
 ture is just like a sweet syrup mixed in with the 
 poison to cover its nature and make it seem good. 
 Marry a man whose ancestors haven t corrupted 
 him, one of your own kind. I ll find him, a 
 straight workman who has risen, who didn t have 
 the accursed education which pretends to broaden 
 
40 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 men s hearts and befouls all the heart they have. 
 Don t you know you re a fool to that elegant set? 
 You ve none of the stuff in you that s everything 
 to them ; you d die of heart-break with one of them, 
 for he would be ashamed of you right off and hate 
 you. Which do you believe in most, child, those 
 new clothed-up chaps who come cooing and lying 
 for the money they think you have and would only 
 take you as dross thrown in, or Old Giles, whose 
 rough heart would almost break, it really would, 
 if you married one of them?" 
 
 Margaret put her arms about his neck and kissed 
 him with the impulse of unshakable love. 
 
 "We have been as one, father/ she gladdened 
 him, "and will always be so. I ll never marry a 
 man you don t believe in, one you think is insin 
 cere, no matter how much I love him." 
 
 Something loosened in Old Giles heart which 
 for many years had been hard and tight. The in 
 nocent hours and feelings of his life with a young 
 \voman whom Margaret to-day vividly recalled, 
 feelings that were before he had linked himself 
 \riih nature s awful retributive forces, seemed to 
 revive. 
 
 He kissed the lovely face, comforting him with 
 its large trusting eyes, with deep feeling. "You 
 are the best woman God ever made," he said, "ex 
 cept one. And you ll find that I m acting to pro- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire 41 
 
 tect you. You ll learn that what I say of Burson 
 is true. A man can t help his nature from showing 
 out, if you watch for it, and this one will show 
 his. You ll see." 
 
 ILr pressed her tenderly in his massive arms, 
 caressing her like a little child. 
 
 Margaret s love for this strange being was some 
 thing very different from ordinary family affection. 
 Business life had taught her the vigorous use of 
 her mind, so that she could reason as well as feel ; 
 in the years of their intimacy the two had been 
 companions free from the usual consciousness of 
 father and child, for Giles, early discerning his 
 ineptitude as a parent, had taken up the little 
 thing as a play fellow, and thus she came to know 
 him as a keen young mind in that natural relation 
 can know the one closest, and to love and trust 
 him with a passion rooted in her knowledge. 
 
 She was equal to what might come. Love had 
 never been the theme between her and Philip ; she 
 could go on meeting him as they had done, in the 
 free way that was so good. She would not ask 
 herself whether it meant love, or if his nature was 
 what it seemed ; now at least it was good to be with 
 him it was good, it was good, the best of life 
 yet. And day by day they lived the hours together 
 among the elms, happy as the beings of a golden 
 
42 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 age, though Margaret was more observing than be 
 fore. 
 
 Old Giles was now sure of his way. When the 
 announcement came upon the public that he was 
 preparing to turn the grand old Richfont home 
 stead into a factory, it was like the opening of 
 a volcano in the heart of town. The infuriated 
 united voice of the best set, the law and order 
 guarding people of the community, was lifted up 
 for vengeance and physical violence. By common 
 agreement killing was the mildest compromise for 
 such a reprobate, if it could be done properly 
 without identifying the act with the doer. While 
 the storm was raging with ungovernable fury a 
 couple of circumstances arose which checked its 
 progress toward the physical destruction of Giles. 
 The authentic information spread that Giles car 
 ried weapons, and stories of his accomplished hand 
 ling of brutal men who had faced him with num 
 bers seasoned the news. Much worse, the canaille 
 of Bernfield had spontaneously crystallized into a 
 mass meeting, strengthened by crowds of their fel 
 low operatives from Steel Haven, and amid shocks 
 of ugly turbulence and lawless threats had resolved 
 that if a hair of Giles head suffered injury they 
 would storm the aristocratic quarter and avenge 
 him on every man they found. 
 
 The gentry were scandalized into paralysis by 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 43 
 
 r 
 
 the outrageousncss of a mob of miserables daring 
 to mention force, and a message was sent to the 
 governor for state troops to bore the elements of 
 duty into them, which Giles however counter 
 manded. Failing here it was considered unsalu- 
 tary by the ethical upper classes to swagger further 
 with the weapon of lawlessness, and they stoutly 
 disclaimed having thought of violence at any time 
 which was taken at its worth by the slum people, 
 but had an appeasing effect,, transferring the battle 
 to council chambers, where the quietly formed 
 Wyndon majority discovered itself and gave a ver- v 
 diet to Giles. It went to the courts, and here his 
 victory through the enormous influence of The 
 Amalgamated Fish, Ship, Iron, Transportation, ~ 
 Coal and Steel Company was as certain. The day 
 of old memorial families in that section of the 
 world was seen painfully drawing to an end, and 
 the great living Amalgamated was hailed lord. 
 
 Margaret was hardly conscious of what was go 
 ing on. Her life at this time seemed to contain 
 nothing beyond the hours with Philip and the de 
 licious after-reveries upon them when she was 
 alone. Her thoughts and dreams and feelings came 
 from new worlds within her, to whose glad en 
 ticement she radiantly abandoned herself. Philip 
 too was passive to outward events, bringing very 
 hard sayings down upon him from his own class. 
 
44 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 He was a degenerate son of his father, they fumed, 
 who schemed for sordid profit from the town s 
 ruin by marrying the vulgar plebeian heiress. His 
 constancy proved that nothing less than marriage 
 was his design. He might have been satisfied with 
 the usual thing between high and low ranks. 
 There are sanctioned codes of association for gen 
 tlemen with women without desecrating the holy 
 shrine of matrimony. Social dignity and public 
 duty modify not ten but a hundred command 
 ments, where there are a hundred. Such mar 
 riages unsettle nature. How cruelly he shattered 
 the great reputabilities and virtues! The higher 
 interests, high thinking and high feeling, the cul 
 tivation of everything choice, the very preservation 
 of fine morals and moral aims, in an artistic sense, 
 even the revered institution of the family as it 
 should be, supported by the two props of social 
 parity, he had pitched them all away for the wealth 
 of a low-souled girl with base progenitors. At a 
 private caucus of the undisputed ladies on the 
 subject, a point of great weight had been settled: 
 she was not pretty. If poor Potter Burson, that 
 true patrician and dear man, were alive to correct 
 or disown this ingrate progeny! 
 
 These people despised money, in the possession 
 of others. They did not give their own away, those 
 who were not intently klle spent what brains they 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 45 
 
 had in trying to get more of it. They said they, 
 despised it, and of course each believed the other 
 when he said it. 
 
 Old Giles thought of Burson quite as they did. 
 He detested him as one scant of heroism to 
 fight as his father had fought, and was resolved to 
 give him no mercy. 
 
46 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 BUT one morning a new amazement came upon 
 the town. In glaring type the papers exploded 
 the information that The Great Fish, Ship, Iron, 
 Transportation, Coal and Steel Company was em 
 barrassed; fast after which in an extra they elec 
 trified the inhabitants by printing that failure 
 with very bad developments was certain. Giles 
 had mismanaged, the blame was his, and the joy 
 of patrician Bernfield soared to frenzy. The fear 
 ful nightmare having lifted, the people let them 
 selves go in primitive vociferation, with a con 
 quering note over all of braying horns from the 
 college students, who marched about the streets 
 in long single files with hands on one another s 
 shoulders tearing the peaceful ether to tatters with 
 tin trumpets. The gloom on the slum quarter was 
 of a density that no rumbles of retaliation stirred. 
 The arch vandal was fallen, the historic grandeur 
 of the noble old town saved. 
 
 Then citizens held their breath as more deeply 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 47 
 
 portentous insinuations were whispered. First 
 stealthily, then broadly and insultingly, it 
 spread that Old Giles Wyndon was accused 
 of fraud by the partners of the great Amal 
 gamated now in the dust. Facts leaked out 
 rapidly, everything that was said was now 
 authority. Giles had borrowed an aggregate ^ 
 of enormous sums from poor widows and orphans, 
 and from capitalists who wanted an income 
 devoid of carking thoughts of industrial en 
 terprises, being occupied with yachts and golf. 
 His cruelty to these helpless ones was like coal 
 oil on the fires of popular indignation, though 
 many said the poor widows and orphans had been 
 swindled so many times by their borrowers that 
 they ought to be used to it now, but the shock 
 would be more cruel and terrible to the innocent 
 capitalists. The big men of the company were 
 concerting to bring their recreant manager to the 
 criminal bar, causing Old Giles arrest to be hourly 
 looked for, while strange individuals appeared in 
 town to verify the story by shadowing him to 
 prevent his escape. They were known to be secret 
 service men, for they told the citizens they were 
 detectives. 
 
 The delight of men, women, children, and col 
 lege students in the finishing discomfiture of Philip 
 Burson was such as no one who has not spent the 
 
48 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 greater part of his life in a moderate sized but 
 intensely cultivated community can describe. 
 
 Giles bore his leonine head stiffly erect as this 
 ordeal progressed, being seen in public more than 
 usual, showing the hard-jawed defiance predestined 
 by his attributes. Some might have thought he 
 was enjoying it, if they had studied him a little, 
 but all were too delirious for that. The one who 
 suffered was Margaret. Giles was very sombre be 
 fore her. The lost money she felt to be nothing, 
 for no greed was in her composition, but to see 
 her father hurt and maligned bruised her painfully. 
 The charge that he had done wrong was at that 
 time ridiculously impossible to her mind; she 
 strengthened him with her scorn of the accusers, 
 hiding her smart. In these days she went no 
 longer to her trysting place with Philip. 
 
 The blackness that gathered on Giles character 
 was all detailed in the daily prints, for the news 
 papers once given the scent burrowed assiduously 
 for animated copy among the myriad talkers who 
 had an evil story to wing against the crippled 
 deity. 
 
 "If I have to go to jail, Margaret ?" Giles 
 
 questioned one day. 
 
 "I ll go into commerce, with the training you ve 
 given me, to pay the debts and expose the villainy 
 that sends you there." 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 49 
 
 "I always told you that you were an abler busi 
 ness man than I," he broke out with strange 
 laughter. 
 
 "She needs activity in this crisis," Giles divined, 
 and he contrived a mission for her to New York. 
 The papers noted her departure, and hoped the 
 right parties would scrutinize her travels and trans 
 actions. 
 
 That evening Philip Burson sent his name in 
 to Giles. 
 
 "Well," demanded Old Giles acidly, "what is 
 it?" 
 
 "I have," said the young man, "five hundred 
 thousand dollars beside my place. That in your 
 eyes is probably a trifling sum, but if it can assist 
 you in any way in your present difficulty I wish to 
 place it at your disposal." 
 
 Giles made a queer sound suggestive of an oath 
 or something else. 
 
 "Look here," he flamed out harshly, "are you a 
 fool, or what am I to call you ? I ve had my mind 
 bent on taking all you have out of you, and now 
 when I lose the power to do it you come here and 
 throw yourself at me to be crushed. Do you know v 
 they re proving me to be a swindler? Have you 
 got a shrewd hope you ll make something out of 
 this? You won t. I hated your father, and I 
 hate you as his son; you ve got his nature, only 
 
50 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 weaker. You never made a cent for yourself, did 
 
 you? Five hundred thousand dollars to save a 
 thing like The Amalgamated! Ha! Ha! Ha! 
 Put your pennies in your pocket, boy, or you ll 
 never see them again." 
 
 "It is nonsense to talk of your being a swindler 
 in the ordinary sense. I have some insight into 
 men if I m not a commercial giant. " 
 
 "Ho, you have, have you ! Ho, you have ! 
 What do you know about old gnarled knots like me, 
 a stripling like you? But Til take your chicken 
 feed, I ll take it ! Make your substance over be 
 fore you change your mind, what there is of it 
 your mind. It won t save me, nor it won t help 
 me, but I ll throw it in to spite my creditors, just 
 a driblet to tantalize em, he, he. And you won t 
 miss it, with your mind. What ll your house 
 fetch?" 
 
 "Thirty thousand under pressure, but it s worth 
 fifty or sixty." 
 
 "All right, all right, get the papers ready. I ll 
 give you a dollar for it ; you re a provident young 
 ster for these times, quite commercial ; you ll make 
 a cheerful pauper, and what a lawyer !" 
 
 Philip took from his pocket the papers trans 
 ferring his various holdings and handed them to 
 Giles, his strong fibres tense under the force of 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 51 
 
 will that held him from resenting the lashing 
 words. 
 
 Giles saw and relished the chastisement he was 
 inflicting, and after examining the documents 
 critically for flaws, continued in the same biting 
 tone: 
 
 "Do you give away your property to everybody 
 like this ? Business would be easy if business men 
 were like you." 
 
 "Under certain circumstances I do." 
 
 "What circumstances ?" 
 
 "Twenty years ago my father did you a great 
 wrong. Latterly he recounted all the circumstances 
 to me, including your interview at his house. 
 Afterward I think he broadened, and was sorry 
 for what he had done, but the enmity was fixed, 
 and there was no remedy. The trouble you made 
 him may have been his teacher, most men, however, 
 do not learn even from trouble. You were wealthy 
 and had you not failed I could probably have done 
 nothing. I can now clear away an ill family 
 record, and start in the world without commercial 
 stain/ 
 
 "Yes, you thought I was rich. The company 
 I m agent for was rich, but it doesn t follow I 
 was." 
 
 Old Giles rose, taking the papers from his 
 pocket he flung them back to Philip. 
 
52 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 "Suppose I don t intend to have the family feud 
 settled that way ?" he demanded, glaring savagely. 
 
 "There is only one other way I can suggest/ 
 answered the young man evenly. 
 
 "What way?" 
 
 "By my marrying your daughter." 
 
 Giles took a threatening step forward, his hands 
 clenched. "Damn you/ sounded from his rigid 
 lips, "I know that s what it s all for. You want 
 to buy her. The girl s penniless. She s ignorant ! 
 Reading s a trial to her ! She hasn t a single one 
 of your social tricks that make your whited set 
 glamorous. Her name is blackened by mine. You 
 never would love her, I don t want you to love her ! 
 Hate her, and let her alone, go away, she s not 
 of your breed your all-f or-self and hell-for-others 
 breed/ 
 
 Giles steel-sinewed frame strove and swayed 
 under the climax of struggle with this long-mas 
 tering emotion, and a chord of almost pathetic 
 pleading mingled with the harsh resentment. 
 
 "I desire to marry your daughter," repeated 
 Philip Burson, "and it would also please me after 
 what you have said to knock you down." 
 
 Old Giles regained his firmness. He remem 
 bered his pact with Margaret, it must be kept. 
 
 "Well you can have her, then if she wants 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 53 
 
 you." The words seemed to wrench themselves 
 from him, tearing and gashing him. 
 
 He wrote a New York address. "You ll find 
 her there" shoving it toward Philip, "and I ve 
 decided to use your property after all, it ll take a 
 few spots off of the Wyndon reputation, and be 
 for your good." With which he gathered up the 
 papers left by Philip untouched, and bolted from 
 the house. 
 
 The next train bore Philip Burson to !STew 
 York. 
 
 Burson s fall evoked electric storms of sparkling 
 sarcasm in Bernfield drawing-rooms. Plainly the 
 motive for his crime you couldn t call it any 
 thing else was love. What shame is there so 
 great as being taken in, in love ? This was a case 
 of inverted love, said a literary person who was 
 writing an epic poem entitled "Darwinism." An 
 amateur scientist familiar with worms detected 
 atavism, while a presumptive wit daubed a word 
 picture of Margaret as a "primitive woman," aV 
 simple unevolved type with none of the tender in 
 tellectual complications glorifying the evoluted 
 modern goddess of emotion. Intellectual, mis 
 cegenation was the term for such a union, decided 
 each of a group of young ladies who had intended 
 to marry Philip. Since he had manifested a men 
 tal crumbling the escape of one who might have 
 
54 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 wedded him was a peculiarly special providence, 
 in these days when so many special providences 
 fail. They chimed their gladness lugubriously,, for 
 marrying men were on the wane and Philip had 
 been a reality of a man. What a heartbreak his 
 wife would have suffered if the weakness had 
 broken out after a proper marriage with some one ! 
 It could not long remain unknown that Philip 
 had parted with everything he owned to soften 
 the crash of Old Giles. The tragedy of this per 
 formance came to his former friends as the last 
 shock a lost man could inflict on those who had 
 loved him once, and gave them a ruddy satisfaction. 
 So he was literally broken down crazy and beyond 
 pity! None of them would consent to be called 
 his friend, not even the several families of his near 
 relations. He had forfeited blood links and ex 
 onerated a just expulsion from the heart. They 
 suffered, but bore it like a happy funeral. The 
 cruel ruin of a man of exalted promise crushed 
 them,, making them gay at the vision of him com 
 ing to his right mind in hungry poverty, with his 
 primitive bride to feed squaw, it was suggested, 
 which was taken up rapturously as Margaret s fit 
 ting appellation. He would come to his poverty 
 anyway, and would not need much right mind to 
 know it. None of the cultured of either sex recog 
 nized him on the street; if a man would drop to 
 

 The Monarch Billionaire. 55 
 
 affinity with criminals let him feel it if he could 
 feel it. 
 
 It must be said that Philip at this time felt 
 nothing but a ceaseless wonder at the endowments 
 of Margaret s spirit. The womanly strength and 
 beauty that had been his vision he had found. 
 He was devoting himself to this life, and enjoy 
 ing a second, conscious, creation of his being. The 
 arctic animosity that closed him in was hardly 
 chilling under these circumstances. His real life 
 was intense and tropical. 
 
 Of the virtues Giles was not endowed with pa- 
 tience was one. When he had surprises for the 
 public it was his wont to fire them in fast and hot. 
 Having given his counterfeit failure and the en 
 gagement and impoverishment of Philip a decent 
 period to work their psychic transformations in 
 the population, the violence of the newspapers to 
 ward Giles was incontinently abated. He gave 
 these organs of light and fluxion a difficult feat 
 to achieve, but they effaced themselves and somer 
 saulted with grace. With outbursts of unfeigned 
 ecstasy they told the world that The Great Fish, 
 Ship, Iron, Transportation, Coal and Steel Com 
 pany had recovered from its momentary entangle 
 ment and would resume business. Pleasant to say 
 its operations had been at no time fully suspended, 
 this majestic structure was not to die and leave 
 
56 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 blank emptiness and sorrowing widows where there 
 had been interest. Everyone was congratulated. 
 Life without a monopoly would be dry. There 
 would be no stimulus to a young man if he could 
 not see a monopoly ahead for himself. 
 
 Furthermore an examination of the company s 
 affairs had completely cleared the character of 
 "our highly respected citizen, Mr. Giles Wyndon, 
 from unscrupulous and malicious insinuations/ 
 and soon the personnel of The Amalgamated Com 
 pany would be published. It came at length, and 
 the worst suspicions of the people were confirmed : 
 the owners of the huge concern were Giles Wyn 
 don, Esq., Philip Burson, "Fq v and Margaret Wyn 
 don. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 57 
 
 CHAPTEK VII. 
 
 THE convictions of a score of years do not yield 
 easily. Giles had accepted Philip because, having 
 tried him for Margaret s sake and to vindicate his 
 own deep distrust, the test had been met leaving 
 no further right of opposition. Then Giles had 
 done his part, with that dogged justice which 
 characterized him when he permitted the mediation 
 of honor, giving Philip a place with himself in The 
 Amalgamated. Deep in him still smouldered the 
 belief that what he called broad manhood, and 
 worth which you could build on to the last grain, 
 could not germinate from the Bernfield nature and 
 education. He wanted these qualities exercised 
 toward him and Margaret, and enjoyed a turbulent 
 and absolute contempt for any one who fell below 
 the standard to his own acts, however, applying 
 quite different rules. Nevertheless Burson s com 
 prehensive brain relieved him at so many points 
 that he was freed for schemes of colossal absorption 
 of rivals with which his mind teemed. Margaret 
 
58 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 read intuitively how far the reconciliation with 
 her lover had gone. 
 
 "Do you like living here?" she asked him sud 
 denly at their evening meal. 
 
 He looked up surprised. "Why that question? 
 You do." 
 
 "No, I don t. I did, but I want to go back to 
 the Steel Haven tenement." 
 
 He was alert and hopeful. "Have you and 
 Burson had trouble?" 
 
 The glow in her eyes answered him. "Philip 
 would like to go with us." 
 
 Giles knife and fork clashed on his plate; he 
 stared across at her. 
 
 Philip Burson was a man who could dream while 
 standing firmly on the earth. Imagination fore 
 runs reality. The dream of to-day is to-morrow s 
 solid fact, the evening s utopia is the morning s 
 unsurprised realization. Such thoughts had been 
 his in college, through which he had gone without 
 meeting an inspiring professor, a circumstance 
 painful to him then, but which had fortified his 
 natural mental self-reliance. He had made up his 
 mind to live in the morrow as well as the yesterday 
 and to-day. If you cannot have the actual dream 
 fulfillment in your day you can have the dream. 
 If you are satisfied that soon your fanciful utopia 
 will be the invulnerable existing institution, be- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 59 
 
 lauded by the mighty host of those who now would 
 froth upon its shadow, you will not consent to 
 lose it all because you were born too early; you 
 will launch yourself forward into it, partly living 
 in the coming beauty now, setting it up as a radiant 
 shrine in your daily existence, where you spend 
 some of the best hours of your life. You will 
 carry its influences with you into the walks of the 
 world. 
 
 To his college resolution Philip owed most of 
 the happiness he had had, and some disappoint 
 ment. He had placed himself unconsciously 
 where in all that was most himself he stood alone. 
 From mingling with men and women and efforts 
 to relate himself to life he had returned athirst 
 and dissatisfied. The meeting with Margaret 
 Wyndon was an epoch. She was to his experience 
 a new genus, not a mere species by herself ; she was 
 marked off radically from all others. But of what 
 kind? What was she? He did not know her. 
 To comprehend her had from that moment been 
 his quest. It led to their engagement, but per 
 haps they had entered upon it mutually on trial, 
 as affording each freedom for searching into the 
 unknown nature of the other, which had become 
 their irresistible fascination. 
 
 "Among the women I have met, you alone see 
 the great relations of things," Philip said to her. 
 
60 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 "Should we encourage a sect vowed not to read, in 
 order to gain a chance for insight and thinking? 
 Headers are generally neither strong thinkers nor 
 doers: they would feel disgraced to think before 
 knowing what every other thinker had thought, 
 and when it is a question of action they evaporate 
 their strength in fictitious emotions, like stage 
 inebriates/ 
 
 "But you have something that I like/ answered 
 the girl, "and you have read. Intellectual unions 
 may imitate the mixing of different races and 
 bloods, for a strong product there may be needed 
 a wide separation of qualities and training to begin 
 with. Can you imagine what is to be the result 
 of our meeting ?" 
 
 "I have done nothing, Margaret, I am still and 
 meaningless like all men with ideas under the 
 blight of our time. It is miserable, and I want 
 to break the crystal case of decency I am in, when 
 I can see whither to move." 
 
 They ranged over the problems of life near and 
 far in their talks. Each felt that he had been 
 merely whirling about himself in the narrow eddies 
 of living, and they wanted to push out into the 
 broad rushing currents, to be carried to some des 
 tiny. But what is a worthy destiny in this modern 
 world? Money making is a kindergarten exercise, 
 left by children of a higher class to three-year- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 61 
 
 olds. The luxuries are beneath the intelligent; 
 they can neither guzzle nor glutton, as both of 
 these debaucheries are a decrepitude of character. 
 They have not time to build houses nor to live in 
 grand ones, the call to the one not made with 
 hands will come too soon. Interest in the old 
 Fames is dead. These cradle fames nursed the 
 thoughtless energy of human infancy, toughening 
 voice and limbs ; the race needed impulsion ; these 
 tinsel fames were the goals and prizes of its dis 
 cipline. But their meaning has tarried in the 
 halo of the past. Now for life on a broader scale, 
 on a man s scale, and how is a destiny to be found 
 worthy of our long-builded faculties? Such ques 
 tions they asked, answering as best they could, 
 and thinking more than they spoke. 
 
 "You have told me/ said Margaret, "that your 
 father considered the business life a hell for the 
 refined man, saying that if one would endure it 
 he must have his little paradise somewhere away in 
 retirement. Do you believe that ?" 
 
 "I have always accepted the first part of it," re 
 flected Philip. "Your father disproved the second 
 part to mine; he showed him that in life as it is 
 there can be no paradise if you still engage in 
 life. If you can have the modern slaves do your 
 work under another s wand, you resting passively 
 apart to welcome the income and prodigally lavish 
 
62 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 it on your joys, never seeing the sordid throbbings 
 of your slaves nor thinking of their mean state 
 and shame, the world may be a paradise to you." 
 
 "But can one who would do that be like what 
 the best have called gods higher beings, as men 
 ought to be ?" 
 
 Philip answered with a smile. 
 
 "There can be no earthly paradise then, unless 
 the men who live in it are all like our dream of 
 the gods," averred Margaret. "It interdicts the 
 user of slaves, no less than the slaves." 
 
 "The earthly gods are long dead, Margaret." 
 
 "But there can be an earthly paradise." 
 
 "In how many aeons ?" 
 
 "Now." 
 
 "I will join you in it." 
 
 "Paradise does not demand immediate realiza 
 tion of an outward state, material perfection; it 
 requires a frame of mind, the forceful resolution 
 to struggle powerfully toward and reach that out 
 ward state." 
 
 "Men never resolved on that, Margaret, it would 
 be totally new. They weakly resolve to find an 
 Eden in their feelings, and let the real world 
 sway in its orbit of wretchedness. They all run 
 away from perfecting the real world, some to 
 heaven, some to India, some to the spell-bound 
 shelter of their minds. It is a retreat of cowardice 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 63 
 
 and selfishness. My father s mistake was different 
 from that, and natural to his time: he hunted an 
 oasis in the turmoil and grime, but there can he 
 no private elysium ; an island arcady in the human 
 maelstrom is the bitter fiction of a derisive dream." 
 
 "Your father was honest; he saw that in the 
 life that rules, the commercial side of man cannot 
 be refined ; those on the border of commerce, in the 
 professions, who make a truea with commerce 
 without liking it, can only be half refined; on 
 that side, or by that concession, man remains a 
 brute if not a fiend. Most people flinch this cer 
 tainty." 
 
 "Part saint and part tiger, but the saint part 
 is usually like a bean on a pumpkin. The tiger 
 element is the pumpkin." 
 
 "It can be reversed." 
 
 "Bernfield s acts toward you and your father in 
 these past weeks shattered one of my idols ir 
 revocably," Philip pursued. "I never thought the 
 culture of the cultured deep, but I thought it 
 honest, if thin. I learned that it is all dishonest. 
 The cruel, coarse, mean things which they de 
 nounce in the poor, they hold themselves privileged 
 to do against the poor. Their refinement is a lie 
 which they believe from infinite assertion of it. 
 They mistake the softness of their accents for a 
 gloss on their natures. Schooling and breeding 
 
64 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 are perhaps a furniture polish in this sense : 
 smeared over the wood of a club they make it 
 shine, but the wood is just as hard when it hits 
 as if it had no polish." 
 
 "Pity them, Philip ; the trouble is lack of brains 
 more than of heart. Tiger plus saint in man 
 equals hell, is the hardest proposition mortal ever 
 sought to grasp ; most are not yet far enough away 
 from the gorilla mentally to master it. Simple as 
 it is, not one in scores of thousands of civilized 
 people has the fineness of brain to see that outroot- 
 ing the tiger absolutely is the inviolate condition 
 of man s happiness. When I talk of saint, of 
 course I only mean the real human in us as dis 
 tinct from the inward animal/ 
 
 "How will you make them see it? There is no 
 believing in the cultured, the life of the future is 
 not to have its roots in them. They have had their 
 chance, a tremendous chance, and failed ; they have 
 sold themselves to the devil for things that shine 
 and taste. Feed them, speak them sweet, and 
 house them well, and the enlightened yield them 
 selves into flattered slavery to the Evil One or 
 the Evil Few. All who can use voice or pen em 
 ploy their faculties competitively to prove that the 
 cheapest way to heaven is by one of the Devil s 
 tours. The course is roundabout, but you see in 
 teresting things, and its length gives our fertile 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 65 
 
 guide the opportunity to instruct. To get devilish 
 discipline is the cultured theory of why we live/ 
 
 "You are right/ mused Margaret,, "the edu 
 cated and cultured are of no value as guides to a 
 better earth. Shall I tell you what I have been 
 dreaming about? What reason has The Amalga 
 mated for longer existing and absorbing all our 
 energies? A feud between our fathers created it, 
 and now it has united us, healing the feud. We 
 do not care for money, but if we keep on we must 
 care for nothing but money. Yet The Amalga 
 mated is a stupendous force, why not use it to 
 create the better earth, and grow to our own des 
 tiny through it?" 
 
 "Will your father agree?" 
 
 "We must convince him. We can specialize 
 the work: he shall go on expanding The Amalga 
 mated, we will help him, but our part shall also 
 be to apply it as an engine of social transforma 
 tion, beginning within itself." 
 
 They went over every phase of the subject until 
 the plan was shaped, then imparted it to Old Giles. 
 
 He listened inscrutably, missing nothing. "See 
 if I comprehend you," said he, restating their 
 thoughts. 
 
 "You propose for us to live on the plane of work 
 men, taking only as much as we give each of them v 
 from the business, in order to merit their confi- 
 
66 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 dence; out of what is saved, however, by our 
 giving up profits you would raise their pay. 
 Living low wouldn t chafe you and me much, little 
 girl, we did about that before we came over here ; 
 Philip might suffer. You would lay aside a Gen 
 eral Improvement Fund, to be used for the good, 
 happiness and evolution of the collective workers, 
 the expenditure of which is to be decided by our 
 selves as owners for a time, afterward by us and 
 such workers of both sexes as profit most by their 
 new opportunities to develop broad ability and 
 character, the number being increased by selection 
 until all who show an honest purpose to advance 
 are included. 
 
 "Ownership of The Amalgamated you would 
 have no longer ours personally, but for the present 
 vested in us as trustees. We are em-powered to 
 enlarge the board of trustees by choice of the best 
 type of men and women among the workers. We, 
 - that is to say, the trustees, are to continue for a 
 time in control of the business, determining the 
 portion of labor, the Expansion Fund for new 
 works and absorption of related industries, and 
 the Improvement Fund. We should, however, 
 initiate a system of conferences with the workers 
 upon these questions, to obtain and educate their 
 judgment and prepare them for advancing respon 
 sibility. Am I right so far?" 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 67 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Then of your scheme of recompense, which 
 you do not affirm is permanent. All employes 
 from highest to lowest are to be classed in five zones 
 or grades. Advance from grade to grade will repre 
 sent a growth in faithfulness and capacity. The 
 compensation of the lowest zone will be liberal 
 unlike the principle of payment of simpler labor 
 now and many persons of the highest ability will 
 be satisfied to remain on that plane; they will 
 prefer to exercise their choicest strength in other 
 than industrial fields, while earning in the lower 
 walks of industry an ample competency and in 
 dependence. 
 
 "You build upon the theory that a man is worth 
 a great deal more than he can commercially pro 
 duce rather a new thought, to me, but I will 
 listen to it. An iron worker, for instance, can 
 do something wider for his fellow men than to 
 stir a furnace or shape iron, and that often this 
 is so much above commercial value that to think 
 of paying for it in money or material product 
 would be incongruous. Your desire is to bring 
 out these new values in men and to make them 
 paramount over pure industrial values, though 
 you sanely perceive that they must rest upon a 
 solid, independent material foundation. You 
 would provide all men with sufficient income from 
 
68 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 the simpler forms of work; secure in this, com 
 pelled neither to strain for their bread nor to 
 cringe for a job or favor, their broader qualities 
 and richer faculties would start forth, and so much 
 more would these qualities soon be valued by so 
 ciety that commercial attributes would fall to an 
 inferior place. 
 
 "For those still in the purely commercial stage, 
 and you acknowledge there are many of these, you 
 would provide industrial promotion for strictly 
 industrial attainments. A vital principle is here 
 installed. Those who desire more material things 
 can have them by working for them. They 
 produce them, in something their equivalent. It 
 therefore essentially rests with every man how 
 much he shall have, except that it must come from 
 his own labor, not that of others. The zone grada 
 tion will quell an excessive desire of men to outdo 
 one another from thoughtless emotional rivalry, 
 and be productive of a sense of oneness and fra 
 ternal comradeship in work. 
 
 "You prefer in the beginning that as trustees 
 we shall decide upon the workers elevation from 
 zone to zone, but gradually that function will be 
 extended to the whole body, in consultation with 
 us. The members of each zone will at intervals 
 select from the zone below those whom they deem 
 worthy of promotion, and we shall never interfere 
 
The Monarch Billionaire- 69 
 
 with" their choices without some strong unusual 
 reason. Should men in any rank be found un 
 worthy of advancement after receiving it, they 
 may be returned to an inferior grade by the action 
 of their own zone, but only so where they prove 
 unwilling to exert their best powers. Have I 
 grasped your plan ?" 
 
 "In its main outline," answered Philip, "re 
 membering that the plan is progressive. We adopt 
 the system of grades in order to stimulate effort, 
 but the occupants of the lowest circle are to receive 
 enough for excellent living and the best develop 
 ment. Among both poor and rich at present are 
 many who are not yet trained to the intelligent 
 expenditure of too liberal an income. They 
 would consume it in coarse luxury, hurting them 
 selves and society. We believe that people have 
 no right to waste the world s wealth; if they do 
 so, it defrauds others of the power of wholesome 
 enjoyment and growth. Society is bound to guard 
 itself against the wastefulness of the selfish, de 
 generate and unevolved. Our method will rapidly 
 diminish the number of such and render the con 
 trol of their unsocial proclivities easy." 
 
 "At some future day when all are trained, would 
 you believe in abolishing the zones and giving all v 
 an equal income ?" 
 
 Margaret replied to this. "It will be for experi- 
 
7<D The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 enoe and those who come after us to determine 
 that. We attain the end of equality in a great 
 degree by our general improvement fund, of which 
 the purpose is to build up means of enjoyment and 
 improvement freely open to all without personal 
 expenditure. 
 
 "There is here a limitless sphere. For instance, 
 education and travel. We should bring every 
 kind of education to the highest perfection, plac 
 ing it in every one s reach without cost; and we 
 should have a vacation travel fund to give each 
 J associate in The Amalgamated a liberal outing 
 annually. Those wishing to save from their per 
 sonal incomes to prolong their travels could do so, 
 for they could always secure as long an absence 
 for this purpose as they might desire. By these 
 advantages the tastes and character of every indi 
 vidual would be widened and rounded into power 
 and faultlessness. 
 
 "Travel is one of the leading forms of education 
 as well as a principal pleasure of life. Education 
 by books is a weak shadow of real education, which 
 consists of seeing the things of the world rather 
 than reading about them, of mingling with other 
 peoples and learning their language and character 
 by intercourse. Children will be educated by tours 
 over the world, which will give them health and 
 happiness, and an understanding of life. School- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 71 
 
 room imprisonment will be much less fashionable 
 when we arrive at our senses. Travel is now so 
 easy and inexpensive in itself that as soon as . 
 capitalists are abolished, whose profits make it 
 costly, it will become a universal recreation and 
 enlightenment." 
 
 "If all were developed on your theory, do you 
 think direction and ownership of everything might 
 ultimately be delivered over to the people in full ?" 
 meditated Giles. "Do you say you don t envy our 
 lot as chief owners of things, with its mountains 
 of care ?" 
 
 "It would progress naturally to that. There 
 would immediately be the essence of general owner 
 ship, secured by repose of the property in us as 
 trustees for all, but management would be ex 
 tended to the rest gradually, because we desire 
 them to be ready for it first. It would, however, 
 completely come to them in time, as we shall ex 
 plain hereafter. 
 
 "Meanwhile and transitionally our proposal is 
 to present the entire Amalgamated in trust to the 
 whole body of its employes, to be under the con 
 duct of a company of trustees, somewhat resem 
 bling the constitution and direction of a university. 
 At first this Board will comprise only ourselves, 
 but as we discover men with the right faculties, 
 men of large character, ideas and capacity and 
 
72 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 women also we shall take them in. All this will 
 be in preparation for a more finished method when 
 our system of education and improvement shall 
 have had time for fruition. Then, the board is 
 to contain a certain number, to be replenished by 
 the election of every other new member by vote of 
 all The Amalgamated, the other half being selected 
 by the board itself. 
 
 "This plan, after being operative for a term of 
 years appointed by us, should be alterable by a 
 majority vote of The Amalgamated membership 
 to suit the results of new experience." 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 73 
 
 CHAPTEK VIII. 
 
 GILES had been thinking vigorously during this 
 exposition. "I admit that the adoption of this 
 form of democratic ownership by all the great 
 capitalist groups would solve the labor and capital 
 question for the world/ he said. 
 
 "It will have to be adopted by all when one 
 group inaugurates it/ declared Philip. "We have 
 thought that side out, too. They will all be forced 
 to follow suit for self-preservation, or we shall 
 absorb them. We should drive them to it by the 
 superior quality of our workmen,, every one of 
 whom would be a partner. We should invade their 
 fields if necessary, undersell rivals in all markets, 
 branch into further new trades, and while under 
 selling them we should still be richer than they. 
 The threat of such transaction would be enough, 
 for our newly created productive strength would be 
 before their eyes. Hear what M. Mabilleau, who is 
 speaking in this country, says about French work- 
 ingmen. They are superior to those in any other 
 
74 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 country, he contends, ^because the French working- 
 man feels that he is not merely a tool of the cap 
 italist, but a necessity to him. From this belief 
 arises a feeling of equality and the socialistic ten 
 dencies attributed to him. French workingmen 
 take active interest in national and international 
 affairs. When the University Extension Society 
 in France instituted a course of free lectures, a 
 few years ago, it was noticeable that the working- 
 men chose scientific courses on subjects of which 
 they had previously been ignorant/ 
 
 "Now if a chance is opened to our working 
 classes to gain more intelligence will they not 
 seize it? And if the feeling of equality and ne 
 cessity to the employer makes them superior, when 
 they know that the equality is complete because 
 they are all employers, self-employers, will they 
 not become men of higher strength and stature 
 in every respect? And will not their productive 
 energy be formidably enlarged ? Could competing 
 groups, conducted by repressive capitalists still 
 wringing out profit from their men, stand in op 
 position to this sudden volume of new productive 
 strength ? 
 
 "An irresistible force compelling other employ 
 ers to capitulate would also be the action of their 
 employes. Having witnessed our system in prac 
 tice they would demand of their employing capi- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 75 
 
 talists to follow our example and receive them 
 into partnership. Upon refusal there would be 
 endless costly strikes. If, defiant of these heavy 
 losses, the owners should continue stubborn, the 
 servants of one and another giant Trust would 
 make overtures to us to enter their departments 
 of manufacture, agreeing to bolt their masters 
 and transfer themselves to us en masse, and to 
 aid us with their labor in equipping a new sys 
 tem of plants of their kind. The old owners 
 would be then obliged to yield or to sell their 
 plants to us at a low figure, for they could not 
 hope to obtain new men to serve them as em 
 ployes. They would certainly yield and embrace 
 our partnership form." 
 
 "Yes," urged Margaret, "and many would do 
 so without waiting to be forced. The practical 
 effectiveness of it, demonstrated by us, would con 
 vince them. The struggle between capital and 
 labor is growing too strenuous for any man in his 
 senses to enjoy, or to endure if he can help it." 
 
 "And you " 
 
 "We should achieve a reconciliation of the great 
 opposing tendencies, individualism and socialism. 
 You can see that individualism has reached ab 
 surdity. If it goes on, the two sides capital and 
 labor will compactly organize and meet in a 
 supreme crash, after which who can tell what? 
 
76 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 We can avert this by opening a new channel to 
 humanity. It saves what is good in both socialism 
 and individualism : it gives to all the entire re 
 sults of their labor and removes masters; it fur 
 nishes the highest incentive to individual effort; 
 it utilizes the best minds at their fullest, and the 
 less gifted in their degree; but what the cautiou-- 
 will like most about it is this: it avoids turning 
 society into a vast machine, making that unneces 
 sary. Some people shiver with fear of a great 
 social machine. They want reform, they yearn for 
 absolute justice, but they dread anything so big 
 and apparently mechanical. These will heartily 
 enlist in our program, which reaches the end with 
 out bulk." 
 
 "Give me details/ commanded Giles. "How 
 would you evade the machine, Philip ?" 
 
 "Each trust/ rejoined Burson, "can organize 
 itself as one of the partnerships described. 
 Present trusts are not unwieldy in size nor unduly 
 hard to manage, and their chief trouble is not in 
 manufacturing but in the cutthroat hostility of 
 other industrial groups. Let us say there are 
 finally three hundred large trusts in the country, 
 conducting essentially all of its business and con 
 stituting each great industry. We propose to 
 change these trusts into industrial partnerships 
 as described and to let them remain separate. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 77 
 
 They will keep their autonomy. At many points 
 they will touch and in some conflict, their inter 
 ests will lap and intermingle. The questions 
 thus arising will not be settled by merging the 
 industrial groups or partnerships into one owner 
 ship or one stupendous partnership, but by a fed 
 eration in which all will meet to adjust their re 
 lations. 
 
 "Economic differences can always be decided 
 by a choice of methods : by industrial war, or arbi 
 tration. The enlightened will work out a just 
 basis of arbitration. Organized equitable arbitra 
 tion is federation. Of the questions arising, what 
 profit each group shall have is crucial. The an 
 swer by general understanding will be, enough 
 for the individuals in corresponding zones of all 
 the groups to receive the same income for the same 
 quantity of labor/ 
 
 Philip paused and Margaret pursued the 
 thought. 
 
 "What chance has individual initiative now? 
 To form another Trust. Soon even that will be 
 impossible, for all will have been blocked out and 
 the owners of all capital, these Trust magnates, 
 will have agreed to invade one another s territory 
 no more there will be no outsiders with the cap 
 ital requisite to invade. It will be policy for the 
 trusts to stop invading and competing, and mu- 
 
78 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 tual slaughter to continue to do so. They will 
 learn this lesson, as the owners of English rail 
 way systems railway trusts long ago learned it, 
 who divided the territory and established a per 
 petual truce. Such a truce is division of the public 
 for exploitation. Before the stage of truce is 
 reached each trust will make incursions into the 
 realms of other trusts to conquer a claim of 
 possession. The crystallization of large trusts is 
 like the formation of large empires, through the 
 stronger overrunning and absorbing small states 
 unable to (protect themselves. 
 
 "To launch a new combine to-day the fresh ini 
 tiator must gather capital from already rich men. 
 Is he an able promoter he may enrich himself by 
 the adventure then there is one new rich man, 
 just one. The investing capitalists of course are 
 made richer still. The people stay where they 
 were, only their producing capacity is yet farther 
 mulcted by a new profit-taking aggregation. This 
 is all the chance for initiative there is left. It is 
 essentially none. But under the plan of popular 
 partnerships each individual will have a wide, new 
 scope. Not to become privately hugely rich, it is 
 true but that is a vulgar ambition indicating a 
 twisted, miserable brain. He has a chance to 
 exercise all his abilities, which is the grandest de 
 light or reward, if you will call it that a man 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 79 
 
 can have. And he gets the whole material return 
 for doing it, all he creates. He is not wanted in 
 life merely as the operator of a narrow process of 
 labor, but to display his prowess in any vital direc 
 tion where his powers lead, because he will then be 
 contributing most to those about him. And he 
 will be developing and realizing himself. What 
 greater reward is possible? What higher, richer 
 life? One who only produces industrially is but 
 one-fourth useful, he is but one-fourth human. 
 When we liberate man from his servitude to mere 
 industry we shall increase alike his work and his 
 actual creativeness three-fourths." 
 
 "Unless a man is driven by necessity, he will 
 not work/ 7 dryly ejaculated Giles. 
 
 "The highest stimulus to effort is freedom," 
 cried Margaret with warmth. "Our policy secures 
 freedom, freedom in true equality. Every man 
 will be a full universe in himself, not a slave as 
 he is now, nor an almost invisible particle in a 
 colossal machine. All healthful incentive will be 
 given him to act, originate and perform; the two 
 greatest invitations, opportunity and appreciation, 
 surround him. The two things he cannot do are 
 rob and rule others. He is inflexibly curbed u 
 there. Under guise of serving them he cannot be 
 their despot and task-driver. Initiative is pre 
 served, both for the partnership groups themselves 
 
8o The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 and for the individuals in them ; you have society 
 fluid instead of static and crystallized ; the groups 
 are free and fluid toward one another, leaving all 
 opportunity for continual readjustment and 
 growth, and there is no great dominant over-power 
 to conduct, decide, or repress." 
 
 "But you have spoken of a federation of the 
 industrial groups/ interrogated Giles, "and what 
 about the political state ? Do you propose to abolish 
 government ?" 
 
 "Yes, there remains the political state, but 
 shorn of its strength for evil without even the 
 requisition of a constitutional amendment. Its 
 evil power comes from the great private fortunes, 
 and the fact that wealth can be won through 
 manipulating legislation. With the wealth-creat 
 ing forces organized into partnerships including 
 all their workers, legislation will be stripped of 
 its fatal potency. A large field of legislative activ 
 ity will be permanently cut off. The state will be 
 lessened in extent of work, but what it does will 
 count for much more in depth and weight for 
 public good. 
 
 "Most of the functions now performed by law 
 makers would then be transferred to the group 
 partnerships, or the federation of them. The 
 office remaining to legislatures would be that of an 
 authoritative body representing the entire people 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 81 
 
 irrespective of trade group affiliations, acting to 
 make the popular will operative in affairs con 
 cerning all, standing above the trade groups and 
 proceeding for the general good where these dis 
 agreed. But the legislative bodies would be sub 
 ject to the immediate will of the people, exercised 
 by the direct legislative principle. Political cor 
 ruption would cease, for there would be nothing 
 to feed it, all material profit being wrung out of 
 politics. Political parties and machines would 
 vanish, because legislatures would become homes 
 of reasoning conference. 
 
 "The scientific congress is in many ways the 
 model of a true legislative body. It seeks truth. 
 A legislative body should. The latter seeks to es 
 tablish lies, because there is a personal profit for 
 some one in them. Personal profit will be drawn 
 out of legislation by revising Trusts into indus 
 trial partnerships: then legislatures can discuss 
 disinterestedly and seek honest reality and intel 
 ligence there will be no motive for anything else. 
 
 "The directorate boards of trusts and corpora 
 tions know better than to divide into political par 
 ties within themselves, nor do the faculties of 
 great universities do so; they converse and deter 
 mine questions amicably by reasoning. The polit 
 ical party is a barbarism. It lives over from the 
 world s civil war days, the product of fierce selfish 
 
82 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 antagonisms, in which men formerly fought and 
 slaughtered. The drastic opposition of greedy in 
 terests was not healed when voting took precedence 
 of fighting, but people wisely agreed to adjourn 
 from the sanguinary civil battlefield to the wran 
 gling legislative floor and fight it out bloodlessly 
 there. They meant to get the better of and skin 
 each other just as much, and they did. There 
 grew political parties and their rancorousness. 
 The next step in the proceedings of common sense 
 will make for obliterating the desolating, foolish 
 antagonisms of separate interests. Then will po 
 litical parties die of uselessness. This will be the 
 achievement of peopleized trusts, by making the 
 interests of all broadly identical." 
 
 "But the federation," insisted Giles; "will not 
 that be despotic ?" 
 
 "Suppose a dozen of the great universities, con 
 cluding they could advance the cause of educa 
 tion more rationally by closer harmony and co 
 operation, should federate, erecting a tribunal to 
 meet at times, for delegates of the affiliated bodies 
 to confer upon the work of the universities sep 
 arately and collectively. The recommendations of 
 this tribunal would carry convincing weight in al 
 most all instances without the exercise, or power of 
 exercise, of the least authority or tyranny. Such 
 would be the federation of industrial groups. The 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 83 
 
 private ownership by a cluster of the Great having 
 departed, what motive would remain for antag 
 onism among the groups? To seek to overreach 
 one another would be pointless, for conflict would 
 arise, ruinous to all; there would be the common 
 retaliation, the rest attempting to punish and disci 
 pline the offenders. Labor bodies manifest that 
 the workers when organized will not often combat 
 to destroy one another s prosperity, even under the 
 aggravations of capitalism; it is the capitalists 
 who do this, and they also learn the folly of it 
 and federate. When labor organizations fight it 
 is but briefly, to reach a sounder relation of work 
 ing union; and their warring is due not to their 
 wills but to the social base on which they stand 
 mastery of all wealth-making machinery by the 
 Great Few, who are at deadly strife with them. 
 The partnership of all in owning, obliterating 
 this savage condition of conflict between owner 
 and not-owners, would establish a sentiment of 
 firm comradeship among all the workers and all 
 the groups. Thus the work of the federation 
 would be easy. Yet, as we have said, it would be 
 supplemented by the simplified and newly demo 
 cratic general government, which, in case of in 
 decision or vital difference among the groups, 
 would intervene and decide." 
 
84 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 "You have left a weight that would swamp 
 your system were it every otherwise sound," as 
 serted Giles. "The army of outsiders, the unem 
 ployed, irregularly employed, unwilling to be em- 
 plo}^ed, and the crude foreign immigrants." 
 
 "That is all provided for," Philip answered him. 
 "The Trust purpose, under the ownership of the 
 few Great men, is to produce and give to the pub 
 lic the least they must for the greatest profit. 
 Their object is not output, not general well-being, 
 it is simply and narrowly : How can we giant own 
 ers cut the bulkiest gain out of society with the 
 least return for it? The interest of society is 
 clean, perpendicularly opposite to this. Its inter 
 est is first, to have the largest output, and then 
 to spread it equitably through the social whole. 
 It does not care a twig for the profit of the few 
 Croat, their profit is so much wrested from itself. 
 The Great being removed, absorbed into society 
 as equal co-partners like the rest, the interest of so- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 85 
 
 ciety would supersede the interest of these regnant 
 anti-society few; the good of each social unit 
 would be the paramount, operative interest, and 
 the whole aim, the execution and placement 
 among these units of the largest product. These 
 products would pass among the various industrial 
 groups by exchange, and through society ; the re 
 ceipts of all from the social productiveness, each 
 having the wished-for products, would be their 
 p TO fit .profit assuming a reasonable meaning: 
 from being what a person gets beyond what he 
 gives, becoming the quantity produced and re 
 ceived of things desired." 
 
 "But you say nothing of how the product is to be 
 enlarged," criticised Giles. 
 
 "I am coming to that. Society has its idle and 
 half employed to put to work, and its squadrons 
 of drone rich uselessly living on interest, rent 
 and so forth, uncreative, also to be given work. 
 There are idle mills, closed lest their product 
 should shrivel the Great Few s profits denying 
 the people that product: they can serve in these. 
 There are prodigal aggregates of sleeping land, 
 unused because the part of wealth apportioned to 
 tillage by a profit-seeking industry does not repay 
 tillage. The wealthy direct labor-application to 
 luxuries for their pampered gayety, withdrawing 
 it from raising strong food to nourish in hearty 
 
86 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 development a strong mankind, and the industrial 
 system vests in these wreckers of human strength 
 the right to decide the case against entire man 
 kind. Material and unused labor for building new 
 factories are richly present, which would give work 
 to more men and farther swell the aggregate for 
 general distribution. All the newly employed 
 would earn their own pay by creating it, as well 
 as furnishing a surplus labor power and product 
 to devote to the general good. It must be remem 
 bered how much more enthusiastically, intelli 
 gently and productively men would labor when 
 conscious of being destined to enjoy the full fruit 
 age of their efforts, than when paralyzed by the 
 certainty which besets them now that the best and 
 choicest resultants of their toil will go to the merry 
 band of gilded owners. 
 
 "The creative power of society is to be added to 
 we know not how many times by creative education. 
 Productive training is being strictly denied the 
 many from the niggardly opinion we have of a 
 man s value. We care not what he is or amounts 
 to, how little, if he can be done into capitalist 
 profit. That profit is the size of his worth. Wher 
 ever we see a man s form working it is not a man 
 in making, that human marionette is fabricating 
 himself into a big man s gain. An education to 
 make men industrially productive, banishing the 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 87 
 
 thought of somebody s profit out of them, would 
 give present men several times their value." 
 
 Giles expresses his uncertainty anent the mean 
 ing of general good. That was in his line as a 
 large employer of labor, who conferred good on 
 all that worked for him by supporting them and 
 letting them enrich him. What further general 
 good could be wanted by any one was not evident. 
 
 Philip explained. "Works of general improve 
 ment would be numerous and would absorb much 
 labor. Were there still unemployed, occupation 
 could be found in this field. Such works take the 
 form of general reward or income for all labor, 
 since all individuals are directly bettered and en 
 riched by them. The value of this fundamental 
 investment is inestimable, for it will so change the 
 nature of the community s life that each child 
 born within it will find awaiting him a great herit 
 age. The richest man, through what his private 
 wealth can surround him with at present, has 
 nothing compared with it. We have builded griev 
 ously few arrangements for pleasure, music, social 
 intercourse; our communities are ugly and un- 
 healthful, disease is indigenous and endemic; our 
 educational institutions are grossly defective and 
 only the lowest are accessible to the majority we 
 suffer the crudest dearth of really modern places 
 of training; true art and literature have but the 
 
88 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 slenderest encouragement; science of any but the 
 commercial sort is feebly appreciated, and it is 
 baldly notorious that the stomach-chefs of our 
 consuming Rich are better rewarded than the sci 
 entists most useful to humanity ; while invention is 
 repressed by the selfishness of a profit-exacting 
 capitalism. 
 
 "The reversal of all this would be a part of the 
 work applied to general good. A child entering a 
 community touched with intelligence would have 
 a birthright that is possible to no child now. All 
 are born in these days into a sordid and embit 
 tered society and suffer sorrow and injury from it 
 to the end of their lives, though guarded by the 
 most exclusive barriers of private wealth. The 
 world can be actually excellent for none unless it 
 is so for all, it can be made so only by the willing 
 work of all. See how a man will toil for what he 
 imagines will give him a complete return! Let 
 him understand that the world is his and every 
 man will exert his hugest efforts for it. The Com 
 mon-wealth would then have a magnificent mean 
 ing. Citizens of Athens in her prime enjoyed a 
 rich common-wealth in the form of her temples, 
 art treasures, games and public activities, but the 
 power of the modern world to surpass the Greek 
 city incomparably transcends all past human ca 
 pabilities." 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 89 
 
 "If you were to make so glad a situation I don t 
 say I think it glad, for gladness to me is the sense 
 of owning the world and permitting mankind to* 
 occupy it for a tribute foreign offscourings would 
 swarm in and reduce things back to their natural 
 state." Giles announced this as the soundest 
 axiom. 
 
 "The present state is natural if brute principles 
 exclusively are natural," they admitted, "but the 
 higher human impulses are really more natural, 
 because man is human. Immigration is a ques 
 tion with two sides. The most useful people in 
 the world are the discontented. They are the most 
 intelligent, for they see that things are out of 
 joint, and they do the pioneer thinking and work 
 ing for change. Stupid people think that society 
 is all right. The better classes are generally 
 stupid. It is the dull and mechanical intellects 
 that get along in the world, because the majority 
 of men, being dull and mechanical, promote their 
 own kind. These promoted beings are called the 
 safe people that means they will shut their eyes 
 and run in the ruts. If you inject a little imagi 
 nation into a man he becomes unsafe, intelligence 
 sprouts, and he sees the rottenness of the tree of 
 human custom, he wants the tree of custom cut 
 down, and a tree of life planted in its place: the 
 stupid, who are parasites on the tree of decay, rise 
 
90 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 in their wrath against his sacrilege, and if he puts 
 an ax to the roots of that tree, woe unto him. 
 The prosperous are generally stupid. The pros 
 perous and the better classes are generally the same, 
 and that is why they are both stupid. They are 
 satisfied to get along without intelligence because 
 they have bread. They very seldom do anything 
 to help the world forward, their mission in the 
 cosmos being evidently to keep things back. They 
 are created as far as we can tell because there is 
 danger of too much speed in improvement. Man 
 cannot suffer enough in a thousand }^ears, so the 
 universe rubs it in and makes it a million. Evo 
 lution was timed to travel by stage-coach. This 
 is the only explanation there is for the prevalence 
 of stupidity, for as it is very prevalent we have 
 to account for it. We have to explain why men 
 were stupid when they might have been made 
 bright. 
 
 "These facts throw a great deal of light on the 
 immigration problem. When we see the prosper 
 ous coming we welcome them and say here come 
 good citizens. We should say here come stupid 
 citizens who will have no ideas about anything but 
 monotony, and sliding in the measured ruts, and 
 watering the tree of custom, and making money. 
 They are contented. If Europe could ship over a 
 mass of discontented to us, these would be good 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 91 
 
 citizens. They would bring some thoughts with 
 them, which we sadly lack here. Their thoughts 
 would be of a system of society founded on the 
 general good; our thoughts are of a system of so 
 ciety founded on the general evil, for the general 
 good of the Big Man. This idea is the fruit of 
 the Tree of Custom the Tree of Death. Civili 
 zation promised to dig down this tree, but it has 
 manured it, with little-child factory workers, with 
 frail women factory workers, with prostitutes for 
 the balance of their bread after the Big Man has 
 paid them dying wages, with the bodies of men 
 early slain by work to berich the prosperous, with 
 haggard eyes of the half-fed living who are toss 
 ing their vitals into the alembic of rich men s 
 wealth. Civilization has slightly failed because 
 it relied on the stupid and contented to conduct it. 
 Now we are going to change conductors and sub 
 stitute the intelligent and discontented. We find 
 these among the poor. The offscourings of Europe 
 bring their quota. 
 
 "We need not open to the insane. If we could 
 revolutionize European oppression by repulsing the 
 off scour and discontent, checking them at home 
 until the fastened safety-valves break, it might be 
 generous to prohibit all immigration. But the 
 species we should barricade against is the pros 
 perous. We are already dropsical with idolaters 
 
92 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 of custom and wealth. The prosperous are steeped 
 in the gross ambitions of the ages. We need 
 pioneer blood; the blood of custom changers and 
 wealth despisers, we need barbarians unsullied by 
 the pomp of profit and the rave of trade. We need 
 a blood mixed in the free courage of the sun, not 
 paralytic with the poison of civilization. It is 
 rather to be found in the depths than in the ex 
 hausted heights of mankind." 
 
 "You would hardly revolutionize Europe by 
 padlocking its emigration/ Giles said. "For our 
 wealth emigrates to them with our daughters who 
 marry decayed titled stock, propping up with 
 American riches tottering medieval institutions 
 that ought to die. It plays back on us, too, me- 
 diaevalizing our most rich and powerful smart 
 class and their army of conscientious apers." 
 
 "That will be taken care of before long by our 
 workers/ they answered. "The American working 
 man will step from under rotted foreign nobilities. 
 The American revolution was a revolt against kings 
 and nobles, yet the wealth of America, furnished 
 by the American workingman, is now supporting 
 them. When the working class see this they will 
 find a means to end it. They are killing their 
 children to send money abroad to these noblemen. 
 A New York physician has just said that there 
 are 50,000 New York families, with three or 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 93 
 
 four children each, who have bedrooms without 
 any windows in them/ and consumption ravages 
 these families. Do not these working people owe 
 their children more than they owe European lords 
 and princes? The annual riches made and sent 
 by our workers to one American girl s nobleman 
 would probably pay the car faro of the bread earn 
 ers of all these New York families back and forth 
 from healthy homes in the country and save their 
 lives. It is not only the wage class that is pun 
 ished by this American crime: the physician fires 
 a shaft into the well-to-do, telling them, Remem 
 ber, it is no consolation to you that these people 
 die. Before they die they infect you. Your ser 
 vant or seamstress may have lived in the window- 
 less rooms. 
 
 "One of these days the workers of the United 
 States will stop the outflow of their wealth to 
 nobles and invest it in sanitary homes for them 
 selves. That will be soon." 
 
 "Now listen to me/ said Giles. "I perceive no 
 flaw in your plan. Whatever is good in individual 
 ism or personal freedom you have saved, and all 
 that is valuable in socialism you have introduced. 
 Your program preserves individual initiative com 
 pletely ; it lays the bugaboo of paternalism at rest. 
 Your group idea, each group democratically self- 
 managed, with ownership vested in the group, is a 
 
94 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 masterful advance on the idea of general collective 
 ownership, in fact I am compelled to confess it to 
 be so different from the usual theories of popular 
 ownership that it removes all the difficulties cur 
 rently urged. You not only retain but vastly in 
 crease the scope of individual freedom and initia 
 tive. Instead of multiplying laws and enlarging 
 government, you sharply diminish their field: 
 and you make the voluntary principle supreme, 
 while in your over-state you have a power to ensure 
 this principle from self-destruction by excess. 
 You have struck out the path which society ought 
 to follow." 
 
 Giles paused and the two waited eagerly to hear 
 him announce co-operation. He deliberated and 
 Margaret sought further to impress him. 
 
 "We do secure essential general ownership, and 
 ordain firmly the principle of general supremacy 
 in all property affairs ; for above the groups stands 
 the federation, and over the federation, for emer 
 gencies stand the whole people in democratic au 
 thoritative union. The vesting of property in the 
 groups is thus subordinated to the whole and th* 
 whole s good; but the greatest liberty of manage 
 ment compatible with the social primacy is left 
 with the groups, which in their turn are internally 
 most democratic. Our general ownership is un- 
 mechanical and individual, since the individual, in 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 95 
 
 every respect but the power to absorb and control 
 to the detriment of others, has become industrially 
 immensely more cogent. While this is the tri 
 umph of general ownership, the condition is 
 one more individual in ownership than the present 
 pseudo-individuality, which is on a tack that de 
 stroys true individual strength. 
 
 "What we accomplish is a change in the quality 
 of individual ownership, not abolishing it. We 
 place a higher principle above it, altering and ele 
 vating the individual principle, not destroying it. 
 That we surmount with the general principle, gen 
 eral owning, so shaping and delimiting this that 
 it enhances the individual element and sense. The 
 individual then owns through the wider ownership ; 
 present partners and stock holders do so in a de 
 gree, but not as vitally. While the general owner 
 ship is paramount, the individual proprietorship 
 in this general ownership, and through it, is well 
 denned. 
 
 "Moreover, there will be fluidity of movement 
 for the individual, equivalent to changing his in 
 vestment. He can transfer himself from one line 
 of work to another, in doing so transferring his 
 partner al ownership, for wherever his work is, there 
 by the new terms of industry he is owner. The 
 primal fact under all is that ownership, while 
 changeable, is inalienable. 
 
96 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 "It is the extension of the principle of citizen 
 ship. The citizen of to-day is inalienable partner 
 and owner in the public streets, the city hall, the 
 court house, the jail, the public school, the post 
 office, no matter if he hasn t a cent in his pocket or 
 a job. The new step expands citizenship, makes 
 him a partner-owner in industry, always owner of 
 work, and of an income while he works, and of all 
 results accruing from his work at any time. This 
 is real citizenship. Anything less is mock citizen 
 ship, a fantastical shadow of it. Here is every in 
 citement to work and improve. The chief present 
 stimulus is to invest your money, do nothing, and 
 let others make dividends for you. The chief aim 
 in the world under our abortion of industry is 
 idleness. 
 
 "In fact, we apply the principle of home rule 
 to industry home rule coupled with associative 
 federation. I have heard socialism defined as a 
 system which looks to an ideal of very strict posi 
 tive government in every relation in life ; our sys 
 tem attains the socialist end, but by means of 
 self-government applied to every relation in life ; 
 there is no great machine ; there is no repression of 
 the individual, the individual feels himself to bo 
 reaching out through the whole and is everywhere 
 a vital guiding factor in it." 
 
 "That is excellent/ conceded Giles. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 97 
 
 "Note this especially : with our essential general 
 ownership we have both the fact and the conscious 
 ness of individual ownership, the union of which is 
 the modern problem. The individual is not bereft 
 that all may own, his sense of personal owning is 
 intensified by the enlargement of the content, or 
 idea, of ownership and of what it brings him. 
 He cannot be buncoed or deprived of his owning. 
 Its returns are sure and great, but they visibly de 
 pend on his own and his partners exertion and in 
 telligence. Ownership gains a rational meaning. 
 It ceases to be something accidental, which may 
 be used by a fool s private whim to ruin others and 
 lower all, therein reacting ruinously on the un 
 bridled owner it lifts the good use of ownership 
 into a science and protects each and all from the 
 fool. The world harbors many fools, and must, 
 till fools are intelligently outbred from mankind/ 
 
 "I like to hear you," Giles said appreciatively, 
 "go on." 
 
 "I will say this in another way for emphasis. 
 We propose the highest degree of individual owner 
 ship accordant with individual good, and with it 
 provide a definite commercial stimulus to indi 
 vidual effort. Prosperity will follow intelligence 
 and individual effort ; and of each the most liberal 
 contribution of intelligence is sought. Thus the 
 of personal ownership is his, yet expanded 
 
98 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 and freighted with robuster meaning. His part 
 of responsibility does not fade away in an indus 
 trial machine of intangible magnitude, for he is 
 equal co-partner in a group structure that can be 
 grasped in thought. It is well known that even 
 the numerous minor stockholders of large corpora 
 tions feel a strong interest and even a sense of pro 
 prietorship in their management,, while much more 
 do active partners who share the work and respon 
 sibilities. Our system of elevating each into a 
 partner assures the maximum sense of personal 
 identity with the group work, of personal proprie 
 torship as far as that is legitimate, accompanied by 
 the feeling of an individual ownership in the fur 
 ther and special agencies that make for general 
 welfare. Each is partial controller everywhere. 
 He may rise to ever greater responsibilities in the 
 industrial organism,, yet as he grows in brain power 
 he will not deem these burdens a prize, but will 
 welcome the deepening intelligence of all his fel 
 low partners, for then each will naturally assume 
 larger responsibilities without strain, relieving the 
 burdened few originally more competent. What 
 greater .measure of personal ownership could any 
 intelligent being desire?" 
 
 Philip supported her approvingly. "It makes 
 our present mode of absolute unit ownership appear 
 not only foolishly selfish but grossly unintelligent. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 99 
 
 Present individuals are personally poor contrasted 
 with the rich resources that will be in command of 
 each under this rational widening of his scope. 
 "Every one will of course have the unrestricted 
 proprietorship of his income. He will enjoy the 
 direct return of all his increased application and 
 proficiency by adding to his private income, and 
 by swelling the wealth applied to general embellish 
 ment of life, in everything pertaining to which, 
 like the member of an opulent private club of to 
 day, he is equal participant with all. Not an 
 atom of the product of his creation will be suc- 
 tioned away by some other who creates nothing. 
 For the man who supports himself in these days 
 under lawless Privatism, is one who surrenders to 
 others who have no right to it three times as much 
 as he keeps which is the tax claimed and ex 
 tracted by a parasite system for the privilege of 
 working." 
 
ioo The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 As they expanded their thoughts Giles compre 
 hended that he was hearing something not to be 
 overlooked. Whatever he might do such ideas 
 would be influential, there was a serious choice be 
 fore him and he recognized it. Capitalists had 
 had a free fling,, a grand fling, a supreme fling; 
 everything had been for them, everything had been 
 theirs ; perhaps the world would come to its senses 
 and turn a new page and haul them down. He 
 would decide deliberately and abide the conse 
 quences. 
 
 "You were going to tell me the more perfect 
 social form which you see ahead when the transi 
 tion stage is past/ he said. "I ought to hear that 
 before I commit myself/ 
 
 "It can be sketched now without difficulty/ they 
 answered. "It is possible in industry to know very 
 accurately what each worker produces. Employers 
 continually assert that they know the worth of each 
 hand to them, and they oppose collective bargain 
 ing and unions on the ground that they want to 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 101 
 
 bargain with men individually in order to give 
 each what he is worth, no more and no less. This 
 is declaring that they know the value of each rela 
 tively to the others. They do not pretend to give 
 him what he produces, for their profit has to come 
 out of that. But taking this profit and distribut 
 ing it among the workers in addition to wages, in 
 the proportion that the. employers regard them to 
 be worth, we should have approximately what each 
 worker actually produces. Other principles are 
 involved for complete accuracy. 
 
 "But the problem offers few difficulties when its 
 solution is honestly undertaken. Where it seems 
 complex, employers to gain advantage of the labor 
 ers are the cause of it, in order to make them be 
 lieve they produce less than they do. 
 
 "Granting that what each worker produces can 
 be fairly accurately determined, the question of re 
 muneration or distribution of the products of in 
 dustry is easily settled. Each can decide for him 
 self the quantity of private material things that 
 he desires and can adjust his labor to earn them. 
 If he loves these things much and craves a large 
 supply of them, he is at liberty to spend his time 
 and energy producing the equivalent that will en 
 able him to possess them. They will be the pro 
 duct of himself and he will be robbing nobody for 
 all can do likewise if they desire. All he acquired 
 
IO2 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 would be the result of his actual production, the 
 frame-work of industry would preclude him from 
 deriving anything unearned, by scheming. 
 
 "A limit, however, would be placed upon excess 
 labor, upon that namely which should cause the 
 worker to jeopardize his health and mental sanity, 
 making him both an inferior citizen and a physical 
 burden on others. Here he would be distinctly 
 robbing others, requiring them to support him in 
 feebleness brought on by material avarice ; and he 
 would be robbing them of their right to have in 
 him a decent and worthy human associate. A man 
 is a thief who destroys what is good in himself, 
 depriving others of the companionship of this good. 
 He gives them an evil thing to associate with in 
 place of a good thing which he owes them. And 
 it is the right and duty of society to protect itself 
 against the self-injury of men, because this is the 
 injury of all and a fraud and wrong upon all, and 
 to see that its members are of an elevated type for 
 its good. A man who abuses himself in a selfish 
 pursuit is not in any sense the exclusive sufferer, 
 he is a murderer of general happiness. The theory 
 that society has no right to interfere with the in 
 dividual overlooks this bearing of his conduct upon 
 others. 
 
 "Society will therefore more and more act to re 
 quire men to be self -protecting. A man is in a 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 103 
 
 manner insane who by excess of effort, ambition, 
 or desire degrades his physical or mental health. 
 Heretofore the social structure has spurred men to 
 these species of insanity; a rational society will 
 address itself to the cure and prevention of these 
 manias, which will be placed in the category of 
 destructive and costly infectious diseases like con 
 sumption. In slight but initial recognition of this 
 principle in their sphere some colleges enforce a 
 system of physical training and upbuilding. 
 
 "Likewise and for the same reason will society 
 require of men self-evolution. To shirk this is a 
 direct blow at the rest, robbing them of good they 
 have a right to. A man does not live to himself 
 alone ; if he has latent talents which he refuses to 
 develop he takes the joy and good they would 
 produce, from every one else as well as himself. 
 For example, one with a beautiful voice who 
 should refuse to be trained to sing. 
 
 "In providing free schools for the young and 
 compelling attendance society has taken a step to 
 recognize its rights and its duty to itself. But 
 there is no limit to this duty, for all men have man 
 ifold talents which the great majority are never 
 able to exercise or improve at all for want of oppor 
 tunity. Every man with a talent unimproved robs 
 others as well as himself of it. 
 
 "Now, while constraint at some period may be 
 
104 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 necessary for many children, it would be so for 
 few grown men if opportunities were rightly pro 
 vided. Men detest effort in what they dislike and 
 are unsuited for, and when the best fruit of their 
 labor goes to others. 
 
 "Up to a certain point a very low one society 
 concerns itself, still ineffectually, with the good 
 of its members and its own good. This is in the 
 primary education of children. Then it changes 
 its principle and authorizes a new force to rule 
 everything : that is, the force of some private man s 
 profit. Children who cannot pay the toll to him 
 on all they eat, drink, wear, and use those whose 
 parents cannot pay this profit-toll for them, musi 
 stop their growth and go to work directly for thi.- 
 private-profit-taker, the capitalist. All grown up 
 men s and women s first duty is to pay this toll. 
 The evolution of their talent? Tush. After they 
 pay this toll on life to some private man, if any 
 thing is left they may develop their talents. 
 
 "Here is social suicide. All society makes a 
 Sahara of itself to fill the sty of this Private Man. 
 Sty is the right word, for these private men serve 
 others as the occupant of a sty does. Infinite 
 talents are estopped, cut down. 
 
 "When the Private Man is removed the principle 
 of favoring individual evolution, admitted regard 
 ing young children, will be extended to entire so- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 105 
 
 ciety, for the whole period of every individual s 
 life. This aim will stand as far above the Pri 
 vate Man s aims as it now stands below them. 
 
 "These primary outlines show where the limits 
 will be placed by society to a man s liberty to 
 expend himself on the production of material 
 things for himself, and also indicate the many 
 new influences that will save him from caring to 
 go to excess in this direction. His many other 
 faculties, now dormant, will be wakened, making 
 a man of him and causing the pursuit of mere ma 
 terial things to be like shaking a rattle all his life. 
 "Within these limits, however, industry would 
 be so gauged as to give a wide field of possible 
 production for one to elect or discard; that is, one 
 could choose to be a producer and therefore earner 
 of much by giving his time to it, or could elect to 
 reserve his forces for other things. His income 
 would be essentially identical with his produc 
 tion, after deducting the sum for public uses. 
 
 "This provision would place each where his 
 returns would be distinctly under his own control. 
 "So-called inferior or simple labor ranks above 
 other work because there is expense in learning 
 the "higher trades and professions. But ground 
 for this rank vanishes when the learning of all 
 trades and professions is opened to all without cost 
 and when the learner can simultaneously be easily 
 
io6 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 earning a good living by a moderate daily period 
 of some simple work. The problem of just re 
 muneration or income is thus greatly simplified, 
 for the element of payment for preparation dis 
 appears, and with it payment for what is called 
 largely erroneously superior ability. Superior 
 ability is most often merely opportunity and train 
 ing. These being equalized, much of the reason 
 for superior pay theoretically based on higher tal 
 ent passes away. 
 
 "It is a fundamental truth, moreover, that all 
 men need for pure reasons of physical health sev 
 eral daily hours of manual work of some kind. 
 Granting that one can earn in these hours a good 
 living by applying his needed exercise usefully to 
 some form of production thoroughly possible 
 when industry is reorganized without profit-takers 
 a sound basis is secured for the independent 
 evolution of every man in the line that his higher 
 talents would dictate. 
 
 "The vast resources ready for the true earners 
 when industry is reorganized without profit-takers 
 will convince any candid person that these 
 ideas are not fanciful. Eeview the profits of the 
 Trust Companies of New York and Brooklyn as 
 a type. The Central Trust Company pays an an 
 nual dividend of 80 per cent.; the Union, of 50 
 per cent. ; the United States, of 50 ; the Farmers 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 107 
 
 Loan and Trust, of 40 ; the New York Life Insur 
 ance and Trust, of 40; the New York Security 
 and Trust, of 32 ; the Mercantile, of 30 ; the Mor 
 ton, of 20; the Guarantee, of 20. Nearly every 
 trust company that has been established for any 
 length of time pays dividends ranging from 8 
 to 16 per cent/ The Central Trust Company has 
 paid 60 per cent, annually since 1899, and for nine 
 years prior to that paid 50 per cent. It paid 30 in 
 1890, 25 in 1888, and from 1878 to 1888 it paid 
 dividends ranging from 6 to 16 per cent. 
 
 "Thus it appears not only how huge the profits 
 taken by the non-earners are, the profits of the 
 monster Private Man for whom Evolution must 
 stand still, but how rapidly concentration of capi 
 tal is increasing the power of the non-producer to 
 compel the people to stand and deliver profits. 
 Eighty per cent, dividends mean that a man nearly 
 doubles his capital annually. In a few years, at 
 the past rate of increase, it will be 100 per cent. ; 
 then still more. And the meaning of all this is 
 that commercial and industrial machinery is being 
 daily perfected to enable creators of nothing to 
 take increasing while already immeasurably 
 prodigious totals of wealth annually from the real 
 producers. The Fifth Avenue Bank equals the 
 Central Trust Company in dividends 80 per 
 cent. 
 
io8 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 "In the new form of industry ownership and 
 management will belong permanently to the com 
 ponent members of the industrial groups, and that 
 ownership will be equal. No one can be ousted 
 from his equal share in proprietorship,, and it is 
 open to him, as above described, to resolve for him 
 self how much of the product he will have. It 
 will depend on his own application and work. 
 Thus equality without a dead level is secured, the 
 fullest impetus to effort is preserved, the highest 
 opportunity for improvement is granted, and a 
 new field, above mere drudgery, is opened for all 
 in the realm of the use of their broader faculties, 
 where the greatest stimulus, interest and attrac 
 tion of life are. The members will conduct the 
 management with the utmost democracy. Democ 
 racy cannot only be absolutely trusted, but it is 
 the only thing to trust. All anti-democracy sig 
 nifies that a self-constituted few seek a basis to 
 exploit the many politically or materially, and the 
 animus of political exploitation is always material 
 exploitation." 
 
 "In this completer form your idea of the zones 
 of payment would be discarded ?" queried Giles. 
 
 "Probably so," they replied, "in order to em 
 phasize individual effort and make returns tally 
 with it. Advancement would be then determined 
 by ability displayed. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 109 
 
 "But to understand what will happen you must 
 recognize the advent of a new principle: 
 
 "The new order of freedom will produce a new 
 type of man. It will thereby change the relation 
 of the individual to the industrial problem. 
 
 "The new type will come because industry must 
 have him and cannot proceed without him; it 
 will come because where he appears he will defeat 
 and supersede the existing lower type. 
 
 "What will his characteristics, be? Self-reli 
 ance, ability, capacity to judge and act without 
 being told or directed, the power of self-direc 
 tion without a superior. This is what the laborer 
 of to-day will become in the close future. 
 
 "What evidence have we that he will? First, 
 that we have only to give him the chance, and he 
 does so ; second, that he will take the chance if we 
 do not give it to him. 
 
 "On the first point two proofs may be cited 
 from army and navy experience. The battleship 
 has become so complicated that its success in action 
 depends upon the ability of subordinates to act 
 without orders. Things have grown too large for 
 official control, and demand the services of a new 
 kind of unit the se//-controlled unit. The offi 
 cer becomes more and more an ornament, a stuffed 
 uniform, an interesting shade for laymen to drape 
 in glory, while the real officers, the earners of 
 
no The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 whatever glory there is in international murder, 
 the real men,, are those who man the guns, who 
 work the machines. The officers might go to sleep 
 while the men do the work. 
 
 "The Boer War is a revolutionary epoch in the 
 annals of warfare and in some much more im 
 portant annals. In that conflict the incapacity of 
 the stuffed uniforms of the British was betrayed 
 astoundingly, and because the privates had not 
 been built into self-reliant units like the Boer, 
 defeat gathered on defeat. The Boers showed what 
 a man amounts to in war. He is more than guns 
 or drums or uniforms or generals or hollow squares 
 or full squares or even slight-of-leg drill circum 
 volutions under marionette ninnies with stripes 
 on their sleeves and arrogance in their heads. The 
 great lesson of this was that leadership in war is 
 a back number. The thing that counts is the indi 
 vidual, and what counts in him is the amount of 
 his independent capacity to have ideas of his own 
 and to execute them. And it proved that all those 
 objects we are wont to scorn as common men/ can 
 think and act self-dependently when they have 
 freedom to evolve. This discovery revolutionizes 
 war and demolishes the pomp and bombast of all 
 our army systems. They must begin all over, burn 
 their martinet manuals, and what they must make 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. TII 
 
 is men. Incidentally., it means the end of war, 
 because men won t fight their brother men. 
 
 "The same discovery will be made in industry 
 and the same revolution will follow. Intelligent 
 men need no bosses and no captains of industry; 
 they contain the whole in their own minds. The 
 period of generalship in everything is passing 
 away by the elevation of the people above the level 
 of generals. Industry and the land, both Nature s 
 capital, must be open fields into which this new 
 type of able individuals may enter and create, free 
 from the burden of the present form of private 
 ownership. 
 
 "For private ownership is a burden. It ties the 
 owners; it weights and shackles the non-owners. 
 Under it a man can only become free by making 
 himself a private owner, but he then instantly 
 assumes another kind of slavery the slavery to 
 what he owns. Associate ownership delivers men 
 from both slaveries. The freedom, independence 
 and equality of ownership is then attained by all, 
 its responsibilities and enslaving burdens are lifted 
 from the individual to the association, which has 
 a permanent life, while individuals composing it 
 may come and go. The dog in the manger, private 
 ownership, being removed, nothing will prevent 
 every individual from the fullest industrial de 
 velopment he desires. Industry will become one 
 
i\i The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 of the higher interests of mankind, pursued less 
 for what there is in it in the narrowly selfish 
 sense than for its great human value and for the 
 conquest of its unutterable magic. It will be fol 
 lowed as science is followed, with enthusiasm and 
 love. The soul will be in it. 
 
 "The problem before society is to give each what 
 he creates, while so providing for the needs of each 
 as will bring the greatest development to all, and 
 the fairest apportionment of happiness. 
 
 "To clarify this let us advance through the 
 problem by stages. First, what would it be for 
 each to have according to his deserts, under ex 
 istent ideas of what one industrially produces? 
 The idea of industrial justice is that he is to have 
 the full quota of what he creates : if his deserts are 
 industrial he will receive proportionate industrial 
 return; if his deserts are in other fields than in 
 dustrial he will be able to develop them, not caring 
 for large industrial rewards, as being out of his 
 line. Standing on the basis of a good living earned 
 by the physical labor necessary for health, society 
 gives him freedom and opportunity for develop 
 ing what he likes, and thus he has his deserts. 
 They are not material, but material profusion is 
 not his desire; if it were, he could pursue it with 
 the certainty of success. He selects otherwise. 
 
 "This is the position of one least favorably 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 113 
 
 piaced one whose chosen product is not sought 
 and purchased by others. Instance a writer of 
 very original books, or of those very necessary, but 
 unwelcome to mankind; founders of new depar 
 tures in art, science, music, or morality. Now the 
 world starves them and consequently, starves it 
 self. With established competence from simple 
 work, they would evolve their ideas and publish 
 or create independently. One might choose to be 
 an individual university, as Socrates was, and teach 
 on the streets, a kind forever much needed, the real 
 life-giving kind. In our mental anaemia we should 
 call such demagogues. 
 
 "This depicts the lowest material condition men 
 could be in, and it is essentially high. It would 
 secure for the first time in the world true intel 
 lectual freedom. So-called freedom of mind with 
 out material independence of all men is a shadow. 
 The equality at this stage comes from each having 
 ivliat he wants, what he elects, what he works for. 
 The fact that he could have as much as any mate 
 rially if he gave his efforts to that line destroys 
 [lie basis of material pride. 
 
 "A second stage, which would represent the 
 prevalent condition, greatly advances the material 
 status of those whose special interest is not indus 
 trial, because the services and creations of these 
 would be required and purchased in the works for 
 
H4 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 general embellishment and sought for by the spe 
 cialists in industry. 
 
 "But the finality of this method of apportioning 
 industrial income is shaken by the reflection that 
 the electors of an industrial career do what they 
 like quite as much as those who specialize outside 
 of industry, while they obtain, besides this, a much 
 larger material portion. Here we come to a pro 
 found error which corrupts all economic conclu 
 sions through and through. The gaining and so- 
 called production of material wealth has been given 
 a separate and unique position above every other 
 activity; it has been made the standard and norm 
 of every other value. Material wealth is not only 
 made the standard of everything, but the getters 
 of material wealth are made the dictators of every 
 thing. The avarice faculties have been ranked at 
 the apex of all. This is an inversion of common 
 sense, the exaltation of the wealth specialist has 
 done unlimited evil. He has been given free scope 
 in the material field, as if material production were 
 the only activity to wliicli, by inseparable right, 
 material return belonged. It belongs just as in 
 separably to many other activities with which 
 material creation is not directly bound. The 
 wealth specialist has got entirely out of his proper 
 place in the scheme of things. 
 
 "Mankind depends on material wealth for well 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 115 
 
 being, the material of the world belongs to it for 
 this purpose, a multitude of the best diverse brains 
 is required to determine the right application of 
 nature s wealth for mankind s good. What is 
 actually done? The whole material field is pre 
 sented as a gratuity to the wealth specialists, men 
 with a very narrow set of faculties, those by nature 
 the most selfish, the least regardful of the good of 
 mankind, and from absorption in acquisition the 
 least able to judge the good of mankind to these 
 the material field entire is given to work up, ex 
 ploit and possess, for themselves, leaving mankind 
 shorn of its own like lambs and appointed to go 
 nude. 
 
 "Whatever handfuls of fleece these specialists 
 are moved to give to mankind for its good are re 
 ceived with groveling gratitude as a generosity- 
 yet mankind was the first giver of everything they 
 have to these specialists. They may waste every 
 thing ; mankind must look on with its hands in its 
 pockets. And as it usually happens from the 
 nature of the case that these acquisitors are brain 
 less and incapable in all other fields if they were 
 not they would not make acquisition their object 
 the deciding what causes and interests in the world 
 shall be promoted with wealth is ceremoniously 
 dedicated to the brainless and incapable. When 
 it is a question of wealth to establish some move- 
 
n6 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 ment for the upbuilding of mankind the gauntlet 
 of these wealth specialists, the brainless and in 
 capable in questions of human good, has to be run 
 to learn whether they will condescend to dole out 
 money that upbuilding may proceed. 
 
 "The point is, that giving control of the wealth 
 field and wealth to wealth specialists is a funda 
 mental and egregious blunder. They are the last 
 men to whom should be entrusted direction of the 
 uses of wealth. 
 
 "This opens the broad question: What does 
 the so-called wealth producer acting in society 
 upon productive nature (land and machinery) 
 really produce? In the ultimate analysis what 
 each creates is determined by the conditions that 
 society wills he may create in. There is nothing 
 naturally established in this sphere. Hence a man 
 can claim nothing as produced by him by appeal 
 ing to nature. In olden time natural was what 
 he could obtain by hunting and fishing, then by 
 agriculture with land plenteous, then in a shop 
 as owner of his own machinery : it is variable, there 
 is nothing natural, permanent, inherent about it, 
 society fixes the conditions. So there are no 
 natural rights. And yet there is one thing that 
 is natural, and that is the supreme thing. It is 
 intelligence. What the highest intelligence dic 
 tates is natural. Hence, in this supreme sense, 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 1 1 7 
 
 there are natural rights. Clearly, they vary and 
 advance, because intelligence grows. 
 
 "Contemplate the absurdity of the most basic 
 ideas of personal production. The simple worker, 
 the cleaner of a ditch, is ranked as least pro 
 ductive and is least paid, and yet this is most 
 creative and productive work. Shakespeare died 
 at fifty-three from the filth of the town. Years 
 of brilliant creativeness were ahead of him. ^ Had 
 Goethe died at fifty-three, what would he have 
 left comparatively? The men who had kept the 
 town clean for Shakespeare and preserved him to 
 his eightieth year would have produced and given 
 the world a second Shakespeare. How many great 
 minds have been lost young from the world s filth 
 there is no estimating. Whoever had kept the 
 world clean and saved those minds had been joint 
 givers of them to the world and joint producers 
 of the works of their genius. Yet in the midnight 
 sightlessness of political economy mere cleaners 
 rank among the least productive. Which properly 
 earn the great pay, those who fit up the world 
 and keep it in repair that the genius may serenely 
 exercise a free gift from above? Or the genius 
 himself? Or all equally? This question upsets 
 customary economics. 
 
 "The conclusion is that both by right and nature 
 the ultimate fixing of values belongs to society, and 
 
n8 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 the rules upon which it will resolve will be deter 
 mined by its intelligent well being. It will ar 
 range the returns of effort so that within large 
 limits what a man gains will depend on his own 
 exertions; it will formulate the principles of pro 
 duction that are fairest, and a man will have 
 within these principles what he produces: but it 
 will apportion rewards in all other lines than mere 
 material production, in accordance with the large 
 equitable principles of social well-being, no longer 
 permitting the production of material things to 
 be the supreme standard and arbiter of human 
 activities and destinies." 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 119 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 GILES now declared himself. "While I perceive 
 that your measures would solve the labor and cap- v 
 ital problem most equitably, I don t want it solved 
 that way. 
 
 "I am a capitalist. I own things. I own them 
 absolutely. It s nature s law. The highest law / 
 is Those without property have no rights. We 
 throw them empty sentiments and crusts and spout 
 of their rights: that is the art of keeping them 
 slaves. Call them free slaves, the hollow word free 
 reconciles them to the leaden reality of slavery. I 
 have convictions, I m a capitalist from principle. 
 Capitalists are a part of the grand order of nature. 
 Nature is unalterable, and so are capitalists. I 
 didn t have that opinion when I set out in life, 
 but Je-hu ! IVe learned a mighty lot about the 
 bowels of everything except mercies since that 
 time. There s nothing like making money to teach 
 you the laws of the universe. I m a benefactor. 
 I m guardian of the poor devils that work for me, 
 
I2O The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 and are not fit to be guardians of themselves. 
 Fancy me in partnership with the simple clowns I 
 have to command as a general over privates! 
 Could everybody in an army be general? Didn t 
 society encourage me to become a general? And 
 now it shall stand it; I say it s its duty to 
 stand it." 
 
 "The military organization of industry, with its 
 y bespangled commanders and insignificant privates, 
 is the very thing that will not let mankind grow," 
 ventured Margaret. "All the growth goes to the 
 commanders, who develop atwist, into popes and 
 czars of power and irresponsibility. The industrial 
 world is governed by court martial. It was ridicu 
 lous for industry to have borrowed the military 
 form of organization, when the army type of things 
 is everywhere a millstone to be cast off." 
 
 "What society gave, it can t take away," testily 
 responded Giles. "It gave me the right to stand 
 on men! What should I live for if I couldn t do 
 that ? I love rule, I want power, and am going to 
 keep it. If they try to snatch it from me, I ll 
 fight for it. Money will go a long way in a fight. 
 Man was made to sell himself: only fanatics 
 haven t a price. Buying men s souls and ruling 
 their bodies is the capitalist nature, as society cre 
 ated it. What do I care for mankind ? Just what 
 mankind cared for me when it let me loose, a 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 121 
 
 happy, unformed boy full of trust and love, among 
 the cruel social forces, to tame them under me or 
 go down to hell. Where s my happiness? I went 
 down to hell, but by my own might I came back, 
 and brought hell with me. I won hell in a fair 
 fight, and I consider society in solemn compact 
 with me to permit me to operate this hell against v 
 it while I live. I don t care what happens when 
 I m dead; no capitalist does. What s more, so 
 ciety can t help it; we commanders who were its 
 creatures are now society s masters; we re too 
 strong for it." 
 
 "If this were accepted, and I admit it is the 
 capitalist s position, there never could be a single 
 inch of progress, for each generation would have 
 its new capitalist generals, demanding, as you do, 
 to be let alone," said Philip, mournfully. 
 
 "Capitalists do not care for the progress of the 
 world," answered Giles. "We care to own and rule v 
 the world. They are like me, though perhaps for 
 reasons of policy they deny it and pretend to phil 
 anthropic affection for the convocation of dummies 
 they operate with. I can tell you that men who 
 are eaten with the passion to absorb everything 
 can t love the world. Their appetite is to swallow 
 it. I suppose I shock you, but you ought to be v 
 thankful for my unusual honesty; others lie about 
 it. I can t change ; life has set my nature to stone." 
 
122 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 The colloquy ended seemingly in hopeless en 
 tanglement. It left Margaret disappointed and 
 unhappy, signaling to her the premature descent 
 of Giles into age. The early petrefaction of busi 
 ness men s minds was a familiar phenomenon, and 
 she was accustomed to the unpleasant sight of capi 
 talists aged in every attribute but years. The 
 forces of a money-maker s brain flow in the one 
 channel of acquisition, where they wear a dee-p 
 abyss; when the fissure is cut there is no future 
 changing, the brain is dead to alteration or ad 
 vancement. The mind is drained of sap intended 
 for a variety of faculties, all of it passing into one, 
 and outside of a monsteroid faculty the man is a 
 dry pod. The spreading rot, of course, includes 
 love. Margaret had not foreseen that Giles might 
 yield to this malady of rich men; she had fondly 
 thought, as those who love do, that there was a 
 difference between her father and the sordid rab 
 ble of rich men, so that although he might do the 
 same things outwardly, his soul was lifted above 
 them. It is the natural illusion of love. Some 
 wives and some daughters never awake from it. 
 There is a life-long halo about the rascal who fills 
 their pockets with spending money. Margaret 
 was awakening. The suspicion that her loved com 
 rade was identical with the wretched crowd of 
 money-makers whom she read accurately and thor- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 123 
 
 oughly despised, was the hardest blow that she 
 had sustained in fife. 
 
 Neither was Giles happy. The nearness of an 
 intellectual parting with the single person he loved 
 pierced him with sharp questionings. Were they 
 to fall asunder in life and feeling ? He asked him 
 self this with terror in the thought. Is it impos 
 sible for one generation to understand another? 
 Old Giles took counsel with himself and planned 
 his way. Margaret and Philip, in the exaltation 
 and half-sighted kittenishness of love, had been 
 dallying with wrong ideas, and he must correct 
 them. They must be coached to detect their folly 
 with their own eyes to be convinced. Giles in 
 tensely believed in the soundness of his own per 
 ceptions on life, but young folks are skittish, and 
 can t be driven up to common sense; give them 
 space and they will run themselves into ripeness 
 and regularity. Plenty of money to throw away, 
 the insidious drug of luxury, and a few smart 
 knocks from ungrateful labor never failed ; he had 
 seen thousands of verdant young enthusiasts for 
 sake their reformatory ardors to become as set and 
 feelingless in their capitalist qualities as himself. 
 Association with success is the best antidote for 
 soul. 
 
 Giles therefore revised his tactics and summoned 
 another council of The Amalgamated. 
 
124 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 "I believe all I said the other day/ he began, 
 "I don t go back on any of it, but I didn t take 
 account that you must learn by your own experi 
 ence, not mine. I ll tell you where you re all at 
 sea, and then you may go to work as you will and 
 find out if I m wrong or right. It s in your idea 
 of the workingman. I know him, root and stom 
 ach, core and husk mostly husk. I have nothing 
 against him except that he is a fool and I don t 
 lay that up, for I make my living out of it. Eely 
 on that in all circumstances, and you ll never be 
 disappointed in him. Learning it is the gall a 
 generous young employer has to drink. Perhaps 
 learning it does make a beast of the employer, I ll 
 not say, but if it does it s a beast from a cause. 
 God made the world; he made workingmen what 
 they are, and is responsible. 
 
 "Look at the laboring man, look at him ! He be 
 longs to the kingdom of dupes and mollusks, and 
 prefers to. He doesn t have to be a cart-horse for 
 his own kind, does he? Isn t he from five to 
 twenty-five thousand to one against his employer? 
 / Talk of emancipating workingmen from capitalists 
 sounds like emancipating elephants from mice. 
 Only, the workingman hasn t brains, and so ought 
 to be where he is. Burden-bearing cattle they are, 
 and will be. You couldn t induce him to be any 
 thing else. Try it. Can t he think? Can t he 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 125 
 
 plan? Can t he vote? Can t he use the plain 
 means staring him in the nose? Offer him free 
 dom, equality, owning co-partnership complete and 
 gratis without a helping act of his he would re 
 fuse ; if you urged him to take the gift, look out, 
 he would probably kill you for a meddling enemy. 
 Why should I force my property on these un 
 willing, thankless scoundrels?" 
 
 "Because it is theirs, and men with your ideas 
 have made them what they are." 
 
 "I know a better way to make them happy. 
 Insult them one day and speak to them friendly 
 by their first names the next, salting your goodness 
 with a slap on the back now and then. They like 
 it better than salary, it goes further and it s 
 cheap. There s the fine master for you/ they 
 chirp in their shop slang; he s strong, no fooling 
 with him, he will have his own way/ And they . 
 worship me ! They respect me for abusing them ! 
 I make them feel my heavy tread on their spines 
 all the time, and the least passing let-up sets them 
 to cheering with gratitude. With fear and flattery 
 I hold them in a great spell. I cut their wages 
 and ask a party of their leaders to dinner with me. 
 
 The rank and file growl, but say, He s a d d 
 
 good chap anyhow, not too proud to invite Patrick 
 and James to sit at the table with him/ and the 
 cut stands good till I make another one. Work- 
 
126 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 ing-class leaders are hoppingly moved by politeness 
 from their masters, and through them you can drag 
 the whole working mass into any hole where you 
 want it." 
 
 "Do you mean that their leaders are treacher 
 ous r 
 
 "Why use that unsavory word ? Who can read 
 a man s heart ? I read their acts. What I know 
 is that they are weak, childishly, pitifully, dot- 
 ingly weak, and dreadfully impressed by anything 
 coming down from a higher class. They squirm 
 under contempt, at being looked down on/ and 
 if you lubricate their feelings with a little grease 
 of respect from above, the honor gives them a 
 positive trance; they are yours. Also use their 
 cupidity for small political offices, which raise 
 them a couple of pegs above their mates, and your 
 hook is in their gills. They dance to your whistle 
 as the filings follow a magnet. But they are 
 shrewd enough not to let their supporters under 
 stand the trick, and it is dead easy to keep them 
 blind. They say to their labor .constituency : Labor 
 is being recognized, see what a power it is getting 
 to be ! You have forced your enemies to give your 
 representatives political places, where they (we) 
 can guard your interests. These fellows know 
 that their pull with me depends on their followers 
 being kept hoodwinked to the truth. It isn t 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 127 
 
 treachery that prompts them, it is just sheer weak 
 ness. The minions haven t quite the brains re 
 quired to see that they keep themselves down with 
 their class by their selfish conduct, and their sim 
 ple-minded class wouldn t understand it either. 
 Almost any one of them promoted to office would 
 do the same thing." 
 
 "That is no apology for your letting them do it 
 and profiting by their obtuseness. There is no 
 extenuation for capitalists playing on all the fee 
 bleness of the toilers to hold them servile/ 
 
 "Industry would stop if we didn t/ asserted 
 Giles. "Not a wheel would turn, anarchy and 
 chaos would reign." 
 
 "There must be intelligent unselfish men among 
 them." 
 
 "There are, but they are helpless against the 
 crowd, which whoops after the small-witted or 
 unprincipled posing manipulator. Convinced of 
 the folly and childishness of their class they have 
 given up trying. Sick at heart some of them turn 
 cynics, stand in with their employers and scheme 
 for promotion out of their class." 
 
 "That is base." 
 
 Giles elevated his shoulders. "It is this baseness 
 that saves capitalism. If brains stayed with the 
 workers we should be soon ousted. I was a part 
 of working-class brains, but like the rest I left." 
 
128 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 "If they learn to stay?" 
 "We ll offer larger bribes and pull them out." 
 "One word about the labor leaders as I have 
 observed them/ said Margaret. "It is true they 
 are largely a haphazard selection and that, as 
 with politicians, self-interest is a considerable mo 
 tive with them. As their chief weakness I should 
 place my finger on their uninstructedness. They 
 are most of them men of narrow ideas; they have 
 not read or thought on social problems or studied 
 the question of improving the structure of so 
 ciety ; they are constantly immersed in petty labor 
 tangles of an immediate nature. Hence they lack 
 breadth of mind and do nothing to cultivate it. 
 In large economics they are as little versed and 
 as little interested as the average retail store 
 keeper, which is the gravest charge of ignorance 
 that could be brought against a class. It is no 
 torious that the retail storekeeper would rather 
 do anything but think. I asked a successful strike 
 leader if he did not think the capitalist class must 
 go. He lifted his shoulders as much as to say 
 that question was wholly out of his beat, and re 
 plied, "That is a long way off/ Labor leaders 
 being men without intellectual outlook, or courage 
 to face large principles of change, are easily whee 
 dled by men of the other class with instructed and 
 unprincipled minds. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 129 
 
 "But I wanted to ask you this : If the masses 
 should go into politics as united workingmen 
 against the clan of owners as Socialists what 
 then?" 
 
 "They will not. Politics is our strongest hold. 
 We can buy out their staunchest leaders there, 
 piously and through a hedge fence of course/ 
 
 "It has not happened so abroad." 
 
 "For a simple reason,, always overlooked/ an 
 swered Giles. "Mark what I say. There brains 
 can not rise even as here, social caste is too bony 
 and frigid, hence the chief career for subclass 
 brains is to stay with their own people; with us 
 a bottom class man believes he can attain any 
 thing because his grandfather could ; anything but 
 ancestors, and those he can buy with his daughter. 
 In politics the commonest runt can rise in a cer 
 tain way. The sweets of political power and re 
 sulting material grandeur will always be too much 
 for the demagogic men in whom the masses ever 
 confide. They will go over to the rich enemy in 
 their hearts. In the real men of high type the 
 masses never confide, it is not man s way. The 
 gross put up their own gross sort to represent and 
 defend them. A taste of political power curdles 
 the good in any nature. Look at our statesmen! 
 The whole political system is wrong for popular 
 
130 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 emancipation, and its ingenious abortiveness is the 
 Gibraltar of our capitalist class." 
 
 "But the masses can change the political sys 
 tem." 
 
 "Not a bit of danger, they are too thirsty for 
 political success. They can change it, yes, but 
 why haven t they? They won t. Won t is the 
 worst form of can t. They can t even get a sen 
 ator elected by the people s direct vote. After 
 political success, they say, we will fumigate the 
 stables and purify and regenerate the polluted 
 political system. It will be then too late, for 
 having won in by evil methods and eaten the sop 
 of sin their power-drunk leaders will not permit 
 it. And it is a question how much radicalism and 
 reconstruction they will see good to permit, too. 
 Socialists are not straining much to reduce the po 
 litical leader from his inflated eminence, and cer 
 tainly not to eradicate the party spirit which pre 
 serves the most potent modern slavery; they are 
 building up a party machine and a party instinct 
 quite as rigid and terrible as any we ever had, and 
 with that we shall defeat them. We shall point 
 out the tyranny of their political methods to the 
 working classes, and inquire if they wish to commit 
 industry and their whole lives to such tyrants. 
 That will cause their downfall, because the en 
 lightened world is getting sicker and sicker of 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 131 
 
 parties and party tyranny. And you must have 
 observed the Socialist tendency to raise up leaders, 
 advertise them, and having clapped the coat of 
 committee-made distinction on them, to defer to 
 and follow them as if they wore a heaven-formed 
 halo. Make a rag-baby hero with your own hands, 
 idolize it, then call on the population to obey it, 
 or call down damnation on the population. The 
 early Jews loved this ceremony when they manu 
 factured kings to walk on them." 
 
 "The working people can be taught that the 
 political party is inevitably an institution of des 
 potism and slavery." 
 
 "Try it. Their leaders have learned their an 
 swer already. They will say that organization is 
 needed to fight organization, that old parties are 
 rigidly organized; so must Socialists be. What 
 would you answer them ?" 
 
 "I would answer that Socialists must teach 
 themselves that their political party is but a tem 
 porary and exceedingly dangerous instrument ; that 
 the people are always betrayed by political leaders, 
 the exception being too rare to notice; that re 
 formers or Socialists placed in political leadership 
 are just as little able to bear the strain as other 
 men, because the position confers powers and au 
 thority on them that no men ought to have ; that 
 the party rank and file must be sharply watchful 
 
132 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 to keep its officers in the relation of servants or 
 agents to do what they are told by the member 
 ship, and not to take things into their own hands 
 and direct the party ; that the spirit of action and 
 initiation must be strongly fostered in each indi 
 vidual, repudiating the idea that it is only for 
 officials and leaders to be initiators. For in par 
 ties the leaders hold the position of capitalist 
 employers, and develop the capitalist character. 
 They lift themselves to the front and hold it to 
 be their divine right to run things. Just as the 
 capitalist is to be obliterated, the guiding politician 
 is to be expunged. Industrial guidance is to come 
 from the rank and file as equals ; political guidance 
 must come from them likewise ; and it is glaringly 
 inconsistent to build up a party of progress that is 
 not composed of equal co-partners, but has the 
 capitalist model of leadership and boss-ship. The 
 rank and file will learn this, perhaps after some 
 hard bumps, and will erect themselves as party 
 privates into movers and managers, and reduce the 
 officers, committees and machine organizations to 
 clerks and transacters of orders/ 
 
 "Very good," said Giles, "but the rank and file 
 will need about five hundred more years of punish 
 ment before they can brighten up to bridle their 
 would-be leaders and representatives in that way, 
 and by then they may have learned to lead them- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 133 
 
 selves without leaders. Mankind s dearest weak 
 ness is its trust of leaders, but that is in the grain." 
 
 "The plan we have presented to you does away 
 with leaders at once, and with the need of relying 
 on effete political processes for social progress 
 and therefore capitalists ought to favor it," de 
 clared Margaret. "It permits capitalists for once 
 to be surpassing initiators and to introduce a new 
 note into human affairs. Instead of leaving force 
 to arbitrate the destiny of mankind they can call 
 in intelligence. Must force and hatred always 
 pioneer the great changes? Why, the monstrous 
 capitalists to-day have the privilege of inaugurat 
 ing the system of equal partnerships and taking the 
 ordering of revolutionary events away from control 
 of stupid, blundering, selfish politics. What a 
 chance! They thirst for renown, they will make 
 their names famous to the end of time. Theirs 
 is the grandest opportunity for human good ever 
 given to men. Their voluntary act will finish the 
 Age of Hate and mark the chief era of human his 
 tory. It will carry the race over the great abyss, 
 accomplishing man s graduation from the brute 
 into full humanhood. 
 
 "And see how mortally blind and fanatical 
 these owners will be if they reject the privilege ! 
 For, using the rough tool politics in the rough 
 selfish way, the people will shear them of power 
 
134 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 and property anyway. The announcement of this 
 doom is flaming on the wall. Then they who in 
 selfishness and blindness blocked the world will 
 be remembered only to be despised. Their lot 
 will be embittered while they live, for as opponents 
 of humanity s good they cannot be loved; the 
 change they might render so easy will be painful 
 and hard; and if in angry obstinacy they resist, 
 they may bring on war and revolution with their 
 scorching trail of universal misfortunes, their re 
 actions and retardations. And the social resultant 
 of either politics or war is likely to be inferior to 
 what can be naturally established by the capitalists 
 themselves through equal partnerships." 
 
 Giles laughed. "Capitalists are not seeking an 
 opportunity to be good. Kings only abbreviate 
 themselves when they are taken by the neck and 
 made to, and capitalists are like them. When the 
 people grant despotic strength to individuals they 
 will never get it back except by taking it back. 
 However,, I was going to propose something. T 
 want to convince you that the laborers are not 
 worth your interest in them. If you can win in a 
 fair contest and bring the people we employ over to 
 your side I will yield. You can do what you please 
 to convert them, but it mustn t be known that 
 you re doing it, for then they would all flock after 
 you as their proprietors. I will defeat you by 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 135 
 
 using the measures that every employer applies 
 when necessary. Will you be satisfied with this 
 test?" 
 
 "We can at least make the test/ they consented. 
 
 Philip and Margaret began the tournament by 
 looking for some one to organize their projects and 
 introduce their ideas to the public. Philip searched 
 the universities in vain for such a person. There 
 were numberless trained men, but none who had 
 modern ideas. Several were capable of telling 
 what Tiberius Gracchus had done in an emergency, 
 but they thought that popular complaints had 
 deceased with Eome. While the historians could 
 give the dates of all human improvements begin 
 ning with the Stone Age, they looked upon one 
 who believed in further improvements as a marvel 
 if not a threatening monstrosity. The economists 
 told Philip that the one unpleasant thing in so 
 ciety was friction, which they were rapidly think 
 ing away, and they implored him not to cause more 
 of it by counter reflections and postpone perfection 
 just as they were about to seize it in theory. 
 
 One was at length found in the obscure person 
 of Horace Gray, who had given himself an inde 
 pendent education by working at proof-reading in 
 the nights and had then gathered a cluster of ac 
 cordant spirits. The result of Gray s engagement 
 was an Economic School for the People in the 
 
136 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 centre of Steel Haven, to teach them popular 
 rights. Where the money came from remained to 
 the population a guess ; it plainly took money and 
 was therefore respected. Most of the mill people 
 had never heard that such vigorous doctrines were 
 thought and they trembled at the vengeance of 
 Old Giles when that Jupiter should learn of their 
 being preached in the very shadow of his smoke 
 stacks. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 137 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 IT had never been known that Giles was inter 
 ested in religion, but now he became devotedly so. 
 He provided funcis for an Iron Works Y. M. C. A. 
 Temple to improve the men spiritually. He called * 
 together the dispensers of the gospel of all creeds 
 and shook their hands warmly. This for an avowed 
 atheist was a sign of softening which moved the 
 good men. 
 
 "Gentlemen," he said,, "churches all have debts, 
 debts are a function of religion, what can I do 
 for you?" 
 
 Each named the amount of his religious liabili 
 ties and received a check to cancel them. 
 
 Said Giles, "There are heresies and evil teach 
 ings springing up to grapple with truth in our 
 midst; none are so well armed as yourselves to 
 throttle these deadly speculations. If neglected 
 they may undermine your influence and cost you 
 many contributing converts. The mission of the J 
 church is to console men for the poverty thrust 
 
138 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 upon them by capitalists. Capitalists are therefore 
 the holy pillar of the population s faith. Justice 
 is the deadliest enemy of your salaries. Eeligion 
 has for its cornerstone the misery of mankind and 
 would perish if men were happy. When you need 
 funds call on me." 
 
 Nevertheless the Economic School fretted Giles. 
 He had his spotters out to learn its frequenters, 
 and gave the foremen a tip to trump up reasons for 
 N , ordering them to do better work or expect dis 
 charge. Attendance on the school speedily dwin 
 dled, especially of men with families. 
 
 Giles also introduced a system of old age pen 
 sions. When a workman arrived at the age of 
 sixty after working consecutively forty years for 
 The Amalgamated without striking or other mis 
 demeanors, he was to receive thirty cents a day for 
 the balance of his life, to be drawn from a sum 
 of which he had contributed half during the forty 
 active years. Should he die before sixty his life 
 contributions were to divert to a sinking fund 
 whose interest would eventually pay other work 
 men s accident insurance bills. 
 
 Upon a couple of valuable devices Giles centred 
 lively hopes. These were profit-sharing and the is 
 suance of employes stock. Into one of his clusters 
 of mills using twenty-five thousand men the trade 
 union had wedged itself, and Giles resolved to ex- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 139 
 
 pel it. The men were notified that all deserters 
 from the organization would receive five per cent, 
 of the annual profits of their branch of the work, 
 the distribution to be made proportionately to 
 their current wages or salaries. It was singular 
 how quickly and magically the plan prevailed, in 
 stantly shattering the spine of the union. 
 
 The stock issue system was introduced in the 
 remainder of the works under the a3gis of The 
 Amalgamated Fish, Ship, Iron, Transportation, 
 Coal and Steel Company, which were located in 
 Steel Haven and various other industrial foci. 
 The employes falling within this benevolence 
 counted one hundred and sixty thousand. To these 
 sufficient stock in The Amalgamated was to be 
 sold to net them profits as follows : Whenever the 
 profits of the company reached $80,400,000 for 
 the year, $400,000 should be distributed to the 
 workers as their dividends; that is, when Giles 
 received $80,000,000 income above his salary, each 
 servant of the company should have two dollars 
 and fifty cents over his regular annual pay. Giles 
 thought this very handsome. He put eighty 
 million dollars in his pocket and his men dis 
 tributed four hundred thousand dollars among a 
 hundred and sixty-two thousand pockets. The 
 right to purchase stock, however, which was rigidly 
 limited, was so apportioned among the employes 
 
140 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 that the higher or salaried ones could secure more 
 while the wage-paid were restricted to less witli 
 the consequence that when Giles bonus touched 
 $80,000,000 the average laborer s extra would be 
 from fifty cents to one dollar. 
 
 The resourceful Giles regarded this scheme, an 
 emanation entirely from his own brain under fear 
 of what industrial radicalism might do unless 
 checked, as a master invention. The workmen 
 would now realize that they were capitalists and 
 feel capitalistic, which would stop their ears to the 
 agitator and demagogue. They would see a big 
 future ahead and work for it with strenuous in 
 tensity. For if they could double Giles profit to 
 $160,000,000 annually, the profits of each of them 
 would be doubled from one to two dollars, 
 or from ten to twenty; while to even further in 
 flame their avarice Giles made another most liberal 
 concession, providing that as often as they doubled 
 his income their reward should be half greater on 
 the second, third and fourth eighty millions of his 
 profits than on the first meaning that upon the 
 second eighty million, 600,000 instead of 400,000 
 dollars should be for their distributive share. 
 
 Giles wisely computed that these generous 
 measures would operate on the men ideally. Psy 
 chology was a great factor in his assets. The 
 measures would induce in them a sense of owner- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 141 
 
 ship in the whole concern; strikes would neces 
 sarily cease; feeling themselves responsible part 
 ners they would thenceforth reanimate their ener 
 gies, save waste, curtail expenses and toil like 
 demons adding innumerable millions to the prof 
 its of The Amalgamated,, for which The Amalga 
 mated would pay them at the rate of about seven 
 thousand dollars for each million. 
 
 Having adopted this frugal speculation Giles no 
 longer feared ideas or revolutionary inroads. If 
 incendiaries should declaim to his men in favor 
 of taking their own, he would only need to explain 
 that if they should rob him of his eighty or a 
 hundred and sixty million dollars profits,, they 
 would cruelly rob themselves of from fifty cents 
 to twenty dollars annual profits each. His sorrow 
 would be small for himself compared with what he 
 would feel for them. He would show them that 
 $80,000,000 distributed equally among one hun 
 dred and sixty thousand of them would add to their 
 incomes only a paltry $500 each, that $160,000,000 
 divided would give them but $1,000 more, sums 
 so insignificant as not to be worth the trouble of 
 division, so that it was better for him to keep it 
 all. He could make a healthier use of it than they, 
 who would probably squander it on uselessly edu 
 cating their children and other foolish additions 
 to their happiness, such as plain people in a land 
 
142 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 of simplicity and democratic equality had no right 
 to expect. 
 
 If there were any unreasoning fire-heads among 
 them who preferred a profit of a thousand a year 
 to one dollar, they would be restrained by the sane 
 discretion of those abler men enriched by the 
 larger blocks of stock. The salaried and high- 
 wage contingent Giles cherished as his strongest 
 bulwark. They made his cause their religion, as 
 if they were individually the beneficiaries, and not 
 he, of the hundred and sixty millions of annual 
 gain. Giles probed his own heart to find why they 
 did this and was baffled. Many of these officers 
 of his mercenary army could not afford domestic 
 help, with their incomes; their too soon faded 
 child-worn wives were sorry pictures of bloodless 
 womanhood. Yet each wife possessed some jewels 
 and at least one costly gown to wear at the houses 
 of Giles best salaried subordinates the envied 
 aristocracy of their world whose social recogni 
 tion, though lean in quality, was the spiritual 
 bread of life to the strivers of lesser rank. 
 
 The meagre gems and glittering gowns of these 
 weary wives caused the husbands to be zealous po 
 licemen over the obedience and contentment of 
 the wage population. Few of these salaried offi 
 cers were healthy. Giles found it profitable to 
 keep them in a good deal of care about the future 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 143 
 
 doubt on the subject of a living stimulated zeal 
 and to absorb a little more than their daily 
 vitality into The Amalgamated. If, besides ex 
 hausting themselves for him, there were any ad 
 dicted to the vice of reflection, they would sooner 
 break and become harmless. But few of his host 
 used their brains for anything but the enrichment 
 of Giles. 
 
 A group of highest wage-men Giles called his 
 Imperial Guard. They were his, soul and body; 
 noble trusty fellows who never asked why he 
 wanted a thing done, but did it. His will was their 
 morality. He was the core and circumference of 
 their religion. When Giles rose on them it was 
 light, when he frowned it was their night. It 
 was a chosen company that included his foremen, 
 sub-foremen and corporal-bosses. They could 
 smell depravity across a precinct. Unless the air 
 they lived v in was tainted with trickery they 
 drooped. They combined with their animal fidel 
 ity the highly technical qualities of the political 
 grafter for whom we build city halls. They were 
 in fact the men who did politics for The Amalga 
 mated they voted the body of Giles workmen for 
 him. Some of their pay was understood to be * 
 earned by this political service. 
 
 Giles maintained that he morally owned the 
 vote of all his men. He supported them, and ex- 
 
144 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 pected whatever financial value they had in them ; 
 their votes were a value. Through their franchises 
 and his huge wealth Giles was a formidable factor 
 in State and National politics, being able to hold 
 up either party for policies that swelled the deluge 
 of his earnings. The Senate never voted on a 
 weighty measure without waiting for his private 
 tip. His argument for political proprietorship of 
 his servants was that he fed them to be useful, he 
 wouldn t keep them alive to injure him, and if 
 they voted against his interests they would injure 
 him. It would be their suicide too, for his and 
 their interests were identical. A workingman who 
 should use the ballot for a selfish purpose of his 
 own could not eat his bread. 
 
 Giles political-industrial lieutenants knew how 
 every chick in The Amalgamated political incuba 
 tor voted, for there were no secrets in the Aus 
 tralian ballot beyond their reading; if one voted 
 "wrong" he was soon on the road chasing a new 
 job, and these were days when in spite of the glit 
 tering prosperity celebrated by Giles new jobs were 
 hard to catch. The members of the Imperial 
 Guard received from two to four dollars a day, for 
 which they unfailingly delivered the goods; in 
 these times of population and liberal education the 
 best mechanic and subaltern political brains are 
 not dear. It was one of Giles perennial amuse- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 145 
 
 ments, watching the spell exercised on his 
 hundreds of thousands of manufacturing menials 
 by his faithful company, the Guards. They were 
 the watch dogs of the sheep, serving him for a 
 bone but watch dogs minus teeth. If the lambs 
 had revolted the dogs had been helpless, but the 
 charm was that the multitude of lambs never took 
 the disease of revolt. 
 
 If we must say it, Giles had them inoculated 
 with a powerful anti-insurrection toxin. It had 
 been his way for a long time to swing about from 
 place to place in his industrial domains on Sunday 
 mornings to give a semi-preachment to a series 
 of Sabbath classes, when he showed his men their 
 opportunities and resuscitated their ambitions. 
 His speeches were of this order : 
 
 "I am one who rose from nothing, you can all 
 do it. There are still industries to combine and 
 the chance is free. Be industrious and seize the 
 opportunity. Would you permit yourselves to be 
 robbed of these glorious possibilities? Save your 
 money and start a Trust. Cling fast to the sys 
 tem of your forefathers, for there are lying agita 
 tors abroad, without a capital to anything but 
 their names, ready to snatch these opportunities 
 from you. It is just for those who form the con 
 solidations to own the consolidations through the 
 life of mankind, and even then their posterity will 
 
146 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 have been badly paid. We cheapen prices you 
 can never pay men enough for cheapening prices. 
 
 "When a few successful and virtuous citizens 
 have parcelled out the wealth-making agencies of 
 this brief existence to themselves,, the glorious op 
 portunities for humble men to rise will be greater 
 than ever. Certain high places will be out of the 
 market, for your good, restricting by so much the 
 field of covetousness and the danger of sin. The 
 Maker uses consolidations to advance holiness. As 
 you grow holier you do not care to be a chief of 
 this world. It will be stimulus enough for the 
 holy to work for chiefs. Consider the honor of 
 becoming prime ministers of owners when the 
 owners are as great as we shall be ! We shall ap 
 preciate you and surprise you by the amount ef 
 your salaries when you manage our commercial 
 empires. Between serving us and serving God 
 you will be satisfied. 
 
 "What did Christ mean when he told the young 
 man to part with all he had to the poor? He did 
 not mean literally go and do it; that would have 
 been unpractical, and Jesus was before everything 
 practical. If he had lived now he would have been 
 a consolidator. He meant le willing to part with 
 all, if you think you ought to. Now I am willing, 
 but I don t think I ought to. So I am carrying 
 out the spirit and letter of Christ s injunction." 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 147 
 
 Giles would then lead in singing, "Praise God 
 from whom all blessings flow." He was un 
 rivaled as a Sunday orator, and vigorously relished 
 displaying the tact and luxuriance of his imagina 
 tion to the poor and leanly endowed once a week. 
 
 When his adversaries bombarded his supremacy 
 with their Economic School, Giles built a great 
 free Technical Institution at Steel Haven, sa 
 gaciously prompted by his usual long-sighted 
 theory. Brains, cogitated he, must be occupied 
 with what they like. Busy them with professional, 
 technical things and they will think they are liv 
 ing to a large purpose; questions of the distribu 
 tion of wealth, society, equity, right, justice, gov 
 ernment, they will despise as below them and vul 
 gar; their souls will be lifted on the bladders of 
 useful work, unregardful that I collect and use 
 for myself the most of that usefulness. They do 
 not think as far as that; like bustling girls with 
 dolls the motion of their faculties satisfies them; 
 solely to create is bliss, blind whether their crea 
 tions serve mankind or only a few shrewd sover 
 eigns of mankind like me ! The doctrine of honest 
 artistic product, of faithful manly performance, 
 of working to deserve your own approbation, and 
 not cheating though you are cheated, which Iho 
 zealous have preached to all the minion classes, is a 
 solid buttress of my power. The large-hearted, act- 
 
148 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 ive-brained are my vassals for the privilege of ex 
 hausting their brains for me, and they fervently 
 exhort the feebler-brained crowd not to think of 
 eating, drinking or getting, for their satisfaction, 
 but to do a good square job for it, with the con 
 sciousness that an Esthetic Providence will chisel 
 it to their credit somewhere in the invisible beau 
 ties of the Universe, some time to be brought to 
 light when the earth has melted into the sun; or 
 warranted otherwise to produce a warm eternal 
 glow in the vast incomprehensibleness of essence. 
 Let all the rabble be cultured up to the tragic self- 
 . surrender of professors who toil for the conserva 
 tion of antiquity and capitalists for stablemen s 
 pay, pleased by grace of the capitalist Great to be 
 given toil with their brains rather than their 
 bodies, naively obtuse to the effects of their toil 
 on the world. 
 
 Giles was learning a higher opinion of the edu 
 cated. They could give an odor of sanctity to the 
 rich by their pens. The rich did not especially 
 need it, but as long as they had everything they 
 might as well have that. It was like the Pope s 
 crown on Napoleon. Grown up creatures in God s 
 creation to Giles were capitalists. Alone they con 
 sciously exercised the qualities of men, the rest 
 being all slavish, obedient, contented to serve like 
 fawning little dressed up monkeys for what the 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 149 
 
 men of mankind, the human royalty, the self- 
 chiseled rich, scraped out to them. 
 
 Hence he resolved to supplement his fine tech 
 nical foundation in Steel Haven by doing what was 
 deserved for the College of Bernfield. It should 
 cease to potter in poverty and rise into a grand 
 university under his ample endowment. After 
 that every professor would skip into the traces and ^ 
 pall Capitalism along while he cracked the whip. 
 Another million for enlightenment occasionally 
 would keep their ideas as orthodox and ancient as 
 a corpse s. He would settle five hundred scholar 
 ships on the institution exclusively for the sons of 
 mechanics in his mills, naming them Mechanics 
 Fellowship, each to yield the holder four hundred 
 dollars a year, and keep him studying, studying. 
 It would generate a life bias to study, and those 
 chosen hundreds of brilliant common-clay youths 
 would never do anything but study all their lives. w 
 They would devote themselves to science, the 
 sciences of Greek and Latin, the science of an 
 tiquity, the science of the dead, the science of high 
 mathematics, a sphere lifted above usefulness for 
 the pleasure ground of pure mathematicians ; they 
 should roam among all the secrets of the physical 
 sciences nothing would be safer. In his new de 
 votion to learning Giles perceived that though 
 science had solemnly Thought and toiled, the 
 
150 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 servile-and-sovereign structure . of society was 
 unaffected by it, the many were still abased and 
 exhausted for the elect, the riches of science drib 
 bled only thinly to the mass. Science he wel 
 comed as a new Class-preserver. 
 
 Through these five hundred brilliant annual 
 openings for the spawn of Toil, all the workers 
 could feel elevated to the highest social level. 
 Toil s brightest children could step out into an 
 upper class, which would be an equivalent in its 
 eyes to raising the whole body. A workingman is 
 pleased to be a member of the upper class vicari 
 ously. If one in ten thousand workingmen is 
 permitted to climb into a higher rank, abandoning 
 his own people afterward to be their oppressor, 
 all workingmen suppose that they have been up 
 lifted with the deserter and mistake themselves 
 for aristocrats and masters. 
 
 It diverted Giles to dwell on this attribute of 
 Wagery, as he named it, and he pictured it off 
 thus: If ten thousand men had nothing to eat 
 and the hoarders of the food supply should beckon 
 one to them and feed him, the rest of the starving 
 crew would exclaim We are all fed, and now wo 
 belong to the eating class ! 
 
 Giles exulted over his fanciful partners, the 
 workers. A few hundred paltry scholarships would 
 solidify the social order for twenty more genera- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire, 151 
 
 tions. All youthful working-class energies would 
 hasten into absorbing competition for these small 
 preferments, and would no longer have thoughts 
 for social justice or their rights. These privileges 
 would be to them social reform. Every working- 
 man would consider himself educated by proxy, 
 and all would unite to terrify and hush the social 
 infidel who might not be able to see it. 
 
 He would provide a bunch of petty instructor- 
 ships yielding five,, six and seven hundred dollars 
 a year, and a few generous ones of a thousand, to 
 which these mechanic scholars might gradually 
 ascend as they grew old, patiently consecrating 
 themselves to the austere glories of information. 
 Spare Living and High Thinking should be the _,.- 
 advertisement on their laboratories, and he would 
 see by raising the price of life s necessaries that 
 the facts were, High Living and Spare Thinking. 
 
 Of course a department of Political Economy 
 was called for to stamp fairmindedness on the in 
 stitution. He decided to look personally into that : 
 his practical success had given him more knowledge 
 of economy than all the procession of rusty an 
 tiques that had plodded before and called them 
 selves thinkers. It will be seen that Giles was be 
 coming a philosopher. All rich men do at a cer 
 tain age. The burden of proving the perfection of 
 the world rests on them. Optimism is their creed. 
 They thirst to impart the joy of feeling their sue- 
 
152 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 cess to every man. The yearning to give men suc 
 cess of their own to feel is pessimism. Hence 
 Giles ruminated that it might devolve on him to 
 dictate a true book of political economy. There 
 were bright nebulaB of distinguished thinkers in 
 that domain panting to stuff his economic offspring 
 at ten or fifteen dollars a week, supplying the 
 economic jargon and profundity. He would fur 
 nish the thoughts,, which the learned could clothe 
 in clouds and confusion. Quite the magician for 
 chief clerk was a notorious weaver of guesses who 
 had bravely re-proclaimed the great law that la 
 borers receive on the whole as much as they should. 
 He had written: 
 
 "It is the purpose of this work to show that the 
 distribution of the income of society is controlled 
 by a natural law, and that this law, if it worked 
 without friction, would give to every agent of pro 
 duction the amount of wealth which that agent 
 creates. However wages may be adjusted by bar 
 gains freely made between individual men, the 
 rates of pay that result from such transactions 
 tend, it is here claimed, to equal that part of the 
 product of industry which is traceable to the labor 
 itself." * 
 
 A man who could say that, Giles chuckled, was 
 just the beaming jewel for a great monopolist s 
 amanuensis. 
 
 * Clark. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 153 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 OLD GILES arrangement met with remarkable 
 success. Everybody was grateful to him : the rich 
 saying he had saved society by closing the gap be 
 tween Capital and Labor, the poor declaring that 
 classes were now extinct and poor and rich levelly 
 equal. The poor were especially strong in these 
 assertions of equality and bitterly denounced who 
 ever denied it. 
 
 Horace Gray and his friends found skeptics at 
 all their meetings. Sometimes they were assailed 
 with, "Who pays you for this work ? What is there 
 in it for you? What political party hires you?" 
 Men whose sole possession on earth was an extra 
 shirt at a cheap and dirty boarding house trained 
 themselves in arguments to defend capital. Their 
 reasoning was in a form that particularly allured 
 a prominent division of the working class. "Cap 
 ital/ they said, "creates half the wealth and we 
 laborers the other half. If we get our half it s 
 none of our business who has the rest. It would 
 
154 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 be wrong for us to have it, since we didn t make 
 it." 
 
 "Who made it?" asked Gray. 
 
 "Capital made it." 
 
 "Capital isn t the capitalist., is it?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then why should any man own what capital 
 produces? Isn t that a common product, belong 
 ing to all?" 
 
 They replied derisively: "How could there be 
 capital without a capitalist? And of course what 
 capital produces is his." 
 
 The men viewed capital as an agency out of their 
 sphere, with which they had nothing to do, and 
 toward the right disposition of whose product they 
 had no duties. The mental association of capital 
 and capitalist was too thick for them to break, in 
 their brains the two were one. 
 
 Gray, finding that the working people shunned 
 halls, as if fearing to commit themselves even to 
 the extent of entering and hearing, secured a 
 large vacant lot in the middle of town for an open 
 meeting place, and there with his associates gave 
 evening addresses. Considerable crowds gathered, 
 but when Old Giles foremen took to going among 
 them and peering about, the majority skulked off 
 shamefacedly. They felt the anchor of their jobs 
 quaking. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 155 
 
 "It s un-American rant you re preaching" called 
 out a gate-keeper of Giles , red in the face with 
 wrath, who had lost an arm and a leg in one of his " 
 mills. "Every true workin man ought to stand up 
 agin you. You want to steal his savings and take 
 away his opportunity to rise." 
 
 "How much have you saved?" asked Gray. 
 
 "Nothing," flustered the man, "but I might 
 have, and I don t want nobody takin away what I 
 might have." 
 
 "What is Americanism?" interrogated Gray. 
 
 "The right of a man to get everything he s got 
 the brains to get," answered the crippled gateman. 
 "That s opportunity, and Americanism is oppor 
 tunity." 
 
 "If a man has a right to everything, he has a 
 right to deny it to other people when he gets it, 
 hasn t he, and to keep it all for himself ?" 
 
 "Of course he has." 
 
 "Then when one man has captured all there is 
 in this country he would be justified in telling all 
 the people to go to Heaven, would he not? or to 
 China, or Africa, or the Moon, if they liked it 
 better. If any stayed it would be just for him to 
 starve them all to death. Is this so?" 
 
 "Yes, it s so, if he wanted to," the gateman 
 stoutly asserted ; "a man has a right to do as he -/ 
 pleases with what belongs to him ; that s American- 
 
156 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 ism ; if the rest of the population don t like it they 
 can move off, the Earth s free." 
 
 "Death s free, you mean; that is all. Suppose 
 the same man or syndicate owns all the Earth ?" 
 
 "Oh, well, that ain t happened yet," rejoined 
 the gate-keeper, twirling the hook that answered 
 for his right arm ; "an* most like they d want some 
 of us to work for em; there s always servin . 
 People don t have to be born ; the world is their n 
 that got here first." 
 
 "Don t dodge my question/ insisted Gray. "A 
 few, yes, one man, according to our laws and mor 
 als, if he could obtain control of all the property on 
 the planet as some are doing would have the 
 right to order the entire population to move out 
 through the gates of Death, were he so disposed. 
 And any one who didn t want to go would be an 
 anarchist. Is that true ?" 
 
 "It certainly is true. It would be a smart 
 world, indeed, if you checked the talents of the 
 bright men just to save the population." 
 
 Giles was very popular in Bernfield elite society. 
 ,/ Since he had reconciled capital and lifted the 
 workingman to an equality with everybody with 
 out altering previous relations, they had taken him 
 up. His contributions to the college had shown 
 him to be a personage of innate refinement. He 
 had learned to wear a dress suit comfortably and 
 
The Monarch Billionaire, 157 
 
 give dinners to men who talked about art and :X 
 cameos, always steeping them in a profusion of 
 cookery and liquid that temporarily blunted them 
 to the Muses and turned their instincts of admira 
 tion toward him. They were people of substance 
 who loved to eat and said they loved Brahms, and 
 followed the hounds and golf balls, and they were 
 civilizing the barbarian Giles while he was paying 
 for it. They made him a member of the Canary 
 Bird Club, Bernfield s most select organization, 
 and of the Baby Monks, and Eag Doll Veterans. 
 At one of their banquets Giles delivered an epoch- 
 making oration. 
 
 "Gentlemen," he said, "the great thought of the 
 modern world is harmony. The universe is har- ij/* 
 monious, why cannot the earth be? Let us begin 
 the harmony with capitalists, and extend it to ^ n 
 labor by assimilating their unions. We have neg- ^ 
 lected the assimilation of labor. Once opposed to 
 labor organizations I now respect them. They are 
 the elements of harmony, I might say of assimi 
 lation. I have pondered how to inflame a saving 
 sense of responsibility in the laboring class ; I wish 
 to bring the workers into the grand swell of the 
 ages and the planets which capitalists already oc 
 cupy. It can be done by centering our efforts on 
 their aristocracy and raising them. Who are the 
 Labor Aristocracy? The trade union leaders. 
 
158 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 "The lower classes like the higher are subject 
 to Nature s beautiful Law of Aristocracy. In the 
 slums as in the salons the best come to the top and 
 the rest obey them. The union leaders, the slum 
 four hundred, or underground aristocracy, are 
 the pivot of social harmony. If we harmonize 
 them we harmonize all ; they are the pumping sta 
 tion of intelligence to the mass ; to them the masses 
 are the satellites ambulating around the stars. 
 These labor stars are human. Nay, even vulnera 
 ble to great ideas like harmony. They are open to 
 assimilation. Picture them as the sluices through 
 which we may saturate the masses with respon 
 sibility. 
 
 "Our cue is the establishment of a modus vivendi 
 with these leaders. Social converse is the sure 
 liquidation of dislike. We must in a sense take 
 them to our bosoms only in a sense conferring 
 with them at a periodic banquet board, where the 
 courses should be as heavy as the conversation is 
 light. Let our condescension be well advertised 
 in the newspapers, dwelling on the unifying em 
 braces of the classes; see that unison pervades 
 without committal, affection without concession. 
 The passage to the union leader s citadel is 
 through respect; bear respect for him in your 
 pocket as the skeleton key to his heart and deeds. 
 Social harmony and capitalistic security bought 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 159 
 
 by a monthly dinner with some of labor s four 
 hundred is dirt cheap. This is assimilation. Were 
 I like you, skilled in words, I might say that mas 
 tication promotes assimilation. 
 
 "There will be no riff-raff there, no actual 
 workingmen, only theoretic workingmen. I might 
 hesitate to recommend the meeting of gentlemen 
 with men who work. The labor leaders, happily v 
 for us, do not work. They are like ourselves, 
 thinkers; therefore we and they ought to under 
 stand each other and put our hands in the same 
 glove, and to some extent in the same pocket the 
 workingman s. 
 
 "Indeed they are excellent gentlemen, leading 
 a cultivated life, ratified by the blessings of leis 
 ure and financial competence. They receive from 
 two to six times what the laborers who hire them 
 do ; they are housed in pleasant offices and commo 
 dious hotels ; they are great travelers in their cause 
 and something of speech-makers; they are fa 
 mous, receiving genial prominence from the press 
 in gratitude for something popular to write 
 about; they sway power, sometimes immense, 
 and are not made miserable by it in 
 which they are like the capitalist commander-in- 
 chiefs of Trusts; in strikes they are the great 
 generals in the field and when they wink the 
 country is informed which eye. So you see, gen- 
 
160 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 tlemen, their place is enviable, and anything but 
 that of the grimy toilers that fill the breach, and 
 diet in battle. Some have compared them to the 
 generals who sit in their phaetons while the dis 
 tant cannon boom, directing the controversy 
 clean, safe and digestive. 
 
 "It is a good job, necessary to the labor world as 
 capitalists are necessary to the whole world, only 
 they do not belong in reality to the labor class: 
 they are Labor-Capitalists. 
 
 "For the good of this class the labor successes 
 must not go too far. Should labor conquer too 
 well labor organizations would be unneeded and 
 the high places occupied by leaders would depart. 
 Conditions must be nursed and kept which re 
 quire labor organizations, for labor organizations 
 require leaders. The preservation of the leaders 
 is essential for the good of the leaders. 
 
 "The leaders seem from their actions to know 
 this chain of thought well. Examine the heads of 
 labor bodies and you will find that most of them 
 place a conservative limit on labor s rights. They 
 favor a continuance of the capitalist system, 
 regarding it as structural in nature, but would 
 have more wages, and hours reduced ; they adjudge 
 to capital and capitalist essential rights, conced 
 ing that beyond a flexible point labor must not 
 push. This is acute enlightenment, for our cap- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 161 
 
 Italist purposes and harmony. These leaders 
 seem to appreciate us, and assimilation. We 
 should appreciate them and no longer keep them 
 out in the cold away from us, or refuse to assimi 
 late them. They are real care-takers and guardi 
 ans of our business evolutions, the proper watchers 
 to keep a string on labor aspirations and punc 
 ture its grasping impulses. They will do so if we 
 are kind. 
 
 "We must perceive and use their natural kin 
 ship with us. Half laborer, half capitalist, they 
 are divinely put together to sustain the status 
 quo. As semi-partners of ours we can shape the 
 policies and opinions of labor through them; as 
 semi-partners of labor labor will trust them and 
 allow its policies to be shaped. If the process is a 
 little disagreeable to you as seeming to rupture the 
 ligaments of caste, remember that recognizing 
 labor leaders is security from recognizing the 
 laboring mass. Allowed to move judiciously with 
 us they will imbibe our views, half toned and 
 fused into labor terms, as rugged champions of the 
 people who go to Congress lose their rawness and 
 inhale the sentiments of the old habitues and lob 
 byists; they will discover that we are broad-gauge 
 good men who think everything of them, and a 
 reign of love, confidence and harmony will set in. 
 
 "They will diffuse their new understanding j 
 
1 62 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 through the working-class body whom they are 
 supposed to represent but do not, because only a 
 man who actually works with his hands as they 
 work can truly stand for workers, and not one who 
 sits, and negotiates, and dines with their masters, 
 for a salary. For it is in this way that the toilers 
 have always been tricked out of their victories. 
 Then the cloud of toiling inferiors will realize 
 our virtues and feel a surge of gratitude when wo 
 grasp their agents by the hand, and will lovingly 
 admit our capitalist claims." 
 
 Giles sat down amidst applause long and tem 
 pestuous. His words opened a new vista of cap 
 italist usefulness and pointed the way to the pres 
 ervation of the class that so loved the world that it 
 took it all. 
 
 Giles conversion to trade unionism made him 
 famous throughout the country as the leading 
 knight protector of labor. He was called to advise 
 in labor disputes and to compose acute troubles be 
 tween employers and men. To no one s surprise 
 more than his own he found himself a public 
 oracle capable of deep utterances. Being re 
 quired to be wise in so many respects and infal 
 libly wise in them all, he took to considering the 
 situation. He had become a national figure and 
 must live up to it. One evening at a great meet 
 ing in New York he sketched the course of indus- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 163 
 
 trial evolution being benignly unfolded by him, 
 and accepted the mantle of deliverer and prophet. 
 "Capitalists are the only true benefactors the 
 human species has known," he said. "Martyrs v 
 only made trouble, they were turmoilers. Eiot 
 acts and riot guns were defective in the time of 
 martyrs or there would have been none of them. 
 They considerably delayed the coming of capital 
 ists by giving currency to moral hallucinations. 
 A man had only to be mad in those days and 
 stretch his arms up toward the Almighty and they 
 called him prophet and saint, listened to his ruc 
 tion and made trouble for business men. Now 
 business men put him in jail and that s the end 
 of him. Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Brutus, John 
 the Baptist, a capitalist renegade named Paul, and 
 about a dozen well-known ranters who followed an 
 arch noise-maker who interfered with the buds 
 of civilization in Jerusalem threw stones at 
 the business class of their day and shot their 
 venom at capital. They were a bilious mob who 
 thought man was somebody, without property. 
 At last every one has learned the superiority of 
 business to, I might say, the Almighty. Jails and 
 police and judges working hard for a couple of 
 thousand years have taught men this. They are 
 the great enlighteners ; men never would have un- 
 
164 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 derstood the virtues of capital and learned to put 
 God in his right place without policemen. 
 
 "Capitalists are the acme and shekinah of busi- 
 ness men. By their wand order emerges from 
 chaos and everything material and immaterial is 
 organized. We shall organize the spirit-world 
 next, charge a supernatural fee for it, and take a 
 mortgage on the property of Eternity. Eternity 
 mortgages are the best kind. We don t think any 
 thing has a right to exist now without a mortgage 
 on it to us. 
 
 "The world was an accident until we introduced 
 the Law of Brains ten years ago. Business was 
 Battle, and Battle is Waste. The Law of Brains 
 said, organize. The world is now organized on a 
 mortgage, and we have peace. The capitalists 
 hold the mortgage and the people pay interest on 
 it. For mankind the universe may be said to rest 
 on a mortgage. The first universal principle has 
 been called Love. I call it a mortgage. 
 
 "Can we mortgage the Almighty? This is the 
 next serious business question. We have mort 
 gaged all his Works, why not mortgage Him? 
 That would be a rich stroke of civilization and 
 assimilation. I am not pessimistic, science is giv 
 ing us a grasp on the spirit-world, and while you 
 may now smile on the proposition as a pleasantry, 
 I boldly ask if there has not been a mistake in 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 165 
 
 supposing that a Being who could not protect his 
 universe from a mortgage can protect himself? 
 Have we not been in error about the head cf 
 things? Is it not possible that the strongest men 
 are the head of the cosmic system, so far as it 
 has a head ? Every man who uses God s system to 
 dwell in pays to capitalists a large fee for it. We 
 fine him for living, eating, drinking, sitting, mov 
 ing, looking at the sky, breathing God s air, cir 
 culating his blood. We certainly have mortgaged 
 the Infinite Power already. 
 
 "But I digress. Under the divine rule of world- 
 organized capital the productive forces of man 
 kind and nature will reach their maximum and 
 great mother earth will become prodigiously rich. 
 Competitive battle is as stupid and destructive as 
 physical battle. 
 
 "To us as capitalists the door of a new destiny 
 opens, we are opening it. We have not yet con 
 ceived the magnificence of our office. Our sphere 
 is to furnish the ideas, direction and impulse of 
 this huge world-combination. Under our im 
 petus there will be a capitalist world-empire en 
 circling the globe. Kings and presidents will be 
 our clerks and agents; all men will become one 
 nation, the watchwords of mankind will be Pro 
 duction and Peace. I am told that one of our 
 poets wrote "God said I am tired of Kings. So 
 
1 66 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 are we, and of the rule of all politicians. The 
 President of the Earth is Capital,, and we are its 
 president. 
 
 "But you say I have not touched on the fiercest 
 source of modern strife Labor. Labor is like a 
 wild beast because we have treated it as a beast. 
 It can be tamed and harnessed to the world s 
 good by side of capital. Let Labor form a world- 
 union like capital. When it is internationally or 
 ganized capital will learn its usefulness and justly 
 reward it. Labor, on the other hand, growing 
 more intelligent through greater responsibility 
 and the increasing respect for it, will learn that it 
 is not everything, will see the necessity of capital, 
 and accord to its owners their share. The two 
 sides will negotiate their differences in friendship 
 and co-operate to enlarge the output of wealth. 
 Here we shall reach the final stage of industrial 
 relations, for there is no farther to go. We must 
 have classes, but they must love each other. I 
 hope I have shown the way." 
 
 Some of the rich who heard these utterances 
 were deeply shocked and grieved. One who had 
 just made a brilliant franchise grab by the con 
 siderate gift of "dough" to Albany legislators, 
 through which he would clear millions, and was 
 in a particularly religious condition of gratitude 
 and reverence that had blossomed into a fifty 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 167 
 
 thousand dollar offering for a chapel in the slums 
 to bear his name, indignantly declared that it was V 
 blasphemous to say such things and he repudi 
 ated them. It might be true that the rich were re 
 quired by commercial duty to introduce a new 
 moral law above the old and new commandments, 
 but this was a very different matter from railing 
 at divine things; his whole nature revolted at 
 speaking lightly or familiarly of the infinite. 
 It was right to do what was necessary for the 
 growth of business, but to say such things as Giles v/ 
 had was to outrage the most sacred feelings. The 
 capitalist was of course in a manner absolute 
 ruler of all the Maker s works within his reach ; of 
 course he charged toll of the lower orders for 
 looking at the stars and the sunset and for breath 
 ing, because he collected a profit-tax of them for 
 everything they required for living, why not? 
 This did not make the capitalist superior to God, 
 for the capitalist did this service under God, by 
 God s will and appointment. Capitalists, enlight 
 ened by a higher religious sense, could see that the 
 Christian Law of Love must be repealed as chok 
 ing the path of industrial evolution, the new relig- 
 ious legislation might be called the Law of Grab by | 
 the irreverent who could not perceive the installa 
 tion of capitalists for a sacred work. Just here 
 was Giles emphatic sinfulness, he, a capitalist, 
 
i68 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 said what the irreverent thought. The people 
 were under the spell of sounds and words, which 
 really was the essence of good religion, because if 
 you observed the proprieties with their sounds and 
 words you could do anything commanded by the 
 infinite Law of Get. 
 
 This objector was pacified by a fellow capitalist 
 whose religion was also above dispute, who ex 
 plained that Giles purpose was probably educa 
 tional, to induce the crude word-fearing public to 
 gradually think in terms of the broadened re- 
 ligious revelation which the brigadier generals 
 of industry were introducing. His allusion to 
 mortgaging the spirit-world was not bad wit in 
 view of the progress of capitalists, but might be 
 taken as a glint of innocent laughter. 
 
 However, the foregoing speech and others by 
 Giles were a sleeping draught to the public while 
 they very deftly removed the fangs of Labor. The 
 public said, "We are standing in our own light 
 when we obstruct the natural processes of benefi 
 cent capital, which now realizes its obligations and 
 exists for the general good." Labor on its part, 
 feeling "recognized" and structurally accepted as a 
 dignified factor in universal affairs, a co-worker 
 with Capital in the large mission of making the 
 world pay, began to think more of the great prin 
 ciples of civilization than of bread and butter. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 169 
 
 "Soldiers have to sacrifice their health/ said 
 Giles to them, "workingmen must be grateful to be 
 allowed to sacrifice theirs in the good cause of 
 civilization. We can only conquer capitalized 
 Europe for the benefit of America with the terri 
 ble engine of consolidated Trusts, therefore be pa 
 triotic, workingmen, and obey your capitalist lead- 
 ers in this work. You must not ask high wages, for 
 that will weaken us as competitors and interfere 
 with America s destiny to subjugate and enlighten 
 mankind. We shall civilize the non-capitalized 
 continents, Asia and Africa, with the same Trusts, 
 and incidentally put their wealth in our pockets. 
 It will be the highest order of patriotism on your 
 part, workingmen, to put your private interests be 
 hind you and listen only to our commands. We 
 have put our private interests behind us. We 
 carry on the Trusts purely for the nation s honor." 
 
 Giles then said: "There will be a species of 
 universal brotherhood in which the rest of the 
 world will be a species of slaves to America, if 
 American workingmen will remain loyally in their 
 places and work for what we can afford to give 
 them, without strikes and boycotts." 
 
 The feeling of the working masses on hearing 
 this was that of the prodigal welcomed home. 
 
 At this period Giles was favored with a birth 
 day. In anticipation of it he had directed one of 
 
170 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 his metropolitan dailies to send out telegrams and 
 interviewers to prominent men to secure their 
 opinions of himself for publication, selecting of 
 course only those capable of thoroughly appreciat 
 ing his genius. The Daily Consolidator headed a 
 principal page with the intelligence,, "Billionaire 
 G. Wyndon enjoys an edifying birthday. Con 
 gratulatory wishes come to The Consolidator for 
 him from persons who know him best. He will 
 spend the day as usual working the wires of the 
 financial world for the good of mankind." 
 
 From an Englishman in England came the fol 
 lowing : 
 
 "To us in England Giles Wyndon is a provi 
 dential man,, raised up to achieve in the world of 
 commerce and finance what cannot yet be at 
 tempted in the political sphere. He is knitting 
 nations together; he is weaving into a web the 
 many-colored strands of diverse national lives; in 
 the roaring loom of life he uses Atlantic liners as 
 shuttles and railways as threads. He is one of 
 the master spirits of the twentieth century. A 
 man who undertakes and begins such tasks as 
 those associated with the name of Wyndon ought 
 to be, if not immortal,, at least assured of another 
 thirty years of life." 
 
 "I think I m good for fifty more/ observed 
 Giles on reading this, "and long before that I ex- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 171 
 
 pect to own nine-tenths of all the property in the 
 world." 
 
 A member of the Stock Exchange replied to the 
 interviewer: "I think Mr. Wyndon is in many 
 respects the grandest type of man this country has 
 ever produced. His great mentality and force of 
 character would have made him a leader in any 
 walk of life. My estimate of the man is that he 
 has no equal; that he is the greatest financier that 
 ever lived; and I consider him the foremost cit 
 izen of the United States." 
 
 "Good," said Giles. "I see that others as well as 
 myself consider me the biggest man in the uni 
 verse. This is the way history is made. I must 
 have these opinions put into a book for the in 
 struction of future ages. I lack only one thing 
 and that is the power not to die. But beyond all 
 Caesars,, Saints, and Financiers, what a funeral 
 I ll have !" 
 
 A conspicuous divine was visited by the re 
 porter and his lucubrations were given a typo 
 graphical square in The Consolidator by them 
 selves. The headlines announced: "Arthur Wil 
 lie-Willie calls Giles Wyndon a Eeal King. (In 
 terview with the Eev. Dr. Willie-Willie, of Bagg- 
 more Church.)" 
 
 "Dr. Willie-Willie said: 
 
 "Had Giles Wyndon, with his executive ability, 
 
172 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 his organizing instinct, lived in the old Eoman 
 times, he would have been a Julius Caesar, and 
 built up a great military system, and imposed 
 Roman law and government on savage peoples. 
 
 "Had he lived a hundred years ago, I am in 
 clined to think that he would have been a Na 
 poleon, and perhaps there never would have been 
 a Wellington or a Waterloo. 
 
 "The measure of a civilization is to be found in 
 its strongest men, who are at once the creation and 
 the exponents of the age. 
 
 "Mr. Wyndon has endeavored to increase 
 wealth, multiply comforts and conveniences, and 
 to use his wealth for the higher life of the com 
 munity. 
 
 "A man like Mr. Wyndon is an American in 
 stitution. And since every sound and rightly con 
 ducted business is a philanthropy, and does as 
 much for the many who work in it as for the one 
 r.tcin who controls or owns it, Mr. Wyndon is one 
 of the greatest and most useful men in the world. 
 Europe has certain men who are kings by hered 
 itary right. But they look like play-kings in com 
 parison with this real king in the realm of finance- 
 commerce-industry and social progress/ 
 
 A faithful private secretary of Giles who was 
 present when his great master read this, trembled 
 at the expected outbreak against "pulpit poodles" 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 173 
 
 and "sycophant toads" which were the names Giles 
 had for an army of clergymen who, he said, 
 licked his footprints in public Sundays and came 
 to him Mondays begging donations for new things 
 for their show-houses, but Giles perused the adula 
 tion silently and reflectively. 
 
 "Why isn t Willie-Willie right in the main 
 point ?" he said to himself. "Caesar and Napoleon 
 destroyed countless lives and took away human 
 rights to yoke military despotisms on mankind, 
 while I at the expense of countless lives and of all 
 men s natural rights am fastening a world-wide 
 industrial despotism upon them. I don t know of 
 any conqueror that ever lived who reduced the 
 whole world to such absolute subjection as I am 
 doing, and with the connivance, consent and wor 
 ship of all mankind. Other empires were small 
 and bounded compared with mine, which includes 
 every rood of the footstool s surface. I shall 
 soon have the earth so organized that no savage in 
 the deepest jungle depths can strip the bones of 
 a wild bird with his teeth without giving me a 
 large percentage of its value; all planetary life 
 pays its huge tribute to me ; I write my name and 
 whole peoples prosper or fall ; all men are helpless 
 painted jumping-jacks whose millions of legs and 
 arms twitch when I say a word. Willie-Willie 
 was right! I alone am bigger than all the big 
 
174 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 men that ever lived combined, and my despoti&m 
 is a philanthropy; no fool could have said that; 
 Willie- Willie must have brains somewhere; and it- 
 is well to have excellent and sanctified orators like 
 him, who control the religious prejudices of the 
 influential, saying things like that about me from 
 Sunday to Sunday." 
 
 Instead of storming derision at the babbling 
 preacher as his nervous attendant had anticipated, 
 Giles wrote a check for $25,000 to the Baggmore 
 Church, and a personal one of a thousand to 
 Willie-Willie, ordering the secretary to indite a 
 polite missive to the reverend, begging him to 
 use the sum in travel for his health that he might 
 be strengthened for prolonged usefulness for the 
 Lord. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 175 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 of these new activities to typify and 
 advance social union was the Industrial Dinner 
 and Love League, a collection of the greatest men 
 of affairs for the purpose of monthly dinners to 
 some representative leaders of organized labor. 
 Giles presided at the first of these conclaves as 
 president of the League, and on his right sat the 
 head of a great trade union whom they had selected 
 to honor. The official had purchased a dress suit 
 for the occasion, which rested eloquently on his 
 rotund form. Withal he was not the least hand 
 some man present, and it did him good to have 
 Labor appear with grace and propriety. The time 
 will come when every laboring man will have a 
 dress suit, he prophesied. His imagination had 
 never pictured such things as were there to eat. 
 
 "We must give him a warm dose of it," whis 
 pered the heavy capitalist on the left in Giles 
 ear. The billionaires cried his name vociferously 
 when he arose and clapped their hands, beaming 
 
176 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 at him. As he stood up blushing gratefully, some 
 musicians from an invisible station in the ornate 
 hall sang the new popular success, "Class Union/ 
 beginning "Together stand the classes for the good 
 of all Mankind." Then the labor leader spoke. 
 
 "I am deeply grateful to you, the most repre 
 sentative men of the city and nation, for the hearty 
 welcome you have extended to me. Few labor 
 men have ever been accorded such honor. I do 
 not know but the distinction conferred upon me 
 is greater than was ever enjoyed by a labor leader. 
 I shall endeavor to deserve it in the future as I 
 have in the past. I will not deny that it is a 
 gratification thus to be singled out as the most im 
 portant of those who follow my calling of labor 
 organizer in the land. Because of your invitation 
 to eat and speak at this meeting my picture has 
 been published in nearly every paper in the nation, 
 but I believe I may honestly say that my head 
 has not been turned by that. The service I have 
 rendered my class in being deemed worthy to 
 come here in this capacity is the thought that sus 
 tains me. 
 
 "But I have said enough about myself; it is 
 my opinions on the large questions of the day and 
 nation that you and the public desire to hear. 
 The great cause of labor is with you in my person, 
 eating, drinking and exchanging ideas with you. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 177 
 
 (Applause.) The humble workingman to-night 
 acquires a new dignity because his official self, 
 his elected spokesman and public personality, the 
 president of his craft organization, receives the 
 hand of class affection from a body of the greatest 
 living Americans. (Deafening approval, with 
 clapping hands and vocally.) 
 
 "I, for one, do not regard the interests of 
 capital and labor as so much opposed to each other 
 that they cannot be reconciled. I have abiding 
 faith in the citizens of this country, and believe 
 that they can solve the great labor problem which 
 confronts us, and solve it right. The labor prin 
 ciples are considered more lofty now by that class 
 of the people who heretofore did not understand 
 the purposes of trade unions. Capital has its 
 just rights which it would be criminal for labor 
 to disturb. It earns a part of the social income 
 as verily and toilsomely as labor does for the toil 
 of machinery is toil and that part morally and 
 of right must go to the owners of capital. I am 
 no iconoclast, I am no revolutionary, I am no 
 dreamer, I am not leading my trusting followers 
 into chimerical quicksands or utopian bog. I am 
 a patriot, proud of our national wealth and of you, 
 the distinguished breeders of it. If I instructed 
 my people that they deserve your share of the 
 fruits of your strenuous life for, friends, I con- 
 
178 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 sider mental effort to be not less toil than muscular 
 exertion (terrific applause), I should be un 
 worthy of the confidence registered in me by 
 my union and the citizens of the United States. 
 
 "No workingman should receive less than six 
 hundred dollars a year for his wage. He cannot 
 be a good citizen and bring up as many future 
 workingmen as he should on less than that. I 
 place no limit to the deserved fortunes of capi 
 talists. It is not my province to say how many 
 millions or billions are required by a capitalist 
 to bring up his family as good citizens. Generally, 
 a great many millions fail, which I take as an 
 evidence that he deserves more. I will say that 
 to curtail his freedom to earn all he can, whether 
 millions or billions, would be un-American, would 
 destroy the zest of life of all the common laborers 
 now hopefully climbing the ladder of wealth on 
 three hundred dollars a year. 
 
 "I thank you again for your considerate con 
 descension toward me. Capitalists and laborers 
 are brothers, and since I have come to know the 
 full meaning of your brotherly bearing this even 
 ing, I can only say that brotherhood and equality 
 demand nothing else for realization than for all 
 laborers to become as well acquainted with you 
 as I am. I shall try to live up to the measure 
 that has been set for me by the people of the 
 United States." 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 179 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 GILES illustrated his theories of a world fra 
 ternity of capitalists by effecting one stupendous 
 purchase of interests after another into The 
 Amalgamated Fish, Ship, Iron, Transportation, 
 Coal and Steel Company. With every absorption 
 of this kind an immense quantity of new stock 
 was issued by Giles to himself, to represent the 
 new value that the purchased works had acquired 
 by coming into the possession of Giles. Charges 
 were placed upon the consuming public to pay 
 dividends to Giles on this new stock, which stood 
 for the value of consolidation. These dividends 
 represented the new wealth conferred by Giles 
 upon the public by having its business done organ 
 ically and labor-savingly in his colossal leviathan. 
 The public could not have consolidation without 
 paying for it. He deserved the pay that had 
 formerly passed to labor, which was now emanci 
 pated from labor and deserved nothing; and with 
 it he was able to purchase still other bunches of 
 
180 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 great industries and receive more pay for their 
 consolidation. Whatever he saved to society was 
 appropriately his as the saver. Whatever work he 
 saved the displaced laborers from doing he com- 
 pelled the public to pay him for not doing. Had 
 he been voted a statue by the grateful people the 
 words Popular Economizer on it would have satis 
 fied him. 
 
 The laboring men, relieved of the hardship of 
 work, were pensioned by Giles at the usual thirty 
 cents a day, upon a beneficent scheme projected 
 by him to protect society from revolution during 
 a transitional dying era until the population 
 should be reasonably reduced by natural causes. 
 Famines, wars and pestilence being out of mode, 
 there survived the natural diseases of anemia. 
 Thirty cents a day would not permit an ex-labor 
 ing man the recklessness of a family that would 
 grow to a great age in a cold climate; in fact, he 
 would probably die childless, leaving the inhabi 
 tants less by himself, and as many children as 
 he might have had with a normally fed constitu 
 tion. Other laborers, informed by the army of 
 unemployed pensioners that children were a drug 
 on the world, would wisely not indulge in a quiver 
 of them. This plan of easy extermination would 
 be a pleasure to the needless exterminated them 
 selves. Giles figured that strenuous employment 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 181 
 
 on small pay was just equivalent in sum of com 
 fort to no labor and thirty cents a day. Entire 
 redemption from work was surely worth a dollar 
 or a dollar twenty cents a day to any one; in 
 freeing him from work and adding thirty cents 
 to his freedom, Giles reckoned that he was paying 
 the fellow a dollar and a half daily. He only 
 asked of these pensioners to abstain from protract 
 ing the burden of their charge upon him beyond 
 their own generation. If they married, whether 
 men or women, the pension expired. Economic 
 professors in the universities studied Giles popu 
 lation project with great exultation, and taught it 
 to their classes. They named it the Giles Wyndon v 
 Law of Eeconstructed Population. 
 
 Giles himself showed signs of change. He was 
 taking himself gravely. A man who could do 
 what he was doing ought to have respect for the 
 man that was doing it. He rose steadily in 
 his self-esteem. His name was familiar from *" 
 poles to equator in every zone as the world s portent 
 of finance and production. The wealth he daily 
 created was fabulous. One day when housed with 
 a cold he shut the door on business and read a 
 book, and at night figured how many millions he 
 had produced that day. They astonished him 
 when he considered that he had produced them 
 by reading a novel. His industrial power 
 
1 82 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 stretched so rapidly that hourly more and more 
 of the world, civilized and uncivilized,, rested on 
 him. As the centre of earthly commercial gravity 
 he saw his duty to remodel his conception of him 
 self. 
 
 Every step in this progress was keenly realized 
 hy Margaret. Something that was best in her 
 father was being lost. Before long his old self, 
 the one she loved, would fade into an alien 
 nature, and she, the nearest and dearest to him, 
 was silent to this change. Her inaction seemed 
 a falseness to them both. 
 
 The course she took might not have reached a 
 focus immediately if Giles fertile brain had not 
 started another movement for industrial good will. 
 Among the later industries gathered to the bosom 
 of The Amalgamated were the factories in a batch 
 of old towns long specialized to the working of 
 leather. The trade union was solidly planted in 
 this field and strikes had been frequent; there 
 was also the party of operatives called Independ 
 ents, opposed to working-class union and helping 
 their employers in every struggle. Their reward 
 was the cream of work. It struck Giles to organize 
 them into the Free Workmen s Union. Not wish- 
 . ing his agency known, he suborned a clergyman to 
 become the organizer and public sponsor of the 
 movement. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 183 
 
 Giles covertly planted a hundred thousand dol 
 lars in the treasury of this body as endowment for y 
 fighting the bona fide union. It was an organiza 
 tion of strike breakers. They were to contrive the 
 defeat of every effort of the true workers to im 
 prove their condition or raise their caste. Be 
 sides pecuniary perquisites, they were rewarded 
 by ranking as special friends of the employer. 
 When they worked in a strike their pay was in 
 creased one-third while it lasted. 
 
 In season and out, in .strike and out of strike, 
 they talked about the right of workingmen to be 
 independent and labor when they pleased. Their 
 eagerness to work while the majority refused set 
 tled it with the public that the strikers demands 
 were vicious, and relieved the public from squan 
 dering sympathy. Giles found that he could hire 
 men in plenty to stand up for the doctrine of the 
 right to work when you want to, who never wanted 
 to except in a strike, and would not at any other 
 time. As strike breakers, they were not required 
 to work hard, and the pay was rich ; it was mainly 
 a matter of defying the orders of the unions for 
 workers to quit, and of making the weak-kneed 
 workmen and weaker principled public believe that 
 the works were proceeding well manned. The 
 corps of permanently unemplo} r ed rendered an 
 Independent, or strike breakers , union feasible 
 
184 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 for every industry. Practically, it achieved a sys 
 tem of antagonistic or twin unions, potent for 
 making the trade union and all working-class 
 struggles innocuous. The split class by this means 
 would conduct its own suicide, part playing police 
 and gun on the majority. 
 
 The success of the strike breakers association 
 caused Giles to draw up articles of incorporation 
 to attract the large element of good souled, but 
 simple-brained, mechanics and common laborers, 
 who believe they were appointed to serve in the 
 world by an act of special grace who feel a pride 
 in their menialness as if it were a high place. The 
 articles were worded as only Giles and his lawyers, 
 with here and there a thought offered by the 
 clergyman, could do such things. The document 
 was as innocent on the outside as those who could 
 believe in it were on the inside. This was its 
 wording : 
 
 "This association shall encourage industry, 
 economy, thrift and honesty among its members; 
 maintain amicable relations between employes and 
 employers of labor ; to assist its members in obtain 
 ing the highest wages consistent with the general 
 good of all concerned ; to promote all forms of pro 
 ductive industry and increase the employment of 
 labor at good wages; to prevent unjust and un 
 reasonable discrimination against any of its mem- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 185 
 
 bers by any person, combination,, or conspiracy to 
 prevent such members from securing employment 
 in any branch of industry, and to protect and 
 defend its members against any and all attempts 
 by any person or combination of persons to abridge 
 the inalienable right of all mankind to work for 
 such wages as shall be mutually satisfactory to 
 the individual workman and his employer." 
 
 The wealthy press was hugely pleased by this 
 manifesto, and gave the "laborers" who had pro 
 duced it many editorial caresses; Giles owned 
 several of these papers, which were better able 
 than others to uncover the genuine Americanism 
 of the movement. "It would be difficult for any 
 sane man, whether employer, wage earner, or of 
 whatever occupation or social condition, to find 
 in this declaration anything with which to quar 
 rel/ said one of these. "It is not at all surpris 
 ing that the aggressiveness, intolerance and vio 
 lence of some of the unions have invited revolt 
 through opposing organizations." 
 
 One of the editors went a little too far in his 
 zeal and exposed rather more than Giles intended, 
 saying: 
 
 "The success of any movement on the part of 
 labor to emancipate itself from the control of the 
 unions will depend, in great degree, if not wholly, 
 upon the intelligence with which employers act in 
 
1 86 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 conjunction with it. They do not need to encour 
 age it ostentatiously, much less to patronize it; hut 
 every consideration of self-interest suggests that 
 they should see to it that no man suffers from the 
 assertion of his independence or from his readi 
 ness to he rated according to his worth." 
 
 But this editor was reprimanded for his in 
 discretion, and discharged hy Giles general press 
 manager. "It won t do to publicly advise em 
 ployers to bring up this capitalist infant, even 
 unostentatiously," he caustically said to him; "we 
 thought your college education would have taught 
 you that." And this editor-in-chief went out to 
 look for another job without a recommendation 
 from his last place. 
 
 However, the public had no suspicion that 
 Giles was back of these developments, and, of 
 course, the innocent mechanics who flocked to the 
 "independent" standard flouted the insinuation 
 that anybody could make them his tools. They 
 were too bright for such trickery. 
 
 The dishonor of all this bit into Margaret s 
 soul. Fair and foul means were used undiscrim- 
 inatingly against the workers ; anything to deceive, 
 anything to defeat, anything to weld new chains 
 on them. The working masses were simply a 
 mine of raw life for the strong to dig into for 
 gold, as if they were unfeeling matter with no 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 187 
 
 rights. She saw the strong throw aside their moral 
 laws in using this primitive aggregation of life 
 stuff, just as if there were no morality. For the 
 strong there was none. When statements were 
 necessary to soothe or mold public opinion Giles 
 would compose an assemblage of lies to suit the 
 demand and give them out over his signature as 
 facts. At a judicial hearing, to which he was 
 called for testimony on a scandalous deal of The 
 Amalgamated, first destroying written evidence 
 that would incriminate him, he presented under 
 oath a tissue of testimony, brilliant in its logical 
 freedom from truth, lasting half a day, and was 
 assisted over the rocky passages by the Judge and 
 District Attorney, who knew that he was enter 
 taining the court and country with fiction. 
 
 Laughing over this to Margaret he said that 
 the building of a great business was like build 
 ing a state. All was fair in diplomacy. We 
 concede that lying is a virtue in statesmanship 
 and war, and business on a large scale is in their 
 category. The great business man, like Bismarck, 
 must lie and bribe. 
 
 With a bitter awakening Margaret came to a 
 new comprehension of her position in the world; 
 breaking its few cherished traditions her mind 
 went forth into the territory of the soul s sov- 
 
i88 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 ereign independence. Uncertain thoughts grew 
 clear. 
 
 "The life for wealth, at all times coarsening 
 and mean, is searing the beauty and fineness of 
 my father s spirit; it stunts the generous and 
 noble if they remain in it, driving them to cruelty 
 and selfishness. But I too am a factor in this 
 life, yielding to it, not contending against it. 
 Why am I submitting, supporting what I hate ? I 
 am obeying my father. My own nature ceases its 
 life through this obedience, my real self sinks 
 to nothing. 
 
 "Then why obey? Because of love and the 
 teaching that obedience is right? They call it 
 duty and right even when it destroys the obeying 
 soul, which cannot be. Is it good for my father 
 to blot my nature out, absorb what it strains up 
 ward to be, forbid my independent existence? 
 He lives and stamps the world with his character, 
 while love must prevent me from impressing 
 mine; yet his love of me does not restrain him 
 from extinguishing me. Is this not uneven and 
 wrong? Do I not owe society my life, my ideas 
 and ideals? Do I owe my father s love more 
 than I owe myself, mankind, principle, intelli 
 gence, duty? Is all that we call duty made in 
 favor of the parent, while in parallel respects he 
 has none to the child ? 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 189 
 
 "Perhaps they will tell me that my turn will 
 come after his death, and that I am to accept what 
 is left of me then as all that is properly my own; 
 that only the wornout end of life belongs to me 
 and my aspirations and my fellows. My years 
 of energy may then be gone,, if I do not chance 
 to die first. Filial love and duty when supreme 
 are but means for defrauding the world of the 
 help of those who would help it most. 
 
 "And here is a cause of the world s snail-like 
 progress. The younger generation ever submits 
 to the older until it too is old, then having grown 
 likewise selfish or hopeless, it brings no change. 
 Why not reverse the order? Why shall not the 
 older yield to the sentiments of their children 
 while they are fresh, discerning, unselfish, and 
 pure? Does the generation happening to be first 
 here own the earth and all destiny until it sinks 
 in decrepitude and dies? It is a fact of life that 
 as the world s business-bearers age a self-loving 
 shell hardens on them ; love, generosity, aspiration, 
 if they had them, vaporize ; fine emotions starve ; 
 avarice, ambition, greed, replace their humanity; 
 they warm with loftier life no more; the springs 
 of principle and magnanimity are dry. 
 
 "And yet to their sons and daughters these soul- 
 frozen veterans of gain drone, Your duty, chil 
 dren, is love and obedience to us; trust in our 
 
1 90 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 stainless, wisdom, to us the molding and manage 
 ment of mankind/ though they long ago drove 
 their wisdom out of doors and are the sport of 
 vulgar vanity and the very agony of greed. Be 
 hold mankind, the product of their rich wisdom ! 
 the factories, their factories, where c the life of 
 the woman who toils is miserably hard; it takes 
 the roses from fresh cheeks, makes old and bent 
 women of young girls, hollows chests and rounds 
 straight young backs I Without abhorrence, how 
 can we view the frenzy for gain which tortures 
 and defiles the creatures of their own breed for 
 the work and wealth they can burn from the 
 crucible of their sentient bodies? And we must 
 hold our peace and even be assistants of their 
 frenzy, in the hallowed name of love. What is 
 the vital quality of a love for us which does this 
 to others ? Are we purchased to silence by know 
 ing they will leave us the blood-stained property 
 for which they strangled humanity?" 
 
 Margaret disclosed her purpose to Philip. "I am 
 going out of the Firm ; it prevents me from living 
 my true life and I must be free. I have learned 
 that family affection is the great impediment to 
 human change. It prevents me from living by a 
 larger love and following the light of intelligence. 
 All the good of mankind, all the progress of the 
 earth, must stand still, because parents believe 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 191 
 
 that progress would distress them; the happiness 
 of all future millions weighs nothing against the 
 prejudices of these embattled parents. And we 
 who care for the larger life of the race and desire 
 future parents to have a more beautiful and less 
 prejudice-trammeled existence, we who yearn to 
 bring some of the beauty of imagination into our 
 own days, are bidden to forego all in the holy 
 name of our parents private selfishness, which they 
 call affection. I have discovered that I shall love 
 my parent best by being true to every high, 
 thought that I have. My love will die if I am 
 not myself. Even if it separates us and breaks 
 the seeming of our happiness, I shall be giving 
 him a love that has my soul and essence in it, 
 love transcendently higher than the pale product 
 of habitual family mechanics. I should be false 
 to love if I did otherwise I am obeying love." 
 
 Philip remained in the Firm to be a link be 
 tween these two. 
 
 Giles grimly said: "This is my reward for liv 
 ing for mankind. Those nearest to me cannot 
 understand. I am enriching every one and am 
 called a cruel robber." 
 
192 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 MARGARET now declared herself to the working 
 people. She was well known to them as the bril 
 liant daughter of Old Giles, with a commercial 
 genius level to his. Her renunciation of the stu 
 pendous fortune stopped their breath and stupe 
 fied them. There must be great reason for such 
 a sacrifice and they burned to know it. Wherever 
 she spoke the halls were packed to the doors. The 
 freshness of her strong vitality and the perfect 
 harmony of all her faculties lent an uncommon 
 lustre to her beauty. 
 
 What she said,, who had renounced so much, the 
 people believed. 
 
 She told them how they owed it to themselves 
 and the great universe in which they lived to take 
 the world in hand and change it. The human race 
 was not a feeble accident in the scheme of things. 
 It was endowed with the power of self-creation. 
 What it wanted to be it could be. It could take 
 itself in its own hands an;" 1 shape its character; it 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 193 
 
 could increase or diminish its own intelligence and 
 strength. All the barriers that were placed about 
 it were barriers only in fancy; if it believed in 
 their solidity and impassableness they were so> 
 whereas if it believed that they only stood through 
 the inertia of the human mind they would scat 
 ter before the potency of intelligent will. The 
 world, mankind, and all relations of life were 
 plastic substance for the energy of human beings 
 to work upon into forms of high and magical 
 beauty. Nothing that exists was sacred, what was 
 sacred is the great Human Possibility alone. All 
 forms, customs, beliefs, practices, institutions, rev 
 erences, theories, were only initial stuff to be 
 wrought into something measurelessly higher, 
 and then rewrought into that which is again 
 higher. There never would be anything sacred 
 but Possibility. Man s destiny and happiness 
 were not in the achieved but in the infinite un 
 achieved, yet achievable ; and then not in rest and 
 the sense of finishment ; but in the invasion of still 
 new fields of perfection brought in sight of those 
 latest gained. 
 
 Human nature could change itself. That was 
 the difference between human nature and other 
 things. The world was a wonderful series of po 
 tencies for changing human nature into more life- 
 filled, noble forms. Being fettered to old tales of 
 
194 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 philosophy and timorous prejudices of religion 
 and society, humanity had not had courage to 
 dream what it could do with itself. It could make 
 itself a majestical orchestra of happiness on which 
 the days should play divine music forever. It 
 could nurture that divine thing love, yet only in 
 germ in the world, but bearing exhaustless infini 
 ties of happiness to be realized by man. 
 
 And what restrains mankind from entering into 
 life ? A few moss-covered mistakes,, the shells and 
 husks of its pre-mental morning, treasured and 
 worshiped not because they are good but because 
 of tender recollections of our human babyhood. 
 We love our little ancient clothes and yearn to 
 wear them always. How could children know 
 what would be good for men? How could they, 
 innocent in their first dazzled birth, possess ideas 
 for guiding the life of grown humanity and com 
 plex society ? The shard of property is one of man 
 kind s treasured mistakes. Property is like food 
 taken into the system, whose aim is the perfect 
 nourishment of every part to form a healthy, bal 
 anced and magnificent whole. If some parts 
 should unscrupulously seize more nourishment 
 than they need, over surfeiting and bloating them 
 selves while robbing other members of the food 
 and strength they require, would it not be mad 
 ness for the members diseased with excess 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 195 
 
 as well as for those defrauded of enough? 
 Would not the whole body be weak, pained and 
 sick? Everybody can see that nature in health 
 takes care that this does not happen ; only the sick 
 system allows it and the punishment is death. 
 The well body distributes the elements of life 
 where they are needed, creating a beautiful, ener 
 getic whole because every molecule composing it 
 rceives its full portion of the body s nourishing 
 wealth. 
 
 But man has not learned of nature. Though 
 wealth is to the human family as food to the 
 family of bodily members and should be circu 
 lated impartially among all individuals to gain 
 the greatest total health and strength; though 
 the end to seek is the largest vigor and energy of 
 every unit, which will follow when all are ade 
 quately and none over-nourished with wealth; our 
 use of property defies these laws and permits some 
 to acquire self-^gorging suicidal excess, with scanti 
 ness and atrophy of others, which is a species of 
 deadly dementia, with nothing like it in lower na 
 ture or anywhere else but in that lofty apex of 
 infinity, man. 
 
 Margaret told them to study how property had 
 been gained and property rights established. The 
 foundations of it had never been earning, its 
 largest holders had never been earners; they had 
 
196 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 acquired their substance by force or cunning and 
 retained it by the same, till they had drilled sub 
 mission into the weaker and grooved them to con 
 sider this wealth the property of the strong by a 
 holy right, throughout time. They had sculptured 
 a habit of thought for mankind, which was the 
 only basis of property. Not right, not desert, 
 not general or individual good just naked habit. 
 Now that man and society have grown reflective 
 all this must change. The habit founded by un 
 bridled self-assertion of might must be put off 
 and the world s property managed with a twof 
 intention: that every man may be happy to the 
 measure of his capacity, that he may live and labor 
 to the largest effectiveness. Men are happy and 
 the best comes from them only when they are free 
 and equal. The best never develops in slaves, serv 
 ants, or the hired. Free, self-dependent effort is 
 the law of human happiness and productivity. 
 Equality before the law has been gained (in prin 
 ciple) and now we must have equality before 
 property. We shall then reach independence, the 
 primal requisite of manhood, for one cannot be 
 dependent and be a man. Independence is the 
 source of all the strong and fine virtues; it ought 
 to be secured to every man for life before he is 
 born as one of his indefeasible rights, like the air 
 he breathes. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 197 
 
 To be independent and equal he must be born 
 a shareholder in the world. He must not sneak 
 into existence to be man or slave, rich or poor, free 
 or fettered, by chance ; he shall not come into pos 
 session of what is required as the preliminary of 
 manhood by an accident of birth, that must be his 
 of ?. certainty, as long as he lives, inalienably, like 
 light. He must be born as part owner of the 
 property of the world. The world s productive 
 agencies, machinery and land, must be like sun 
 shine, a sure basic possession of his. As the earth 
 to walk on is a physical assumption of man s ex 
 istence, because he cannot float or fly, so must he 
 be born a partner to the possession of machinery 
 and land as a social prerequisite, to furnish him a 
 ground of manhood to stand on, that he may not 
 perforce be a beggar, a thief, or a commercial 
 ruffian, to get footing in life. 
 
 Machinery is like land, an element of nature. 
 That man has fashioned it means only that man 
 has placed elemental forces of nature in form to 
 do work. Nature furnishes the force and mate 
 rial, man merely assists her. The principles dis 
 covered by man and embodied in machinery are 
 all possessions of nature. Nature supplies the 
 vitality of machinery, nature is its soul, nature is 
 its intelligence and strength, man only gives na 
 ture a chance. 
 
198 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 3Tow every man has the same claim upon nature. 
 By what principle are some raised above others to 
 assert larger rights? Men are emanations from 
 nature and by reason of coming from her they be 
 long to her and she belongs to them. By whose 
 authority shall nature be refused to her owners? 
 By authority of the strength of some who are 
 stronger, who capture more than their own ? This 
 is not authority but reasonless force, and the 
 weaker need only to unite their force to strip the 
 unreasonable strong. Bo some claim a monopoly 
 of nature because of a superior power to manipu 
 late her? Examine that claim of theirs. The 
 nature-monopolists are not the expert manipu 
 lators of nature ; they are the shrewd movers of the 
 pawns and tokens of the wealth springing from 
 the expert nature manipulators ; they are the keen 
 players upon the men who handle nature and pro 
 duce by her aid, the sharpers on the human and 
 industrial life-board. The hugest nature-monopo 
 lists are the financiers, men removed from nature 
 by a gulf, who could not guide a lever or turn a 
 wheel, who manipulate only empty counters of 
 reality. Hence if superior skill in nature-man 
 agement gave authority to monopolize, the present 
 class of monopolists would have no right at all. 
 
 But manipulative proficiency does not confer 
 authority to sweep in and absorb nature. The 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 199 
 
 reward of this ability is to be found in exercising 
 it. Nature has attached a pleasure to the use of 
 every faculty, increasing with the vigor of the 
 faculty; this is the payment to the owner of the 
 faculty for its exercise. If he asks additionally 
 to be given a private grip on some wide mass of 
 nature he demands what he pays nothing for, hav 
 ing already been requited in allowance to exer 
 cise his powers. Does he claim the particular priv 
 ilege of impoverishing others of the elements of 
 nature they need in order to be men? He is an 
 injurer, an industrial felon, a thief. What kind 
 of a pretended server of them is he who in return 
 for his serving would unscrupulously impoverish 
 the served? Let all brand him as the plotter of 
 their ruin. 
 
 When men have the groundwork of life as 
 sured they can begin the building of their higher 
 selves. Compulsion to conquer their own ground 
 work unless they are favored by the accident of 
 inheritance, is the deadly source of a perpetual 
 stream of human waste; those who have faculties 
 for better things, for the very best things, are 
 driven to wear them out and deplete their time 
 and strength mastering the mere mechanics of 
 subsistence, which organic society should have 
 made rapid and certain for them as their first 
 right. The great purpose of human wisdom is the 
 
200 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 organization of the preliminaries of existence in 
 such a way that each may begin his best creative 
 career sooner and find much done for him, nor 
 have to do over by strenuous and wasting struggle 
 as an individual what might be socially done onco 
 for all and remain organic and permanent to hu 
 man life. This is the process of building up 
 social reflexes and retiring a wide range of con 
 suming activities out of the individually voluntary 
 sphere. Harassing men with the smaller cares of 
 existence,, the cares of assured living, consumes 
 without requital a dreary sum of energy which 
 should flow to higher evolution. 
 
 This priceless quantity of power would be res 
 cued for real uses if all were born as partners in 
 the productive organism of industry. An opening 
 would await each one where his labor would be 
 fully paid, not as a hired cipher, granted work by 
 favor and remunerated according to the law of 
 power not to pay, but as one of the owners of 
 nature s work forces, remunerated with the total 
 of his labor contribution. Then those desiring 
 much substance to consume could labor much and 
 make it, those devoted to interests above the ma 
 terial could reduce their time of labor, earning 
 fewer things, and save the mass of their power for 
 what they like. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 201 
 
 CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 THE movement that Margaret was developing 
 gathered extensive proportions. For a while onlj 
 workingmen and women came to hear her, as is 
 usual in constructive social changes, but finally 
 colleges became aware of a popular earnestness 
 and economic professors thought it respectable to 
 study the motiving principles of the situation. 
 They appeared at meetings, diagnosed and di 
 gested the unrest, and began to assail the speaker 
 with questions. 
 
 "Your doctrine," said an eminent political econ 
 omist, "is in effect nothing but the religion of the 
 stomach. If you give workingmen enough to eat 
 what will become of their spiritual aspirations ?" 
 
 Margaret replied that if the religion of every 
 one who is well off is the Worship of Food the 
 time had come to deprive the rich of their god 
 Food, for their own good. If spiritual aspiration 
 grew nowhere but in starvation the rich should be 
 benevolently starved without delay, to give them 
 aspiration. 
 
2O2 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 What was the philosophy of nurturing one class 
 of Stomach Specialists, the rich,, and another of 
 stomach-starved soul specialists, the poor? Was 
 there anything to admire in compulsory spiritu 
 ality made by want? And when had the world 
 found that the working classes possessed such a 
 precious spirituality? No others seemed anxious 
 to copy it by becoming workingmen. The Ee- 
 ligion of the Stomach was the rich man s religion. 
 Her teaching overthrew it with the Religion of 
 Human Power, growing from the ample and intel 
 ligent nutrition of the whole human race. Ex 
 cess would be corrected. All men would have 
 something to do beside idly eating what others 
 brought them, giving a death blow to the Belly 
 Cult. Neither starved nor gourmanded animate 
 ever made racers. 
 
 "I insist," reiterated the professor, read 
 ing from a work of his, "that if you gave 
 workingmen a larger claim on the prop 
 erty of the world you would place the neces 
 sities of nutrition at the summit as well as 
 at the base of human development. Human 
 ity would be at the end as at the beginning, a 
 stomach. Nothing but an enormous stomach, 
 whose physical necessities would constitute tho 
 sole motive of all mental activities. The stomach 
 would be the prime cause and the end of humaiv 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 203 
 
 ity." The savant wiped his brow proudly and sat 
 down. 
 
 "Then you mean/ answered Margaret, "that 
 all who now have the large grasp on the world s 
 property which you deny to the working classes, 
 are but the enormous stomach you fear the work 
 ers will become if their rightful property is 
 granted to them? You certainly say just that. 
 You mean that stomach is the prime cause and 
 end of all the prosperous and well-to-do? For if 
 not why would it be the end of the workers if they 
 were allowed a corresponding prosperity? 
 
 "But if your words are true you give an all- 
 sufficient reason for ending the system under 
 which we live, for its supreme purpose and ambi 
 tion is this stomach-voluptuous prosperity. That 
 is its great bribe and reward not the getting of 
 enough for a sound, right, evolutional life, but the 
 gaining of excess. And you say that if the power 
 to have superfluities or even sufficiency were ex 
 tended to all workers they would grow corrupt and 
 be ruled only by the stomach lust. So that if all 
 who succeed now sink down to the stomach grade, 
 and the cult of success is only the stomach cult, 
 this cult and this success ought to be abolished all 
 around to save mankind. 
 
 "In truth the reigning creed of success or su 
 perfluity is not the desire to have enough for an 
 
204 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 excellent life but the wild greed for too much. 
 And this I declare is destructive of all high things. 
 Yet it is none the less the supreme motive you hold 
 before all the workingmen. You dangle before 
 them the hope that they may become capitalists, 
 superfluity-grabbers. Stomach-worship is, from 
 your own lips, the lure which you offer to induce 
 them to exert themselves. While saying that the 
 things had by the rich would corrupt the workers 
 if got, in the same breath you use the itch to get 
 them as the prime incentive to make the workers 
 work. Also as reason why the vast mass of them 
 shall go forever without necessaries, for you tell 
 them that if most will do without necessities all 
 their lives a petty few can attain corrupting ex 
 cess. What reward is this to the mass that do not 
 attain it? 
 
 "But why do you want the workers to exert 
 themselves? Do you actually wish them to gain 
 those excess things which you say will turn them 
 into mere stomachs? If so you should wish the 
 system changed so that all might have the su 
 perfluous and graduate into stomachs. Or do you 
 only want the workers stimulated by a shoddy im 
 possible hope to create the superfluities for others, 
 that while the workers grovel and rot in want the 
 oA cops-takers may grovel and rot in excess, as con 
 temptible and depraved stomach-idolators ?" 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 205 
 
 Margaret waited for a reply but the learned 
 professor kept his seat. 
 
 "I will tell you," she concluded. "The purpose 
 of my teaching is not to kindle the appetite for 
 superfluity. It would abolish that craving as a 
 motive, because it is coarse, sensuous and faculty- 
 slaying. It would make the new general mo 
 tive to be, securing what men need for the 
 stomach in order to develop those rich and little- 
 exercised powers above stomach which all men 
 have." 
 
 Another professor objected, "It is evident that 
 such a regime as you talk of implies the absolute 
 dictatorship of the State, or, what comes to exactly 
 the same thing, of the community, with regard to 
 the distribution of wealth, and a no less absolute 
 servitude on the part of the workers. But the 
 workers are not affected by this argument. They 
 are not at all eager for liberty, as is proved by 
 the enthusiasm with which they have acclaimed all 
 the Csesars when a Caesar has arisen; and they 
 care as little for all that goes to make the greatness 
 of a civilization; for arts, sciences, literature, and 
 so forth, which would disappear at once in such a 
 society." 
 
 Sitting down the professor pursed out his lips 
 and cast his eyes, which snapped sharply under hia 
 
206 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 spectacles, about at his colleagues as much as to 
 say, That will be the end of her. 
 
 Margaret again spoke: "The workers are not; 
 more guilty of acclaiming Cassars than the classes 
 over them who have had every chance to know bet 
 ter. Yet this is one of the darkest faults of the 
 working class. It is because the individual work- 
 ingman thinks himself so insignificant that he 
 can only get a show of importance by resigning his 
 personality to some one else, a military or political 
 Cassar, who thus appropriates the personalities of 
 a host of workingmen and so becomes great. The 
 workers have trusted in the upper class and when 
 it failed them, as it always has, they turned to a 
 Moses, a Bonaparte, a leader, a Cassar. It was 
 sure betrayal. The working class never will be 
 free till it learns to walk without the go-cart of 
 leaders. 
 
 "But the class that has failed above everything 
 in American society is the middle class. It ruled 
 in America. Under its rule political liberty has 
 been lost, for by its selfish apathy and wealth- 
 thirst the Commercial and Political Bosses have 
 grown and taken self-government from the peo 
 ple. There was rare material equality and fair 
 ness of opportunity during the first eighty years of 
 our national life, owing to the accident of abun 
 dant land and minerals ; greed corrupted the heart 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 207 
 
 of the middle class and all rushed madly after for 
 tunes, seizing and monopolizing to the best of 
 their ability every one of those vast opportunities. 
 Some were brilliantly successful, and the entire 
 class upheld them because its soul was bitten by 
 the same avarice for riches. The Calumet and 
 Hecla copper mine, one of nature s gifts to all, 
 gave as returns to its individual seizers, dividends 
 of $10,000,000 in a single year on a nominal cap 
 ital of $2,500,000, of which only $1,200,000 was 
 ever paid in a rate of 400 per cent, on the par 
 value, or 833 per cent, on the cash investment. It 
 has paid over $80,000,000 in dividends in thirty 
 years. 
 
 "Through the abominable private rapacity and 
 filthy gold-lust of the once great middle class the 
 country lost its supreme distinction among man 
 kind the fair degree of equality and general well- 
 being of its citizens. From being the morally 
 highest nation, a true republican democracy, it 
 shot down into a sordid plutocracy, all its ideals 
 gone, diseased to the core with the ancient vices of 
 the wealth and power worshiping monarchies of 
 Europe. It is the middle class that caused this, 
 because its soul went to rot in greed. 
 
 "And now the new Plutocracy, which this mid 
 dle class laid as an egg from its vitals, turns on it 
 as its Nemesis, swiftly wrenching from it the rag- 
 
2o8 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 ged vestiges of its power and manhood, and chang 
 ing it from a self-poised independent class to a 
 horde of hireling serfs. And still it has no virtue 
 to return to principle and those high earlier ideals 
 of national grandeur in equality, and to strike for 
 a new liberty. The workers are right in emanci 
 pating themselves from the middle class, repudi 
 ating its premiership,, spewing its gross hypocrit 
 ical ideals out. There is no health in it." 
 
 The professor exclaimed cheerfully: "You 
 don t hurt my feelings by your scorn of the mid 
 dle class, which I believe is historically just, but 
 not theoretically so. Much is correct in fact which 
 cannot be permitted in theory, my dear young 
 lady. Take care of your theories and your facts 
 will take care of themselves. Professors are above 
 the middle class. We belong socially to the Plu 
 tocracy." 
 
 "You ride in the petticoat folds of the Plu 
 tocracy," laughed Margaret. "You sometimes 
 marry an errant daughter of their clan, you re 
 luckier than their coachmen about that. A few 
 weeks ago the president of the country went to 
 Philadelphia and was invited by a prominent 
 man of wealth to meet the six or seven hundred 
 most important men of the city. That town has a 
 university, and one of its professors, moved by 
 pride of position, went over the list of guests to see 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 209 
 
 how many of its faculty were important men. 
 How many do yon think had been recognized? 
 Not one. Capitalists know the professors are a 
 safe and harmless lot and they don t need to re 
 spect them to keep them good. 
 
 "But you say., Professor, that the workers do 
 not care for all that goes to make the greatness 
 of civilization; for arts, sciences, literature, and 
 so forth/ and you assert that these would disap 
 pear if the workers came on top. What I ask you / 
 is, how much the middle class and the plutocrats 
 have cared for these things? Our so-called art is 
 trivial and childish, its producers are meek beg 
 gars of the rich for the means to subsist typical 
 fruit of that middle class, devoid of intellect or 
 courage to declare and obtain their economic rights, 
 scornful, even, of them, for a gift in the hat from 
 the rich a picture ordered, or a ticket to their 
 mendicant patronessed concert purchased. Art 
 from such sources must be nerveless, insipid, 
 sterile, stale. And it is. 
 
 "As to sciences, they have fared slightly better 
 because they related to material wealth and were 
 fondled by the Rich and Demi-rich as means to 
 further enrichment. Yet there is work without 
 limit waiting and needing to be done for the good 
 of mankind in the multitudinous branches of sci 
 ence, while there are none to undertake it. For 
 
2io The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 there are no resources to raise up and pay the 
 scientists, although they work for the butler s sal 
 ary of a rich man, and the most renowned and use 
 ful of them receive the pay of his cook. 
 
 "Science is literally starved, though the wealth 
 of the country is nearly a hundred billion dollars. 
 But it is concentrated and monopolized, the peo 
 ple do not have it and cannot turn it to science for 
 general good. The eight hundred Trusts, rapidly 
 consolidating together, have it. The owners of it 
 do not care for science or general good, being too 
 crude and uncultivated, savage and self-pamper 
 ing, for that; they care for costly eating, palaces, 
 jewels, stables, kennels, automobiles, yachts, vo 
 luptuous luxury and dizzying ostentation. 
 
 "The wedding of one of their scions the other 
 day, who has already in his brief possession of the 
 earth consumed more wealth, creating none, than 
 tons of workingmen, creators of wealth, are al 
 lowed in a lifetime, cost thousands, enough to keep 
 many scientists working for the good of all men 
 for many years. Imagine it! We had to feed it 
 all to these useless butterflies in one day, with 
 presents that would have made King Solomon 
 pale. This is the way we love science, for we do 
 not have to cram our riches into butterflies stom 
 achs, we could put it into science for the good of 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 211 
 
 us all if we wished to. We could flip the butter 
 flies off. 
 
 "And owing to the great figure cut by these cul- 
 tureless rich cavorting in frivolous grandeur be 
 fore the world, most of the young with privilege 
 and brains launch themselves into life to cheaply 
 copy them, not turning their strength to science 
 and the rarer things that shall make men a finer, 
 happier and grander type. 
 
 "For the service of mankind, for the lifting and 
 regeneration of the masses, from whom the sci 
 ences draw their life, the career of the sciences has 
 been a wonder and a shame. Invention, the 
 brother of science, has flourished marvelously, es 
 pecially in the pastime objects of embellishment 
 for the great buyers, yet one of your own writers 
 confesses, Those who contemplate the greater 
 command over the means of production which has 
 been placed within our reach by the age of in 
 vention, cannot but feel a sense of disappointment 
 that so little has resulted for the happiness of the 
 human race/ And scientists are like artists and 
 our smile-searching literary guild, softened by the 
 same middle-class dissolvent, Plutocracy-homage. 
 Let us call our literary constellation excavators of / 
 smiles, court jesters, amusers, vaudeville dancers 
 with the pen. Scientists, cloistered in their labo 
 ratories and riding the one-legged god Evolution, 
 
212 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 let society stagger down its course, despoiled of 
 political freedom by the Boss, and of the most 
 sacred rights of manhood and improvement hy the 
 Plutocrat. Such are the human fruits of science 
 in its own field. 
 
 "And literature. Sold out is the inscription on 
 it. The press, bought up for business jobs by the 
 rich. Its power to educate prostituted to make the 
 people believe in the rich. Truth, denied when 
 a lie serves the plot against society, of the rich. 
 The people s rightful Voice, for such is the news 
 paper press, degraded to an agency to blind, not 
 to enlighten, because Plutocracy and Enlighten 
 ment are enemies. For Plutocracy owns the press. 
 Books are like bills proposed in Congress : such as 
 can serve some financial interest are passed, all 
 others are killed in the Committee of Publishers. 
 Congress is not in its business for the health of 
 legislation or the Nation, nor are publishers in 
 their trade for the health of Literature or Man 
 kind; they are both concerned in the effect of bills 
 and books on their Wealth. Those writers alone 
 are permitted to give the world books who can pre 
 sumptively increase the publishers wealth. The 
 books that chiefly need to be written will not do 
 this. These books are the real literature of the age, 
 or would be if they came. They are not born be 
 cause the minds that could create them know they 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 213 
 
 would be written only for burial in their desks. 
 Nor have many who could make real books the in 
 come for leisure to produce them; and whoever 
 would honestly earn wealth for leisure would have 
 no vitality to invest in significant thinking and 
 writing afterward. While most of the volumes 
 that appear serve no end but the publishers , and 
 both literature and society would be better if they 
 had never seen the light, the mouths of thinkers 
 who are worth hearing are successfully closed and 
 their pens stilled. 
 
 "This/ said Margaret, finishing, "is what our 
 society, managed by the middle and plutocratic 
 classes, has done for literature. It has extermi 
 nated it. It has destroyed all taste for good read 
 ing, the literature of thoughts and originality, of 
 inspiration and action, of breadth and strength and 
 light, by suppressing its publication. The press is 
 more censored by the publishers test and gauntlet 
 of profits than a national bureau to expurgate all 
 good things could impoverish it. 
 
 "Could the working class do worse than this? 
 Is anything worse left to do ? 
 
 "One of the strongest forces toward the impend 
 ing revolution is the decision of the workers to en 
 ter into the Kingdom of Science, Literature and 
 Art. The saying that these things will die when 
 that class obliterates plutocracy is untrue. False 
 
214 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 literature and art will die, as they ought to. The 
 venal art for instance pursued for kings and capi 
 talists at which Leopold the Libertine, of Belgium, 
 gibed: Sculptors are forever talking of high art 
 because it s their business to be paid for disfigur 
 ing public parks and places with cross-eyed royal 
 /statues/ True art and literature and a science de 
 voted to universal life and happiness will live. 
 They will enter new fields and create new types. 
 The dreary vacuity of literature and art which 
 makes us marvel at their face to exist will give 
 place to magical products of strength and spirit. 
 The liberated genius of the working class will con 
 tribute most to this." 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 215 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE professor with the small shining eyes was 
 not satisfied; pulling something* from under his 
 chair he was on his feet again. 
 
 "You have carefully evaded the main issue," he 
 snapped. "I have a book here which demolishes 
 such ideas as yours very neatly/ 5 and he proceeded 
 to read : 
 
 "In exchange for their rations, which the ubiqui 
 tous theorists and agitators of our time promise 
 him, the worker would perform his work under 
 the surveillance of State functionaries, like so 
 many convicts under the eye and hand of the 
 warder. All individual motive would be stifled, 
 and each worker would rest, sleep, and eat at the 
 bidding of headmen put in authority over matters 
 of food,, work, recreation, and the perfect equality 
 of all. 
 
 "All stimulus being destroyed, no one would 
 
 *Le Bon. 
 
216 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 make an effort to ameliorate or to escape from his 
 position. It would be slavery of the gloomiest 
 kind, without a hope of enfranchisement. Under 
 the domination of the capitalist the worker can at 
 least dream of becoming, and sometimes does be 
 come a capitalist in his turn. What dream could 
 he indulge in under the anonymous and brutally 
 despotic tyranny of a levelling State which should 
 foresee all his needs and direct his will? Some 
 one has remarked that the social organization 
 would be very like that of the Jesuits of Paraguay. 
 Would it not resemble rather the organization of 
 the negroes on the old slave plantations ?" 
 
 "This indictment comes from what country?" 
 asked Margaret. 
 
 "France." 
 
 "And is an attack on the idea of substituting 
 popular ownership for capitalist ownership so that 
 the product of labor-capital work might be some 
 what nearly equally distributed?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Was not the idea of well diffused income that 
 on which America throve until 1860?" 
 
 "It was." 
 
 "But you think it would be dangerous now ?" 
 
 "Yes, since we have found how generous million 
 aires are to colleges I see that diffusion of income 
 would require central, collective ownership of 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 217 
 
 capital, the means of income, which would erect a 
 tyrannous State." 
 
 "Did not diffused, fairly equal incomes, by de 
 veloping the many, produce the many strong indi 
 viduals that built us into a great nation ?" 
 
 "I admit that." 
 
 "And you think that under headship of a few 
 giant capitalists popular strength will continue to 
 be generated?" 
 
 "By no means," hastened the professor. 
 
 "And you are willing to see it lost?" 
 
 "Not willing, because its loss will deplete our 
 national power, but as countries grow older there s 
 no way to save this individual popular strength. 
 We make up for it by increasing the number of 
 units, all lower ones." 
 
 "Your doctrine is one of despair then." 
 
 "The history of humanity compels it. The gos 
 pel of intelligence is enlightened despair." 
 
 "Of respectable, academic, plutocracy-fed in 
 telligence, yes, but not of popular, unfeminated in 
 telligence. Academies seldom know there is a pop-,/ 
 ular question till the people have solved it. The 
 problem of the age is establishment of approximate 
 equality of incomes. Capitalists say we shall have 
 state tyranny if we solve that. Why ? Because the 
 capitalist banditti are in the saddle of tyranny now 
 and want to stay, so they make up stories to 
 
218 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 frighten us. But we should look back. Before 
 1860 the people were carrying few of these capi 
 talist riders, the common people (not common 
 then) were well up toward equality, and the re 
 sult? All things went to produce happiness and 
 energy as seldom before in the world. 
 
 "It is crippled reasoning to conclude that those 
 whose fathers had ability to manage life well in 
 this country for ninety years under diffusion of 
 general income have not themselves ability to do it 
 again under new conditions, and do it without 
 state tyranny. Our people are trained to person 
 ally conduct industry; the generation that indi 
 vidually owned and managed has not yet passed; 
 only the last ten years have seen the dizzy growth 
 of monopoly transform the independent owner into 
 the hired commercial speck. The long-bred capac 
 ity for free control remains in the people, it should 
 be utilized and preserved before final extinction. 
 The restoration of liberty and initiative will come 
 by reinstating all in ownership ; that must be done 
 by their entrance as active partners into the pres 
 ent great organizations of industry. 
 
 "Where lies the State tyranny in this ? Where 
 the servitude of the workers ? What surveillance 
 by state functionaries is there, or workers like so 
 many convicts under the eye of the warder ? The 
 state does not take over the industries or conduct 
 

 The Monarch Billionaire. 219 
 
 them; the people collectively do not appropriate 
 
 them to a collective centralized ownership and 
 
 management; the people enter into the industries 
 
 as they are, as owners instead of hirelings, those 
 
 identified with each species of industry as em 
 
 ployes passing forward in it as partners. The 
 
 next great industrial step is for all men to be at V ^ 
 
 the same time workers, owners and directors in 
 
 the wide industrial corporations. The exclusive 
 
 capitalist owner of to-day totally disappears, all 
 
 become capitalist owners. 
 
 "This is the joint-stock idea broadened to in 
 clude every one and elicit the best faculty in all 
 by giving them the rewards of owning and the pro 
 gressive exercise of management; for after the 
 transition stage of training, direction would cen 
 tre in the joint ownership, as the management of 
 a democratic church organization does. Complete 
 self- or membership-government is easy to realize 
 when the spurious right of some to plunder 
 through private holding and its insatiate grasping- 
 ness is dissolved." 
 
 "A very pretty idea,* growled the professor, who 
 now began to see into it for the first time, "but it 
 will take a million years of education to get human 
 nature ready for it." 
 
 "Certainly it will, of present college education," 
 Margaret answered, "though I think it would need 
 
22O The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 two million; but it will not take ten years of an 
 intelligent, truthful, and direct education. Even 
 now you can hear the growing people splitting 
 the buttons of capitalism, although they don t 
 yet know what they will put on in its place. The 
 most conservative begin to see great social danger 
 if the people are not restored to fuller ownership. 
 A Chicago judge* lately said: 
 
 " The separation of labor from proprietorship, 
 the separate mobilization of these two forces as 
 enemies, instead of their commingling in com 
 mon interest, is the most unrepublican and menac 
 ing fact that now confronts the American people. 
 The consolidation idea, thus far, has accentuated 
 this menace. It has done what is still more 
 menacing: in narrowing the personnel of the pro 
 prietorship of the country it is detaching from 
 the friends of property the great liberal body of 
 citizenship. . . . Will the great body of the 
 people, excluded from participation in the prop 
 erty of the country, remain loyal to the order of 
 things to which property must look for its bul 
 wark? Can we expect a bystander to have the 
 interest of one who has a stake in events? Can 
 we invoke the name of America in an order of 
 events that, in their practical outcome, are essen 
 tially un-American and unrepublican? .... 
 
 *Grosscup. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 221 
 
 Not until the time when the property acquiring 
 instinct of the country is again unified upon a 
 basis fair alike to all, can we rest assured that the 
 outcome of the encounter need be no longer 
 feared/ 
 
 "The judge then asks what is such a fair basis, 
 and whether the people will under any conditions 
 to any large extent enter the field of corporate 
 ownership/ and his reply is wholly feeble. He 
 can only say that he believes they will when once 
 corporate organization and management are 
 cleared of pitfalls. Then, he thinks, the Ameri 
 can people will be found ready to take up again 
 their share in the proprietorship of the country/ 
 
 "But liow are they to get it? He does not tell 
 us, though this is the crux. Undoubtedly many 
 people would like to have back their share in pro 
 prietorship which the rich combines have taken 
 away from them. For example, those whom a 
 Eockefeller sent to the wall in forming the Stand 
 ard would doubtless like to have what he took of 
 theirs back, how are they to get it ? He (Eocke 
 feller) applied under-selling for destroying his 
 rivals market with the same deliberation and 
 persistency that characterized all his efforts, and 
 in the long run he always won/ A partner of 
 the Citizens Oil Eefining Company, of Pitts- 
 burg, testified to Congress: 
 
222 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 " In 1874 I went to see Kockefeller, to find 
 if we could make arrangements with him by which 
 we could run a portion of our works. It was a 
 very brief interview. He said there was no hope 
 for us at all. He remarked this I cannot give 
 the exact quotation "There is no hope for us," 
 and probably he said, "There is no hope for any 
 of us;" but he says "The weakest must go first." 
 And we went. 
 
 "The railroads discriminated in Eockefeller s 
 favor in freight rates, and this broke his rivals 
 down. It was a secret discrimination, in which 
 the roads violated their charters and repudiated 
 their honor toward the public. They had assured 
 the public that rates were equal, thus adding false 
 hood to crime. It was four years before those 
 who suffered from the discriminations were able 
 to get the railroad officials into court and secure 
 proof of them/ By that time the evil had been 
 done. The other day the Standard Company 
 paid $19,400,000 as a quarterly dividend of 20 
 per cent., of which Eockefeller alone received 
 $8,000,000, or nearly half. Its annual dividend 
 is about $80,000,000, its founder s part of this 
 $32,000,000. This is his reward for taking away 
 the independent business of all other oil refiners, 
 paid hrn by a grateful nation. How are those 
 whom he relieved to get their share in proprietor- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 223 
 
 ship back? Judge Grosscup does not say. This 
 hold-up stands as a permanency. The friends of 
 private property, as it is, never attempt to correct 
 past crimes and evils. They are satisfied if they 
 can prevent just enough future crimes to keep 
 the great principle of private property intact. 
 
 "However, that is what they cannot do. The 
 people ask how these great frauds of the past are 
 to be undone, and eternal tribute-paying based on 
 these frauds stopped. Nor will they ever rest 
 until they are undone. There is a great difference 
 between the popular mind and the mind that 
 lives on vested interests: the vested interest 
 minds are unconcerned about past crimes because 
 they more or less live on them. But the results 
 of a past crime are cumulative and imperishable 
 if the conditions of the crime are not removed. 
 Industrial absorption cannot be held stationary, 
 it has an internal law of its own, and has only 
 begun its work, the evolution of the Standard 
 crime which held up the nation has no limits and 
 no possible stoppage as property theories are. 
 Follow its course: 
 
 "Kockefeller s thirty-two million gift from the 
 people needs investment. With it he buys other 
 industries, making monopolies of them like the v " 
 Standard. By these his annual income is raised 
 to fifty, one hundred, two hundred millions. This 
 
224 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 he annually invests, buying, buying, buying indus 
 tries. He applies the same monopoly methods to 
 their management that gives the Standard 20 
 per cent, quarterly dividends. That method is 
 the simplest turn the screws on the public till 
 they disgorge what dividend you want. Turning 
 the screws is merely raising the price of a neces 
 sary product. You can do it by a word in the 
 telephone when you own all the industries that 
 make the product. When all American industries 
 are bought in by dividends thus screwed from 
 the people, the industries of the Old World, Asia 
 and Africa can be purchased with the aggregate 
 annual dividends. The whole world can be 
 swiped with a show of commercial honor after 
 the first unspeakable dishonor. The size of com 
 mercial honor is to screw from the country all 
 the dividend you can get, and undersell com 
 petitors till you have routed them out of business 
 and you have a monopoly of the whole thing. 
 
 "There is no thimble rigging* or pitfalls in 
 this; it is straight business of the honorable 
 curved business kind. Will the Chicago judge 
 tell how the people are to resume their proprietor 
 ship in these absorbed industries? He speaks as 
 if they all had but to debonairly decide to take a 
 partnership with the absorbers, and the thing were 
 done. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 225 
 
 "Evidently they can do no such thing. The 
 same wealth-gathering power of large property 
 which made the first steps possible ensures the 
 full completion of the process; indeed, that power 
 is far more intensely operative now because the 
 concentrated aggregates of property are so pro 
 digiously greater. The people are ousted lastingly 
 from proprietorship. The Trusts make all the 
 money and the people cannot save any to buy into 
 them. If they save, the screws of price are turned 
 and away flow the savings back to the Trusts. 
 The people now have no stake in the industry of 
 the country. The people are now facing the great 
 Absorbers as enemies. They see them clearly at 
 last as commercial bandits and buccaneers. The 
 condition which the Chicago jurist feared is here 
 The separation of labor from proprietorship, 
 the separate mobilization of these two forces as 
 enemies/ This most unrepublican, un-American, 
 menacing fact now exists. 
 
 "It is clear, too, that there is but one way out 
 of it. That is by ousting the ousters. The few 
 absorbers may try to buy up support for what 
 they have done (support of the rights of property 
 they call it, support of the privilege of unlimited 
 freebooting being what it is) by some sort of 
 stock distribution on easy terms among the class 
 that has still a remnant left to buy with, thus 
 
226 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 aiming to engage that class to defend their in^ 
 terests. This will fail. The old sore of past rob 
 bery will not close. And the great buccaneers 
 are too greedy. Some new unprincipled plunger 
 will arise any minute and sweep in all these help 
 less small fry have left. (They call him unprin 
 cipled because he does not limit himself to sharing 
 tricks with his colleague absorbers, but plays a 
 lone game.) There is no more ruth than real in 
 telligence among the Great Gang. They will 
 again fleece this small fry, and then will have it 
 all against them. 
 
 "But it is now too late to bribe the little capital 
 ists with the bones of concession, anyway. A man 
 once sand-bagged and robbed does not feel easy 
 alone with his robber anywhere, even if the rob 
 ber offers him a dollar of the thousands he stole, 
 at a low rate of interest. It is going to be hard 
 for the Great Gang to get its collar back on the 
 men they have already stripped so unconscionably. 
 
 "However, there is a final entirely new aspect 
 of the case. The attitude of the great mass of 
 the people, whose base is composed of the muscular 
 class, has changed. The hand toilers have a new 
 idea of property learned from the brilliant fraud 
 by which the people were juggled of proprietor 
 ship. They know that under this private property 
 regime they can never be safe; they will never 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 227 
 
 trust it in its present shape again. They are 
 always at the mercy of those who have robbed 
 them of all stake in the country. The methods 
 used for it have taught them what great private 
 fortunes rest on always either on fraud or a 
 form of screwing, which is fraud. But their great ^ 
 illumination is this : the colossal frauds or absorp 
 tions have given their few conductors a simply 
 stupendous cinch on the nation s labor and 
 wealth ; their vantage now for perpetual extraction 
 of wealth from the people is infinite. The fraud 
 does not stop, it goes on, the people forever paying 
 the bill. This huge owning of everything by the 
 few and their collection of huge dividends because 
 they own immense annual robbings because of 
 the gigantic success of their first mighty steal- 
 make the many, commercial valets of the Great 
 Gang. 
 
 "A position which the inheritors of the Ameri 
 can continent repudiate. And their repudiation 
 means Change. The past crimes must be righted. 
 Sons of the men who fired King George will ditch 
 Pocket-Book Kings. 
 
 "Now the people cannot annul past wrongs 
 without all of them returning to proprietorship. 
 It would soothe Grosscup if enough could share 
 proprietorship on a small scale to keep the rest 
 out and awed. Every vested interest intellect 
 
228 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 would like that. Happily the sentiment is senile. 
 The new doctrine of the world is that all have a 
 right to own, that all must own, that all shall 
 own. When this doctrine is grasped, the modern 
 position of mankind is mastered. Days, years 
 and decades should be spent by vested interest in 
 tellects to comprehend this. Exclusion ownership 
 is ended. Curse the fact, deny it, refute it it 
 remains. Property henceforth goes round Man, 
 not man round Property. 
 
 "The whole people have seen demonstrated how 
 the few got their wealth away. That lesson was 
 laid on welt after welt with a commercial raw 
 hide. Out of the people came the monstrous pri 
 vate wealth, back to the people it must go. 
 
 "How? Logically by the full individual part 
 nership of all in these Trusts. 
 
 "It is impossible to sift out now of how much 
 each has been robbed; that were needless. A 
 restoration to his share in the energies of pro 
 duction is equitable restoration. The constitution 
 of an order in which none can be robbed again. 
 That is perpetual equity. 
 
 "The industrial trend focuses to this solution. 
 The movements to take the people partially in 
 by profit sharing and the sale of fractional stock 
 to the workers are signs of the breeze that will soon 
 be a tempest. The principle that they must own 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 229 
 
 in the works begins to be recognized, they will 
 do the rest. For the principle is a travesty unless 
 the ownership is equal. The industries cannot be 
 divided up among the people, they cannot be split 
 again into little private industries, the advantages 
 of consolidation, mass-capital, and labor saving 
 cannot be lost, yet the few shall not engorge the 
 benefits: therefore, to restore the people to pro 
 prietorship, give them a stake in the country, re 
 move the menace of class war, make the nation 
 again republican and American, and give the 
 people the benefit of inventions, machinery and 
 industry which they made and built up, the people 
 one and all must be accepted as owning equals 
 into the great concerns/ 
 
230 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 CHAPTEB XIX. 
 
 "You have the faith of ignorance/ retorted 
 another professor., with sarcasm; "it is clear you 
 are uneducated. 7 
 
 Margaret continued: 
 
 "The plan before you conforms to the native 
 Anglo-Saxon principle of local self-government. 
 Collective ownership nationally might turn out to 
 he monarchical. All centralizing of management 
 is monarchical. Whether the collective ownership 
 is centralized in a State such as we now have, or in 
 a theoretically popularized State, the principle 
 and the result might be monarchical. There would 
 need to be a hierarchy of managers on a large 
 scale, representative of the people and elected by 
 the people, but this would not be popular self- 
 management. The great size invites direction 
 from above on a corresponding scale, which in so 
 much weakens individual control. The American 
 system of political representative government is 
 but an adaptation of monarchical government, and 
 only a slight departure from it. The people do 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 231 
 
 not rule though they intend and pretend to. 
 Their agent-representatives (or the wealth-clique 
 that directs their representatives) rule. 
 
 "This is inevitable. Delegated people always 
 arrogate power not given them by their electors 
 and make themselves an over-class. Centraliza 
 tion plays helplessly into the hands of this usur 
 pation. The individual becomes less, the machine 
 more. At length the machine is all. Be it ec 
 clesiastical,, political, or industrial machine, the 
 law holds. Freedom, development and general 
 strength are secured by increasing the direct ac 
 tion of individuals without the intervention of 
 delegated agents. It is delegated agents that 
 make a machine; when on the contrary all com 
 ponent individuals act together directly it is a 
 sound living organism. In proportion as you add 
 self-sustained strength to the units you increase 
 the volume of power of the whole. Monarchies 
 and representative republics have wilfully strayed 
 from this law; capitalist industries have naturally 
 copied them in forgetting it. The overweening 
 instinct to be a king or a tribal chief over men in 
 politics, religion, and industry, succeeds from 
 men letting their representatives escape them, 
 which escape is the prime property, prosperity, 
 and conspiracy of representatives. The cure is 
 abolition of representatives. 
 
232 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 "Germany is a nation where self-government is 
 least and centralization greatest; ideas of central 
 and collective ownership thrive there best. The 
 French have been trained for many centuries to 
 look to their State for initiative ; there the idea of 
 general collective ownership guided from above 
 finds effusive welcome. Action from diffused, lo 
 cal and personal initiative is more congenial to 
 England, but it is supremely in accord with Amer 
 ican nature, principles, and history. Not be 
 cause we are brighter or have a drop more of nerve 
 fluid, but because we were formed apart on an un 
 tamed virgin continent running over with opu 
 lence. Our acquired traits have been vitally 
 strengthened by the circumstance that for a cen 
 tury and a quarter we have psychologically be 
 lieved with sacrosanct intensity that we enjoy en 
 tire political equality and self-direction such as 
 light never shined on in space. The psychological 
 consequence has been somewhat the same as if we 
 had possessed these boons. We have built up an 
 intellectual certainty of our right to have them, 
 from which it is very probable that in the near 
 day we shall have them. 
 
 "Having learned that representative govern 
 ment and our political system are not self-gov 
 ernment we meet two substratal problems: how to 
 secure a system of true political self -management, 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 233 
 
 and how to avoid running our industries into the 
 same mould that has misshaped and wrecked our 
 politics a mould which proved to be monarch 
 ical, produced a political abortion, and must now 
 be revised. The system of self-directing indus 
 trial groups, their units owning the plants, will 
 realize both of these purposes. The federated 
 action of the groups, in team with the modified 
 State representing the people in their wholeness, 
 will, I have shown you, prevent the industrial 
 partnerships from falling into rivalries; individ 
 ual freedom and the measureless benefits of or 
 ganization are combined by them ; all workers and 
 all men obtain complete enfranchisement; there 
 are no classes; man would have laid off the com 
 mercial beast and taken on the beauty and power 
 of humanity." 
 
 Margaret begged the professor to hand forward 
 the book that had supported him, that she might 
 re-read a choice passage. 
 
 "Under the domination of the capitalist the 
 worker can at least dream of becoming, and some 
 times does become, a capitalist in his turn. What 
 dream could he indulge in under the anonymous 
 and brutally despotic tyranny of a levelling State 
 which should foresee all his needs and direct his 
 will?" 
 
 "What an offer! What an impertinence to the 
 
234 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 empire of toil ! But as one of the unevictable own 
 ers of the world the worker would not have to 
 starve on dreams. What a sea of pathos in those 
 words the worker can at least dream of becom 
 ing a capitalist in his turn; and sometimes does 
 become one! How often? How many of them 
 become such ! Do you imagine that men can live 
 forever on fraudulent dreams? And capitalism, by 
 the swift solidifying of its organization, is shat 
 tering the frail substance of that simple dream. 
 Less and less can the rare workingman break his 
 way through the bastions of capital. This stern 
 fact is wringing rueful admission from capitalists 
 own apostles. One of them says:* 
 
 " Persons of exceptional ability are still able 
 to force their way to the highest rungs on the 
 social ladder, but those with ordinary attainments 
 and abilities can hardly hope ever to advance to 
 the grade above them. There are larger and 
 larger numbers of people who feel that they have 
 never had a chance of improving their position, 
 and who resent the institutions of society which 
 have condemned them and so many of their fel 
 lows to a life of drudgery. 
 
 "But what have you to offer the myriad work- 
 ingmen to compensate for limiting their chance to 
 rise to one in possibly five hundred thousand or a 
 * Cunningham. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 235 
 
 million? This economist like most others falls 
 back on the ruse of giving them heaven in reward 
 for their earthly drudgery,, but since the heaven- 
 lure in its original form is worn out he changes its 
 name and calls his motive for their drudgery 
 character/ This is supposed by economists, poli 
 ticians, theologians, and capitalists to be heaven 
 inside of you, not in your stomach or nerves of 
 feeling but in your soul, a safe deposit for such 
 things, which cannot be located. We must re 
 member/ he pleads, that the highest development 
 of character is quite compatible with accepting a 
 [low] place in the social order and making the 
 most of it. It is a mistake to assume that limita 
 tion of opportunity . . . must necessarily in 
 volve degradation/ 
 
 "Now this is what was told the slave. He could 
 develop his character as well in slavery as in 
 freedom. What more could he want than devel 
 opment of his character? Why should you yearn 
 for freedom, with that pearl of all price in you, 
 character? for freedom was nothing .compared 
 with character. But ask the white man if he will 
 give up freedom and take slave-character-develop 
 ment for it. Is it not recognized that nothing is 
 worse for the master as well as slave than the 
 slave s slavery? that the talk of developing char 
 acter outside of perfect freedom is a pompous fie- 
 
236 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 tion ? Under the iron capitalist regime approach 
 ing there can be no character for the huge cohorts 
 of workers, for not a man of them will be free. 
 Except a few brilliant accidents they will all die 
 where they were born, having drudged all their 
 monotonous lives. Your French author when he 
 said All stimulus being destroyed, no one would 
 make an effort to ameliorate or to escape from his 
 position it would be slavery of the gloomiest kind, 
 without a hope of enfranchisement/ was accu 
 rately describing monarchical industry as it is 
 unfolding, although aspiring to be its apologist." 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 237 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A PROFESSOR of Sociology expressed his wish to 
 be heard. 
 
 "I believe/ said he, modestly, "that I am the 
 first who has scientifically placed the rich man on 
 his proper economic pedestal. I boldly admit that 
 nearly all private wealth of the rich has been un 
 earned by the owners. That gives me a title to 
 economic fame, for although we all know it well 
 every thinker has shuddered at the dangers of al 
 lowing it as a doctrine. I dared, and have cleared 
 the rocks. We economists are like doctors, if we 
 blab the truth we should lose our patients and what 
 could we then do with the mysteries of 
 our brains? we might have to be use 
 ful to earn our daily bread. So we need 
 to fabricate big systems of nonsense to show 
 the spellbound population our ability, and then, 
 not understanding a tenth that we say, nor 
 understanding it ourselves, when we let out a 
 plain simple truth now and then, which they know 
 
238 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 to be true, and which could have been told a hun 
 dred times better without a confusion system, they 
 shout at our depth and hire us to teach their boys 
 our fairy tales of nonsense philosophy. They 
 wouldn t think we had a bit of sense if we didn t 
 bluff them with a circus of scholarly nonsense. 
 And that no one may take them for fools for be 
 lieving in us when we talk pure incomprehensible 
 rot which they want to believe to be a spouting 
 geyser of sagacity, they put body guards on our 
 names of ominous detachments of letters, Pro 
 fessor Doctor A. M. Ph.D. LL.D., which have 
 as much sense as our quackery systems, which 
 mean nothing to them or anybody, but stupefy 
 the public and their children into blithering 
 respect for us. We earn our salaries by those let 
 ters. They defend the rich. Dear knows what 
 we should do for life if they asked us for anything 
 clean and square. It isn t in us. But the rich 
 don t pay for the clean and square ; if you want to 
 sell, have what the rich want to buy. Sell your 
 soul for your stomach s sake, is the first economic 
 doctrine. Stomachs were made before souls. 
 
 "So we teach our soap-bubble systems of non 
 sense to youth in colleges to make them pass with 
 the awe-stricken public for profundities like our 
 selves when they defend the rich. For defending 
 the rich is the great gold brick of which the glori- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 239 
 
 ous three-card-monte sciences of Economy and So 
 ciology travail and toil, steam and smoke and 
 howl,, to deliver themselves. 
 
 "I bare my soul fearlessly because I find that 
 our heavy respectabilities trust me more naturally 
 when I confess that I am a fraud. 
 
 "Now from time to time we have to shift our 
 economic station and burn new Bengal lights of 
 intelligence to blind popular insight. I have done 
 this in my new work. We are driven by the dan 
 gerous growth of knowledge in the masses to aban 
 don the soft old feather-bed postulate that the rich 
 earn their wealth. That, permit me to observe, is 
 gas. And now as rich men s economic attorneys, 
 we re called on for brand-new reasons, with the 
 trade-mark of God and Nature on them, why the 
 earners of nothing are entitled to relatively every 
 thing. You might suppose that would phase 
 e-ven a thinker. But you can t rattle the econo 
 mists when a job is in sight. They can think out 
 anything, easiest of all they can think the working 
 class out of a living. They get a better one them 
 selves for doing it, and that s why they do it. I m 
 one and know. 
 
 "Well, we not only can show the masses that 
 they cannot have what they earn, but like king- 
 magicians we show them that it is better for them 
 not to have what they earn. But wait, we ll amaze 
 
240 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 your dreams : we ll establish the eye-blistering par 
 adox that the rich in a way create the riches they 
 do not create.* It is easy for thinkers to set up 
 and tear down nature s axioms. The rich create 
 riches which they do not create by their use of the 
 riches other people create. Now it is done and Po 
 litical Economy has weathered the Horn. Now let 
 us get down to thinking and I will prove myths in 
 detail." 
 
 The professor loosened his cravat, asked for a 
 glass of water and proceeded. 
 
 "First, I will name the sources of private wealth 
 to show that the rich never earned what they have. 
 The sword, slaves, use of political power, special 
 legislation, grab bills, bought bills. These are 
 numerous in Albany and scarce nowhere. This is 
 the get-rich-quick specialty of first citizens. 
 Tariffs. Foreign trade with uncivilized peoples, 
 exploiting them. Civilizing the uncivilized [Phil 
 ippines]. Monopolized inventions, usually by a 
 capitalist, not the inventor. Differential gains, al 
 ways unfair. Monopolies. Scarcities, by which 
 the people are robbed. Discoveries of nature s 
 gifts to all (minerals, land) and private seizure 
 of them. Successful gambling, stock speculating, 
 corners. Immense charges for personal services, 
 never earned. Fraud of all kinds; adulteration. 
 
 * Devas. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 241 
 
 Extortion. Wrecking great properties. Watering 
 stock, forcing the public to pay dividends on non 
 existent capital. Consolidations watering the 
 labor saved into new fictitious capital on paper. 
 Wage exploitation, that is, payment of a wage less 
 than the sum the workers create. Unearned in 
 crease of land values. Interest. Rent. Unjust 
 use of power over judges, courts and laws. 
 
 "In fact the rich have all become so by system 
 atic confiscation from the workers. We do not give 
 the laborer all the product of his industry by a 
 long stretch and we do not intend to. As that fa 
 mous Austrian savant, Dr. Menger, audaciously 
 confesses : The legally recognized existence of 
 unearned income proves in itself that our law of 
 property does not even aim at obtaining for the 
 laborer the whole product of his industry/ And 
 he explains: The owner s title to unearned in 
 come is founded., not in economic conditions, but 
 in a positive legal enactment, and it is peculiarly 
 important in the case of such property that his 
 title should be supported by corresponding effect 
 ual power/ 
 
 "The learned Doctor is, however, amazingly 
 careless and even censurably reckless to publicly 
 found the right of unearned property on law and 
 force. What is that but telling the workers there is 
 no right whatever but might ? He tells the work- 
 
242 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 ers that through all the ages their property has 
 been taken from them by those with effectual 
 power/ That means robbed by chicanery backed 
 by force, for of course if you have no right to a 
 thing but make a law saying you have a right to 
 it, that is chicanery; and since force is the only 
 agency that makes a chicanery law valid, the sole 
 basis of the unearned riches of the rich in all the 
 ages has been Force. Menger makes the right of 
 the rich to rob the creators of their wealth rest 
 upon pure Might. But this is a very dynamite 
 doctrine, for the toilers now have the Might. 
 
 "Menger assures the rich that law and force con 
 fer right to take unearned property from its cre 
 ators: but how much more then do they give the 
 right to its creators and earners to take the prop 
 erty non-earners have taken from them back ! Sup 
 pose law and force give men a moral right to hold 
 their robbings: the robbed have but to pass laws 
 and put forth force to retake and morally own 
 their own. This reasoning is clinching; the work 
 ers are entitled to exercise the methods of their 
 fleecers to reverse the situation in their favor. 
 Menger should be adjudged insane for telling the 
 truth. A religious flyer on his doctrine was needed 
 to make a good sane lie of it. He should have 
 rested the owner s right on Eeligion as I do, which 
 quiets and appeases the nether masses and teaches 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 243 
 
 them that force can only be used with divine pro 
 priety by those whose riches entitle them to the 
 blessings of the Lord. I tremble to think of the 
 incendiary consequences of Menger s bravado. 
 
 "Since we are now obliged by popular discovery 
 of facts to admit that the great fortunes have al 
 ways been great grabs, made and sustained by con 
 fiscation, how are we to re-reconcile private con 
 fiscated riches to the great laws of Right which 
 we must manufacture in our brains to awe the 
 people ? I have laid the correct foundations in my 
 work on The Justice of Confiscation. I show 
 that Increase of Population, Art, the Glory of the 
 State, and Eeligion, are the bulwarks and right 
 eousness of confiscation. Turn to the Civilized 
 Theory of Servant and Master on page four hun 
 dred and eighty-three.* There I say: 
 
 " The relation of master and servant must be 
 well understood if we are to understand the signifi 
 cance of accumulated property in civilized coun 
 tries. For such property implies rights not only 
 over things "but also over persons. But these rights 
 would be an idle name unless conferring an advan 
 tage on tlie holder; whence it is obvious, as al 
 ready stated, that the person over whom the prop 
 erty-owner has rights, must yield if he be an in 
 dustrial servant, a surplus product* and that this 
 
 * Devas. 
 
244 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 surplus constitutes for the master an unearned 
 income/ 
 
 "Old Dr. Johnson rejected as a fantastic opinion 
 the idea that inequality should be abolished and 
 none should domineer over another. Mankind are 
 happier in a state of inequality and subordina 
 tion/ says that autocrat of intelligence. The dom 
 ineering and the domineered rejoice in the situa 
 tion. It calls out very blessed virtues on both 
 sides. When the workers understand the four 
 reasons for inequality and the right of the few to 
 confiscate their labor, they will be the warmest sup 
 porters of the rights of being confiscated from and 
 of being domineered over. Attend now to these 
 reasons. 
 
 "I. Industrial organization requires inequality. 
 For with men as they are, the eagerness to make a 
 fortune and live in ease and abundance is a needed 
 spur to concerted labor, elaborate production, im 
 provements, and inventions. Without this motive 
 the increase of population and corresponding sub 
 jugation of the earth would be hindered/ " 
 
 "Let me answer one argument at a time," re 
 quested Margaret. "Have you anything to add?" 
 
 "I might add that the rich are of great value to 
 the poor by devoting a part of the surplus which 
 they confiscate to their welfare. Thus in a sense 
 the rich really earn their confiscated income by 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 245 
 
 giving part of it back to the poor from whom they 
 take it." 
 
 "Is that an original argument with you ?" asked 
 Margaret. 
 
 "Yes, on page four ninety-six of my book." 
 
 "Pray go on, Professor, you improve your case 
 every time you speak." 
 
 The learned scholar continued : "I will state an 
 other important discovery of mine. There must 
 be a surplus indeed, or there could be no rich peo 
 ple; and in this sense the poor support the rich. 
 But precisely the prospect of being a recipient of 
 the surplus is the ground of much of the industrial 
 energy, skill and proficiency which renders a sur 
 plus possible; and in that sense the rich support 
 the poor. That is to say, the poor who create all 
 the wealth are stimulated to do so and to increase 
 the surplus wealth by the knowledge that it is to be 
 mostly taken from them by the idle. In this way 
 the rich certainly earn their incomes by inciting 
 the poor to work harder through the knowledge 
 that if they do not all will be taken from them and 
 they will have nothing. Put as a law, The cer 
 tainty of the poor that the product of their toil will 
 be confiscated is the incentive which causes them to 
 produce a surplus to be confiscated. From which 
 it is demonstrated that the poor would be worse 
 
246 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 off without the rich because they would work much 
 less and have much more." 
 
 "Professor," said Margaret, dazed hy the bewil 
 dering logic of the recondite collegian she had lis 
 tened to, "the eagerness to make a fortune and 
 live in ease does not spur the idle upper class to 
 actually work creatively and produce wealth, but 
 rather to scrape about for a scheme to get a surplus 
 income from the real toilers without working for 
 it. That is not work, it is cultured crookedness ; 
 the prize you bait men with incites to gentlemanly 
 confiscation, not usefulness. And it is not the 
 hope of making a fortune that causes the poor to 
 labor so terribly, for they have no such hope, the 
 countless mass of them know infallibly that they 
 cannot do it and yet they work. This refutes 
 you. Men will work without the bribe of a for 
 tune. They will give out all that is in them in 
 toil without the cowardly anticipation of stealing 
 from the toil of others. For I know of nothing so 
 cowardly withal as the capitalist s basis of life. 
 Yes, these workers toil strenuously and fiercely 
 without the slightest expectation of anything but 
 existence for it. And if you added to their hope of 
 existence the certainty of having all they produce 
 instead of the certainty of being robbed of the bulk 
 of it, they would, it is self-evident, work more in 
 telligently and ably, and society would be richer 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 247 
 
 than now by all that increase, in place of poorer. 
 If you also coerced the drone surplus-receivers to- 
 actual work, to earn instead of stealing, there 
 would be still more riches and still more incentive. 
 
 "It is needless for me to prove the worthless- 
 ness of a population of drudges, or of subjugating 
 the earth to give the few masters a larger crop of 
 domineered and pauperized labor from which to 
 extort their fabulous waste. Who but an econo 
 mist would dare set the luxuries of a small box 
 ful of financial .sheiks against the weal of an en 
 tire world ? You will have to try another defense 
 of inequality." 
 
 The professor now read his second argument. 
 
 "II. The development of science, beautiful lit 
 erature, music and arts, requires an upper class 
 provided with leisure and servants; and therefore 
 requires inequality; and therefore inequality is 
 necessary to man s welfare/ 
 
 "Science, music, literature, and arts/ 7 said Mar 
 garet, "are not goods in and for themselves, they 
 are only so for people. For those whom they do 
 not reach they are not blessings, they do not even 
 exist. The poor, the most of the population, are 
 prisoned away from these delights, which for 
 them are nothing in every sense. Is the growth of 
 these matters which do not touch them of the 
 faintest consequence to them ? Shall they and their 
 
248 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 off-births down the ages groan on to produce va 
 cant abstractions which might be in Mars for 
 them,, and are only realities and luxuries for oth 
 ers? To do so assumes those abstractions to be a 
 good apart from people a limpid absurdity or 
 that their engrossers attain through them an in 
 trinsic worth warranting the self-erasure of the 
 masses. Do science, literature and art result so 
 gloriously in the characters of these monopolists 
 that most of mankind are right in reducing them 
 selves to mere fertilizers of the soil for these illus 
 trious elect to flourish in? 
 
 "No such resultant bloom greets us in the per 
 sonalities of the art and science-favored. Art, 
 science, and literature are not for them objects of 
 high and generous pursuit, inspiring great and in 
 telligent lives, but means of selfish gratification, a 
 sordid exclusive luxury; or, with their anointed 
 apostles and producers, the bread and luxury gain 
 ing trade. We do not find scientists, artists, mu 
 sicians or the literary caste possessed of large 
 hearts or noble mental vision; their thoughts of 
 justice and humanity are as petty and pusillani 
 mous as those of the commerical mob; their 
 psychic delicacy and responsiveness are too slight 
 to be moved to devotion to the high rights and 
 possibilities of the human race. Heavily and dully 
 they take society as fixed and abide its wrongs with 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 249 
 
 artistic content ; if prodded they flute the nursery 
 sageness We must accept the order of nature. 
 The roue cynic scientist is the unholiest attribute 
 of the All-Deity. The order of nature is the order 
 of those who order their pictures, music, or books, 
 or who lift them into the precious peace and com 
 petence of a laboratory. The buyers of art, its 
 rich second-hand enjoyers, make it a ray in the 
 headlight of their billionairy triumph, which tes 
 tifies itself to man by display. 
 
 "These are the princely qualities that are fer 
 tilized by the self -destroying drudgery of the hu 
 man drove. 
 
 "And what other should we expect of the art and 
 science owning classes? They fail in the funda 
 mental test put to them as human beings : they are 
 willing to receive art and all thinkable enjoyment 
 from others as a gift ; they accept it as pensioners 
 from the masses, making no return ; they are pau 
 pers to the toiling people, who donate them sup 
 port and pleasure, as parents do spoiled and sloth 
 ful children for nothing. They naturally reach 
 out for all they can get, as spongy beneficiaries 
 ever do. They come to think their idleness and 
 uselessness a pillar of mankind. Art would not be 
 produced if it were not done for us, they argue, 
 and see how necessary art is. The world would 
 hardly be the world without it. But necessary for 
 
250 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 what ? for whom ? To give these unnecessary per 
 sons a few more savory sensations. 
 
 "Can anything very distinguished in value 
 germinate from people who accept this false and 
 detestable position? If they were sound they 
 would determine to pay for what they have, to 
 pay their debts. They would see that those who 
 furnish them livelihood and the substance to pur 
 chase science and art, should receive equivalent in 
 return that is they would earn their own living 
 and not filch it as an unearned income secured to 
 them safely by law and force. 
 
 "But as they shirk this and gladly embrace the 
 post of social paupers they may be trusted to be 
 have in other respects as paupers and only to de 
 velop pauper virtues. Little that is good can come 
 from a mob so low in the scale of intelligence as 
 not even to see the universal injury of draining 
 the lives of others. Art, science, literature, music, 
 can make nothing valuable of such. Neither do 
 they. And these charity-receivers, cultured at 
 the cost of the poor, can make nothing valuable of 
 themselves without first canceling their funda 
 mental sin, and paying for their existence. 
 
 "Would you know the moral grade to which 
 many of our artists sink under the patronage of 
 these unearned-income takers, look to what uses 
 they abase their talents. Because there is so slight 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 251 
 
 encouragement to growing art from the monarch s 
 of the purse, just for the necessaries of life some 
 are consuming their genius manufacturing hideous 
 corrupting cartoons in ink and paint for the de 
 filement of the nation through the Sunday press. 
 Good men would starve first. Why this rolling in 
 the mire ? Because art is for the few and is not for 
 the people. Wealth being stored in the big bags 
 of the few,, the many cannot buy or further art. 
 If they could, they would not be paying immortal 
 ity figures for dead men s work but would be pur 
 chasing the products of the living, helping them to 
 live, not at stupid exorbitant prices but at fair 
 ones that would give the artists security and free 
 dom to evolve the true art in them. And the 
 masses of art enjoyers, the people, would then de 
 velop a true sense and taste for art, such as the 
 present surface-display classes never do. Which 
 of the methods is better for the blooming and 
 splendor of art, music, literature, and science for 
 the same reasoning is true of them all ? 
 
 "But I say again, the apostles of these things 
 are chiefly blameworthy, for having been blessed 
 with peculiar opportunities of intelligence they 
 neglect liberty, justice, and equality, through 
 which alone all the high pursuits thrive, and like 
 serfs and lackeys sell themselves to cater to the 
 purse-proud, receiving starvation, or soup and 
 contempt." 
 
252 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXI. 
 
 THE professor did not deign an answer, but 
 read his third argument to establish the righteous 
 ness of unearned incomes and inequality. 
 
 "III. It is impossible without accumulated 
 riches and great inequality of incomes to attain 
 any great development of political life ; nor could 
 any one exult in the possession of a noble father 
 land, or the citizenship of a great empire. In 
 truth, the mighty fabric of an imperial State is 
 no mere aggregate of equal parts or of equal part 
 ners, but implies inequality of parts, and subordi 
 nation as the requisite of order." 
 
 Margaret once more restrained her amazement 
 at the good man s naive apology and said : 
 
 "There was notable evenness of fortunes and of 
 social equality for nearly a hundred years in this 
 country, and the state survived and waxed great. 
 What now threatens its subversion and violent 
 overthrow is inequality, the congestion of wealth 
 in the plethoric veins of some and inanition every 
 where else. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 253 
 
 "Our Commercial Bureau figures the worth of 
 our internal commerce, the wealth we produce for 
 exchange annually, at twenty billion dollars. In 
 1850 it was only two billion, now ten times greater. 
 The population is but 3-J- times more than then, 
 the wealth having multiplied three times faster 
 than the population. Had wealth remained as 
 equitably spread as even in 1850 all would be at 
 least three times better off than they were at that 
 time. 
 
 "But we did not then have our Czars of Produc 
 tion. Now an Oil Czar lifts the price $1.47 a bar 
 rel to profit by the coal strike, and in five months 
 transfers six million dollars from the people s 
 pockets to his own. Each King of a Product does 
 likewise. The millions are pauperized and the 
 Czars bulge into multi-billionaires. The halcyon 
 days before 1850 are already enshrined as the 
 golden memory of a mystic regime of mankind. 
 
 "What ha ve the depleted citizens to be proud 
 of in such a State ? What is the State become but 
 the Force that protects their depleters, the police 
 agency that executes their eviction? Such a 
 state is no friend of the many, but is the mercenary 
 guard that holds the rifle over them in its paid 
 office of awing them to submit to their naught- 
 earning, all-seizing plunderers. The people are 
 like -convicts sentenced by an industrial autocracy. 
 
254 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 Do you fancy they will be proud of their overseers ? 
 and cheer for their overseers flag? Would you 
 have asked the negro slaves to be proud of the 
 United States Government which chased them 
 back into bondage? Are the political prisoners, 
 deported by Russian State Majesty to Siberia for 
 asking their rights, proud of the Russian State? 
 The State is everywhere the monster machine for 
 guaranteeing the incomes to those who do not 
 earn them, and for branding and condemning as 
 criminals those who attempt to maintain their 
 own/ 
 
 "Patriotism is a virtue you don t seem to have," 
 remarked the professor ironically. 
 
 "Do you pretend that these State-disrupters and 
 people s-wealth monopolists are patriots?" de 
 manded Margaret. "They have patriotism for 
 the state machine, as long as it is their private 
 sheriff to supply force to back their raids on the 
 incomes of the people. Should the state be just, 
 their patriotism would turn to gnashing rage. 
 
 "I am patriotic for a state that exists for Equal 
 ity, and a World-State where all who work shall be 
 brothers and they who will not work shall be 
 quarantined as defectives, for reform." 
 
 "A world I could not possibly enjoy, nor any 
 cultured man," drawled the scholar with disgust. 
 "But now I come to my grand argument, the im- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 255 
 
 pregnable defenses of a drone class, Morality and 
 Religion. How great a thing is Religion ! How 
 many slaves has it not delivered from tempta 
 tion by delivering them to the hangman ! 
 
 "IV. Although without inequality many virtues 
 can be practised, yet a multitude of others re 
 quire inequality for their existence, reverence, obe 
 dience, innumerable deeds of kindness, generosity, 
 self-denial, and submission to the dispositions of 
 Providence ; all of them virtues of singular fitness 
 for man on earth ; where, as natural theology and 
 ethics teach us, the immediate end of man is pre 
 cisely the exercise of virtues. 
 
 "Christianity adds to these reasons its own pe 
 culiar arguments on the dignity and blessings of 
 poverty. By equalizing all men, rich and poor, as 
 partakers of the same religious mysteries, it 
 teaches them to regard inequalities of wealth and 
 power as minor matters/ 
 
 The wise man was not laughing, he was reading 
 from a book which he* had seriously composed to 
 prove that while the rich do not earn their wealth 
 they are yet entitled to it ; and Margaret did not 
 laugh at him. 
 
 "You would trade the religious mysteries off 
 against bread and butter, education, health, leis 
 ure, liberty, the right of bloom and happiness in 
 
 * Devas. 
 
256 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 this world, against everything but drudgery you 
 would leave the people drudgery, and religious 
 mysteries/ she said with scorn in her voice. 
 "And to the rich you give all these good things, 
 and the religious mysteries besides. Strange peo 
 ple they are, hardly human one would say, who 
 would let you parcel out the things of life for 
 them like that! The masses can have their share 
 of all the good things and the mysteries as well, 
 when they want them. 
 
 "You helaud the virtues of inequality : there are 
 none. They are called so by masters, because 
 from their point of view obedience, servility, and 
 the reverent attitude of the slave, dependent, or 
 hired server, are his best qualifications hence are 
 given whole chapters in .the ethic books as virtues. 
 Not a whit of virtue have they. In free people they 
 are vices. The equal and free co-operate; they 
 name a foreman and take his advice not his or 
 ders not as a superior but as a specialist in one 
 range of action, while in some other respects each 
 of them has his own superiority. Wherever there 
 is obedience from a sense of subordination and in 
 feriority it shows the absence and not the presence 
 of virtue. In a community of the intelligent the 
 demand for obedience suggesting inequality would 
 be an insult. 
 
 "Political and social degeneration invariably 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 257 
 
 appear when respect is given to office, implying the 
 elevation of its occupant. This is one of the base 
 remnants of monarchy still prevalent in our re 
 public. Yet no one in any office is actually ele 
 vated one small inch by it, nor is there such a 
 thing as greatness derived from place. There is 
 advertisement, which is the whole substance of 
 most modern greatness. Push, not quality, brings 
 men to the hammer of the gong and they ring 
 ou^ their names and are great/ The proclivity to 
 worship place the blather of the gong and its 
 holders, was drubbed into pitiful mankind by mas 
 ter rulers; those who now discover this sneaking 
 instinct in their hearts should suppress it with 
 shame and tear it out. 
 
 "Much reverence is sheer stupidity. If not the 
 callowness of unripe age or the whipped homage of 
 fear, it is failure to see far into the reverenced 
 character. The Virtue 5 of it is weakness of pene 
 tration, which the reverenced object likes very 
 much; he prays for deliverance from being seen 
 through; for woe to reverence for him if he is 
 understood. Is it virtuous to feel abased before 
 attributes invented in another ]by our obtuseness? 
 Something infinitely transcending reverence is 
 love, and love is the flower of equality. Love does 
 not grovel. It would be torture to the loved to seo 
 it grovel. 
 
258 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 "The reality is that all sound virtues accredited 
 to inequality spring from difference of faculties 
 and accomplishments. Variety is confounded with 
 inequality. Men will never be the same, were they 
 so it would be a woeful world ; yet that is not say 
 ing they will not be equal, in a glorious world. 
 They are complements one of another with their 
 varying abilities, furnishing out humanity in its 
 rich diversification. And this truth solves the 
 problem of inequality. The immense imaginary 
 superiorities sink into differences, the possessors 
 of variant qualifications are equal. 
 
 "The theory of needful inequality is born of the 
 ethic of the spoiler toward the spoiled. The spoli 
 ator looks for a moral reason for his crimes and 
 pounces greedily upon the divergent powers of 
 men as nature s witness of intended superiority and 
 baseness. Thus theory-mailed he sallies forth to 
 despoil men of everything he can take if they are 
 not athletes in his kind of superiority the fin 
 ished faculty to gouge. Eating superior those who 
 have the keenest artistry in filching property from 
 others is man s highest stool of imbecility. All 
 the shafts against equality are turned aside by 
 the humbug of this measurement. The rarest 
 genius, the finest soul, the noblest character, the 
 truest server, is low compared with this high fac 
 ulty of piracy, getting without earning. But thi? 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 259 
 
 very fact reduces the claim of our getters to an ab 
 surdity. Estimated with sense it is a brutish abil 
 ity, despicable instead of commendable,, whose 
 exercisers ought to be rather imbranded as -villains 
 than as society s precious high gods. 
 
 "All the virtues of service, kindness and love 
 are possible among equals. In a neighborhood of 
 farmers virtually equal in means there is plentiful 
 need of generous helpfulness. If they have these 
 virtues they exchange work and when one suffers 
 unusual loss by fire or accident combine to help 
 him repair it. If they were unequal, they could 
 not do more unless they lifted the lesser one up 
 and made him their equal, thus closing for them 
 selves the opportunity to do more for the future. 
 How morally different is this help of equals from 
 the condescending and injurious dole of some rich 
 man, who, receiving all his ownings from depend 
 ents, returns them when destitute a niggardly bit 
 out of their own !" 
 
 The professor complacently turned the pages 
 of his book. "You are not a scientific thinker/ 
 he observed, with a gracious beam of perfection, 
 "and unless ideas are scientifically arranged none 
 of them can be true. Unless a man has written 
 a scientific work, I am always amused at him. I 
 cover all ground and put everything in its place. 
 For example, I quote from Goethe, whose wood- 
 
260 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 cutters in "Faust" say plainly: But for us rude 
 folk working in the land, you fine folk would fail 
 utterly for all your wits, and would freeze unless 
 we sweated/ And from the majestic Gibbon, who 
 marked as obvious how in each successive revolu 
 tion the patient herd becomes the property of its 
 new masters; and the salutary compact of food 
 and labor is silently ratified by their mutual 
 necessities/ And from Kenan, who wrote: The 
 bulk of humanity lives by proxy, . . . millions 
 live and die in order to produce a rare elite; the 
 masses do not count, are a mere bulk of raw 
 material, out of which, drop by drop, the essence 
 is extracted/ And from Adam Smith, the father 
 of all earthly wisdom, who let it escape him that, 
 except in new colonies, rent and profit eat up 
 wages, and the two superior orders of people 
 oppress the inferior one/ Smith was the father 
 among other things, of Anarchy, for he said: 
 Civil government, so far as it is instituted for 
 the security of property, is in reality instituted 
 for the defense of the rich against the poor, or 
 of those who ha ve some property against those 
 who have none at all/ He was right about this, 
 but he was wrong in saying it. The truth should 
 seldom be told. 
 
 "Malthus showed Smith how Providence and 
 JL :\ take caro cf the poor: A man who is born 
 
. 
 
 l/N/Vf 
 
 The Monarch Billionaire. 261 
 
 into a world already possessed, if he cannot get 
 subsistence from his parents on whom he has a 
 just demand, and if the society do not want his 
 labor, has no claim of right to the smallest portion 
 of food, and, in fact, has no business to be where 
 he is. At Nature s mighty feast there is no 
 vacant cover for him. She tells him to be gone, 
 and will quickly execute her own orders/ This 
 is the deepest truth outside of the Bible, which 
 is rather old and passe economically. 
 
 "How is the state of the world depicted by 
 Goethe, Gibbon; Renan and Adam Smith to be 
 justified? By Charity. Almsgiving must be 
 abundant in proportion to inequality. The serv 
 ing class must be allowed to have a family. Some 
 sips of the beauties of literature and art must be 
 granted. There must be food and clothing for 
 them, housing and furniture, at least such as a 
 humane slave-owner would provide for his slave. 
 (See pages 498-499 of my book.) 
 
 "You must not lay much stress on the iniquitous 
 origin of fortunes. The eagerness to make a for 
 tune and li ve in ease, though not in itself a high 
 motive, can be elevated by the eagerness being 
 for the advancement and ease, not of oneself, but 
 of one s kindred; and grasping ambition can be 
 transmuted into family affection. Always presup 
 posing the Christian view to be right, then it is 
 
262 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 no argument against the rich to show the badness 
 of particular origins of riches, not even if we prove 
 a whole class of people to have inherited fortunes 
 made by iniquities." 
 
 "Thank you, Professor/ said Margaret, "you 
 have made a noble argument for my cause. You 
 have placed the workingman on the level of the 
 slave, where we all know that he is; you have 
 justified atrocious ambition through which drop 
 by drop the essence of life is flailed out of the 
 masses, by having the greedy extractor give the 
 essence of ten thousand toilers to his wife, that 
 gift washes the black and blood from his crime- 
 stained soul ; and if we believe in Christianity, we 
 shall not in all the world, when the many are fed 
 into the hopper and ground to pulp to make a 
 bed of roses for the sterile few, be able to see 
 enough injustice to sting us to proclaim a new 
 order of life. It is a grand recommendation for 
 Christianity." 
 
 "But I must ask you one thing. Paramount 
 strength is with the patient herd, is it not, nu 
 merically, politically and physically? They have 
 the weighty power of votes, they make the platoons 
 of police, and in all armies they are three-fourths 
 and more of the privates. Should they grow 
 weary of having their essence ground out, of 
 being the chattel property of masters for whom 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 263 
 
 they sweat and die for slaves pay and estima 
 tion, they could sweep the masters off like fleas 
 and possess themselves of all things in their own 
 name could they not?" 
 
 "Er, yes, they could, nothing could prevent 
 them. But they have a conscience, thank Heaven, 
 a conscience that prevents them a sense of equity, 
 of justice even, of a kind, a respect for God and 
 property, a knowledge of Nature s great law that 
 as some of their masters were placed over them 
 by previous generations, it would be shamefully 
 wronging all present and future masters to heave 
 them off. Masters must always be kept, because 
 the original wrong cannot be righted against those 
 who did it. If we could just get at the first batch 
 of masters, you know, in the year minus 6,000 
 or so, and take their fleecings back, with a term 
 in jail but we can t. It would be terribly un 
 merciful to attack the present inheritors of their 
 fleecings, wouldn t it, now, after we have let them 
 enjoy the benefits of the robbings so long? They 
 have established a right to them by keeping them 
 faithfully and enjoying them constantly, haven t 
 they? It would be robbing these people to take 
 away what they ve had so much pleasure out of, 
 although it was never theirs, you may say. In con 
 sideration of the blunders of past ages and the 
 crimes of dead people, the present living negligi- 
 
264 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 bles, or those whose ancestors forgot to steal, if 
 you will, must serve the descendants of those who 
 were alive to their opportunities and stole every 
 thing, as long as we have a world. It s their 
 duty, and I don t know anything grander than 
 duty. The harder it hits a poor man the grander 
 it seems to the rich man. 
 
 "However, as Adam Smith shrewdly noticing 
 that servants, laborers and workmen make up the 
 far greater part of every great political society/ 
 declared, it is but equity that they who feed, cloths, 
 and lodge the whole body of the people should 
 have such a share of the produce of their own 
 labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, 
 clothed and lodged. " 
 
 "Adam Smith was very kind to his supporters," 
 Margaret rejoined. "It is like giving your father 
 and mother who supply you with a fortune, toler 
 ably good food and clothes out of it. But per 
 haps some of you can tell me about the right of 
 inheritance, which petrifies and perpetuates injus 
 tice when it is once done." 
 
 "I can," said a scholar.* "I thought that 
 subject would be up, and I came prepared. Great 
 doctrines like that originate back in Eome, the 
 hot-house of justice and just laws. The beauti 
 fully complex and voluminous system of Eoman 
 
 *W. E. Ball. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 265 
 
 Inheritance depends upon a remarkable theory 
 of indissoluble unity between the heir and his 
 ancestor. Henry Maine has traced it out in this 
 wise: The notion was that though the physical 
 person of the deceased had perished, his legal per 
 sonality survived and descended unimpaired to his 
 heir or co-heirs, in whom his identity (so far as 
 the law was concerned) was continued. The 
 testator lived on in his heir, or in the group of 
 his co-heirs. He was in law the same person with 
 them/ In pure Eoman jurisprudence the prin 
 ciple that a man lives on in his heir the elimina 
 tion, so to speak, of the fact of death is too obvi 
 ously, for mistake, the centre round which the 
 whole law of testamentary and intestate succes 
 sion is circling. Maine explains this idea by refer 
 ence to the period when the family, and not the in 
 dividual, was the unit of society. The prolonga 
 tion of a man s legal existence in his heir, or in a 
 group of co-heirs, is neither more nor less than a 
 characteristic of the family transferred by a fiction 
 to the individaul/ * 
 
 "Inheritance then is founded on a theory worthy 
 of Punch?" 
 
 "You might say that," the professor assented, 
 "if you look at it in itself, but not if you consider 
 its great performances in history. Then it is 
 sublime." 
 
266 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 GILES toiled on, becoming ever more of an in 
 ternational monarch and hero. Philip had re 
 mained in The Amalgamated, hoping that Giles 
 would relent when he realized the seriousness of 
 Margaret s purpose. There was no softening, and 
 when the great financier evinced his resolution to 
 fight more stubbornly, Philip withdrew from the 
 partnership, leaving him alone. Philip then ex 
 ecuted a plan which his experience in The Amal 
 gamated had suggested. Putting on a common 
 laborer s garb, which obliterated his personality 
 beyond recognition and deprived him of the re 
 spect hypnotically commanded by clothes, and 
 taking a new name, he secured work in the con 
 cern s mills in different cities, to learn by exact 
 knowledge the answer to certain questions. After 
 a number of months of this investigation, am 
 plified by talking with thousands of workingmen 
 and experience in their unions, he joined Margaret 
 thenceforth to work in common with her. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 267 
 
 At this time Horace Gray died. As a boy he 
 had possessed a strong constitution. His parents 
 were without means beyond those necessary to feed, 
 clothe and give a proper common schooling to 
 four children. Gray had educated himself, earn 
 ing his way by any work he could lay his hand to, 
 with proof-reading always to fall back on. The 
 strain involved was nearly twice what his vigorous 
 system could endure uninjured. Many of the fel 
 lows who had essayed the same thing, sons of 
 people of moderate condition like his own, though 
 financially and socially above the working class, 
 broke down entirely. Some committed suicide, 
 some went insane, some developed diseases from 
 which they subsequently died, or lingered feebly. 
 Others were obliged to abandon an educated career 
 and follow a wretched valetudinarian existence as 
 farmers, but all was carefully hushed up by the 
 college authorities, and statements over the signa 
 ture of the president were annually published that 
 young men in straitened circumstances had no 
 difficulty in earning their way through the institu 
 tion, and the public continued in its foolish mis 
 take that higher education was open to the masses. 
 
 Gray survived this period, though much broken. 
 The wear followed him into practical life when 
 he adopted the luxury of being honest with him 
 self and having principle. Every avenue but 
 
268 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 severe drudgery was barred if he was not willing 
 to stultify himself by the sale of his talents to uses 
 which were dishonorable and base. The drudgery 
 he would not have minded, he had served often and 
 long at that, but he did mind being forbidden by 
 the decree of drudgery to do anything to extend 
 the nobler conceptions of life which he held, to the 
 great stolid majority. 
 
 The first light and security came when Philip 
 Burson found him out. It was then too late. His 
 brain was not dimmed and he held his post to 
 the end like a pilot in mortal storm, beating fever 
 ishly against the coming night to accomplish a 
 slight part of the work which he had made lumin 
 ous with his life. 
 
 When they gave him to the flames Philip mads 
 the brief address, comparing his own advantages 
 as inheritor without reason of the income of five 
 hundred thousand dollars, with the killing strug 
 gles of Gray, who had inherited a large soul and 
 commanding mind with transcendent devotion to 
 the highest path-finding ideals, but no money and 
 no pull. There he was dead, his powers spumed 
 by men and hurled tauntingly back into the un 
 known that had sent him, as if the world were 
 so fertile in goodness and genius that their bearers 
 could be despised and sacrificed in the morning 
 of their work while men below the threshold of 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 269 
 
 the human were rioting in earth s superabundant 
 substance,, a little of which would have saved this 
 surpassing spirit for glorious ministry to men. 
 
 Gray had requested that his name should not 
 disclose the burial place of his ashes. The} 7 
 marked the spot with a rough boulder with only 
 the words on it, "One of the First Human Men/ 7 
 
 Giles meanwhile throve in the higher quarters. 
 He was a thing of worship to the rich, with the \/ 
 nimbus of an emperor on his calculating head; a 
 couple of widows and orphans, also, whose money 
 he had borrowed for a moral shield, blessed him. 
 When greed obliged him to perform an uncom 
 monly criminal action he declared that all his en 
 terprises were conducted for the benefit of widows 
 and orphans, and criticism slumbered. 
 
 Nevertheless the working class was assuming a 
 new and disagreeable attitude toward him. 
 Formerly when he went among them they had 
 conducted themselves becomingly, as if he were 
 an exalted emanation, but now they let him pass, 
 paying no heed whatever or even indulging in 
 very open scowls, as much as to say, why are you 
 putting your unwelcome nose among us? Isn t 
 it enough that we are your slaves and make you 
 rich ? He felt so bitterly angry at these slights and 
 insults for of course they were insults since he 
 was their master and their bread and butter giver 
 
270 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 that one day in high rage he discharged several 
 for not speaking to him as he passed through a 
 shop. Forthwith every worker in that mill struck, 
 the disaffection spread rapidly, soon every man, 
 woman and child employed by The Amalgamated 
 in the United States laid down his tools and 
 -J walked out. The event shook the money markets 
 of the world and almost precipitated a stupendous 
 panic. Giles, to minimize the instructiveness of 
 the revolt, hastily received the discharged men 
 hack and for that time ended the industrial re 
 bellion and lowering cataclysm. 
 
 Naturally the consequences of this strike did not 
 die with it. The workers had latterly adopted new 
 policies; they did not leave it for a few salaried 
 leaders to sit apart and decide what the mass of 
 them should do, nor to weightily propound judg- 
 i ments for them to follow: they trained themselves 
 to frequently meet in every district, regarding it 
 as a man s duty above every other, to himself and 
 his comrade toilers, to be invariably present and to 
 say freely what he thought of affairs. It was a 
 working-class revival of the town meeting. No 
 one who spoke was made to think himself a fool 
 by wisdom-monopolizing heads and managers pos 
 ing as big men and sneering from an inner circle. 
 For there was no inner circle, because the people 
 would not allow one to start. We can attend to 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 271 
 
 our own affairs by attending to them, was their 
 motto, and they lived up to it. Politics, the caie 
 of society, they curtly said, takes precedence of 
 every other work a man can do: it is the base 
 which all stands on, and if neglected or badly man 
 aged all else goes wrong. Hitherto we have given 
 its care to a special class, who naturally turned 
 swindlers, making a sharpers private profession 
 out of it. If we left our breathing to some one 
 else he would doubtless charge a profit of us and 
 steal our air. If each did not himself take care 
 of so fundamental a thing as eating we should 
 all probably go foodless most of the time except 
 of course the ones appointed to feed us, who would 
 go gorged. Politics is the nutrition of society. 
 It is a fundamental corporate action; it is the 
 preservation of social health -by good social hy 
 giene, comparable to bathing, breathing, and right 
 feeding in the individual, a personal function, not 
 delegable. Delegating politics is the cause of all 
 colossal swindlings of the masses, because the 
 agents or deputies, having primary and prac 
 tically infinite powers thrust on them, instantly 
 erect the powers conferred into a masterful system 
 for general plunder. 
 
 Of course politics, when each is his own poli 
 tician, will extirpate that noxious tare the polit 
 ical specialist or politician as now known. Even 
 
272 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 the word will probably die, because of its foul 
 significance in our corrupt times. It will be then 
 impossible for a new Gibbon to say, "In each suc 
 cessive revolution the patient herd becomes the 
 property of its new masters/" for except by the use 
 of delegated politics masters cannot arise. And 
 then, under popular ownership of productive prop 
 erty, in what respects could politics be similar to 
 our politics ! 
 
 What has corrupted St. Louis into a fourth 
 power of Tyre, Sidon, Sodom and Gomorrah? 
 The capitalists in it. Its first men, its leading cit 
 izens, its rich, its respected because they are rich. 
 They are its debauchers. Remove them, blot their 
 tanks of money out, and you kill the reptile of 
 bribery which lives on their money. One million 
 aire capitalist endorsed a note for $135,000 to be 
 used for bribery. The leading political boodler 
 has made several millions for himself selling the 
 city s property to the city s capitalists. Pals and 
 accomplices of a gang of these eminent rascals, 
 convicted of the crimes and under sentence, are 
 free and thriving in the Municipal Assembly a 
 legislature of convicts, making the laws of the 
 town. If any poor man broke those convict-made 
 laws he would be railroaded for a couple or twenty 
 years in a couple of hours by judges made by these 
 convicts. This is Capitalist Justice. If a traction 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 273 
 
 conductor should steal five cents from the Sub 
 urban Railroad whose director endorsed the 
 bribery note for $135,000 to steal franchises and 
 properties from the city worth millions, that 
 criminal conductor would get the extent of the law 
 the director gets the extent of the city s treasury. 
 
 "In St. Louis the regularly organized thieves 
 who rule have sold $50,000,000 worth of fran 
 chises and other valuable municipal assets" for 
 not a tenth their value and pocketed the whole. 
 Who bought them? The capitalists, who bribed 
 the city s rulers who sold them. Every possession 
 the city has is "listed for future sale" in the same 
 way to capitalists. The boodle capitalists have 
 their eye on the $40,000,000 city water plant and 
 will next buy that of the boodle politicians for 
 $15,000,000 or less. Philadelphia boodlers of both 
 classes, capitalist and politicist, most respected 
 Quaker City personages, rich and old in lineage 
 and sin, showed them how.* 
 
 If the capitalists were put out of trade, made a 
 fossil type, who would bribe, who would buy? 
 Who then could boodle? The corruption in St. 
 Louis "involves, not thieves, gamblers and com 
 mon women, but influential citizens, capitalists, 
 and great corporations. For the stock in trade of 
 the boodler is the rights, privileges, franchises, 
 
 * Philadelphia gas works and trolley franchises. 
 

 274 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 and real property of the city, and his source of 
 corruption is the top, not the bottom of society." 
 It is the rich. The life of the political thief is 
 the greater capitalist thief. Political swindlers 
 are chicks hatched by the capitalists. The cure is 
 plain. 
 
 At these industrial town meetings of The 
 Amalgamated workers the power of the strike was 
 keenly considered. What could the few owners do 
 if the men everywhere should refuse to work for 
 them? The effect of every limited strike is de 
 stroyed by toilers in other departments working 
 and keeping things in motion for capitalists. For 
 example, in a great coal strike the railroad men 
 continued their labors, hauling to market all the 
 coal dug by strike-breakers, and being the most 
 potent allies of the coal-owners, without realizing 
 it. Through their aid to the employers the conflict 
 lasted five months and ended dubiously in a com 
 mission award which granted the miners a few 
 trivial points, leaving the battle to be fought again 
 by and by; while if the railroad men had sided 
 staunchly with their own kind, the toilers, in the 
 struggle, however many renegade coal-diggers the 
 operators might have scavengered up, not a ton of 
 anthracite could have left the mines and the na 
 tion would have brought up instantly against the 
 coal famine, which as things went was staved off 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 275 
 
 months. And why did the railroad branch of 
 labor firemen,, brakemen, engineers, and others 
 haul coal in support of these mining roads to co 
 operate in starving their comrade workers toward 
 surrender ? No soothsayer can tell. 
 
 Such facts and reflections awakened a lumin 
 ous train of thought in the laboring masses. If 
 the capitalists extracted bloated riches from them, 
 they were a party to the act by consenting to work 
 for capitalists and create the riches. They were 
 not confined to politics for deliverance, politics 
 enclosed in a reeking system of political corrup 
 tion caused by possession of great political ma 
 chines by the rich. If they trusted to politics 
 alone they had to face the danger that the com 
 mon people, still raw in the firm individual use 
 of their political functions, might he tricked by 
 their elected saviors in .office. The people have 
 brought forth many revolutions but in every one 
 have been swindled of the best results by their 
 pretended friends. To fight politically there must 
 be, or at any rate would be, a revolutionary polit 
 ical party modeled after its antagonists, and would 
 not this party adopt the fighting methods of its 
 foes, for expediency and strength, and sink 
 straight toward their level of fraud, dishonor, and 
 personal aggrandizement? Hosts of shrewd ras 
 cals in the dives of law and politics, grafter attor- 
 
276 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 neys and the workers are pathetically credulous 
 of a black coated and hearted pettifogger who 
 knows the wrinkles of infamy, they think he will 
 lead them into Zion by a trap-door, look how 
 they send him to Congress shoals of them are 
 only waiting for the radical movement to become 
 strong, when they will vociferate themselves its 
 devoted champions, and take nothing but the 
 plums of power, glory, office, and general manage 
 ment in return. They have often done it. The 
 people knew their rottenness, thought perhaps that 
 hurled at the enemy they might do the work of a 
 rotten bombshell. Such men at the head would 
 kill the reform and intend to kill it; again the 
 masses would be duped. 
 
 The perception of these grave dangers did not 
 deter The Amalgamated workers from preparing 
 to make the battle politically. It strengthened 
 their resolve to give leaders and delegates no rope, 
 but to hold every political act in their own hands 
 with an iron grasp. But it also nursed a de 
 cision not to rest their whole reliance in the polit 
 ical sphere. 
 
 The other method was to force the capitalist 
 owners to a direct arrangement with them outside 
 of politics and political compulsion. The wider 
 and more general a strike should become, the more 
 powerless would be the owners. Business of every 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 277 
 
 kind could be brought to a dead halt. If the 
 strike were general, with the decision to carry it on 
 till the capitalists surrendered and agreed to the 
 workers demand to be taken as equal partners 
 into the Trust groups, what could the so-called 
 owners do ? They would have to yield, starve, or 
 fight with weapons. But how could they constitu 
 tionally fight with weapons? The workingmen 
 would be peacefully exercising a divine right not 
 to work. If the military were ordered to round 
 them up to their tasks with bullets, who are the 
 military? Five-sixths are workingmen. Work 
 ingmen will soon be too well educated to shoot 
 fellow workingmen for capitalists benefit. It 
 would be unconstitutional to drive unwilling men 
 to work with guns. Enlightened workingmen 
 cannot be expected to obey unlawful orders even to 
 please the rich. The shooting plan may be set 
 aside. The little squad of world-owners sons 
 would hardly open fire on the mighty hosts of 
 workingmen if their fathers told them to. 
 
 The capitalists would not want to starve. They 
 and their butlers, coachmen and valets would be 
 obliged to go into their factories, flour mills, 
 bakeries, abattoirs, delivery wagons, railway en 
 gines, mines, and clothing sweatshops, to produce 
 their own food and fuel and garments and de 
 liver them to themselves, to work as their own 
 
278 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 operatives, blacksmiths, brakemen, builders, sea 
 men, farmers, firemen, electricians, printers, 
 cigar-makers, clerks, accountants, ash-emptiers, 
 scavengers, garbagers, common laborers, or their 
 lives and their profits would soon gloomily end. 
 They might as well throw snowballs at the sun 
 to quench it as to resist their fate. They would 
 yield, as the child does to the man. They might 
 squirm but they would get over it. They would 
 capitulate without the general strike, when the 
 people announced the date of it. They would ab 
 dicate, and do it cheerfully in contemplation of 
 how much worse things might have been for them. 
 Now the readjustment would be an industrial 
 process, not a political one. Political shysters, 
 , political saviors of mankind for the pay or glory 
 - of it, would have no part in the deed. History 
 would be saved an immense sum of incorrect blus 
 ter. There would be a few less imaginary heroes 
 but mankind itself would have become heroic. 
 There would be no reconstruction period with po 
 litical carpet-ba gers in the captain s cabin steer 
 ing salvation and scheming how to keep the 
 helm and their reputation of disinterested saviors 
 at the same time. 
 
 The transition would be good-natured, har 
 monious, polite, conducted pleasantly along the 
 paths already reasoned out by the workers and 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 279 
 
 blazed out by the capitalists. When finished, poli 
 tics would have lost nine-tenths of its field which 
 is taking care of private capitalists and adven 
 turers interests. After that there would be no 
 danger of the people losing their cause by the 
 machinations of political spellbinders playing the 
 game of radical politics in order to steal its fruits. 
 
 At their great educational meetings the people, 
 reckoning on the present saturation of all politics 
 with fraud and swindle, therefore made up their 
 minds to prepare for the general strike as a par 
 allel and concurrent measure. If one plan halted 
 or missed the wanted results, the other would 
 carry. They recognized the interminable delays 
 of politics because of our undemocratic framework 
 of government, given us by the fathers in their 
 dread of real control by the people, and saw the 
 possibilities of miscarriage. Personal adjudica 
 tion with the capitalists would involve no obstruc 
 tions, and could be instantaneous. Nothing in 
 deed could be simpler or swifter formed than 
 workers industrial partnerships out of the Trusts. 
 
 The people counted also on the fact of human 
 nature that men will act with strikingly greater 
 wisdom and intelligence as well as strength when 
 something is to be done rather than voted to be 
 done. Experience shows that they can be vitally 
 stirred to act where they cannot to vote. It is nat- 
 
280 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 ural, because the thrill of doing something fires 
 them, and what they do by putting forth strength 
 or mind is finished and done. Men will fight and 
 die, and strike and suffer, where they will not vote 
 themselves into the promised land. Though vot 
 ing might speed and enlarge their success they are 
 tardy at it. A sage once found a New England 
 farmer who said, what is done with the gun stays 
 done, and one might say what were done by the 
 universal strike would stay done. The memory of 
 it would be enshrined in facts portentously felt, 
 with no desire for re-experience. 
 
 Hence the laborers formed a Universal Strike 
 Association, keeping it quite aloof, from their 
 everyday Trade Unions. The officers of the latter 
 had mostly fallen into ruts and reverently re 
 garded the capitalist regime as a holy finality. 
 Giles was occasionally issuing public bulletins of 
 instruction and warning to these men, such as the 
 following : 
 
 "Labor," he said, "must not feel too much em 
 boldened by the result of its recent strike, nor be 
 cause prominent employers have declared for the 
 arbitration movement. Labor/ he solemnly en 
 joined them, "will relegate itself to a worse po 
 sition than it has ever occupied by making radical 
 demands." 
 
 Thus he kept the sword of Damocles quivering 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 281 
 
 over Labor s head and frequently shook it appall 
 ingly by a menace of what he would do if they 
 made radical demands on him. Eadical meant de- 
 mands that amounted to anything. 
 
 Of the labor leader they had first had with 
 them up at the Industrial Dinner and Love 
 League he said, "There is a man the size of whose 
 head no success will ever change/ by which he sig 
 nified that the capitalists had him so well in hand 
 that there was nothing to fear in him. 
 
 At all this the rank and file of labor now only 
 laughed; the labor leaders, however, took it as 
 their instructions for duty. 
 
 The Universal Strike idea kindled immense en 
 thusiasm. Victory was made sure by it, and it 
 also aroused the voters to vote for themselves. It 
 was something concrete, with a vast and spirit- 
 animating stake; the laborers knew how to strike, 
 it was their forte. 
 
282 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 GILES and his intricate machinery of deception 
 college, politician,, clergy, and all had totally 
 lost their influence with the common people. For 
 himself he discovered that half the delight of 
 being a capitalist monarch had oozed out since the 
 working people showed him open scorn and he 
 could do nothing to resent it. They treated him 
 as a malefactor, turning their heads away when 
 they passed him, who had formerly rejoiced in the 
 sensations an emperor has riding through the 
 hushed files of his cringing caitiffs in a court 
 chariot. 
 
 This man takes the bread we earn out of our 
 mouths, the people growled ; why is he not a thief 
 and vicious ingrate? Let him restore our goods 
 if he wants our notice, we can t condescend to so 
 hypocritical a wretch. Very low-sunken is he to 
 pillage us and come for our smiles and nods. 
 Away with such banking on our gullibility! A 
 thief is a thief, big or little, illegal or legal. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 283 
 
 Giles had been proudly silent when Margaret 
 left him for her life among the workers. As a 
 martyr for the Eights of Property he meant to live 
 it out. Time, however, brought the revelation 
 that Companionship and Love are greater than 
 Property in all its Glory. He was alone among 
 men, in alliance with the class that had killed his 
 loved wife in the richness of youth and poisoned 
 the wellspring of his joy. It came upon him that 
 after all his enemies had won. He was fighting v 
 the battle of their class now, an irony that made 
 him gnash his teeth. The only pleasure of it was 
 the wrecking of them one by one as his monstrous 
 industrial crusher gathered momentum down the 
 commercial incline. 
 
 But the survivors shared his pleasure in seeing 
 the bubble of their friends happy fortunes burst, 
 oblivious to the certainty that the same grim fate 
 was beating its black wings over them. Friend 
 ship counts for naught in Commerce. All of these 
 rich men had old scores of fraud and hate against 
 one another and praised Giles as a just Providence 
 for avenging them. If they went down later 
 themselves it was almost worth ruin to have seen 
 the ruin of their boon friends first. And their 
 ruin marched on. The Great Amalgamated Fish, v 
 Ship, Iron, Transportation, Coal and Steel Com 
 pany spared none. According to the Rights of 
 
284 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 Property written in the sidereal system when the 
 Universe slipped the leash of our sun and gave it 
 the spin that made us, The Amalgamated was en 
 titled to the whole earthly Ball; and it was fast 
 getting it. 
 
 The fact that this travail of the stars did not 
 bring Giles happiness was writing itself in hiero 
 glyphic figures on his face. Nothing could shake 
 that mighty constitution, yet the furrows deep 
 ened and that victorious eagle look was less de 
 fined. Sometimes he tried to hate Margaret but 
 his mind was too clear; she had told him it was 
 her right to live her ideas too, which echoed in his 
 soul when he strove to nurse bitterness. "She is 
 higher than I" was the sentence that ever formed 
 itself, and he would wonder if her greater eleva 
 tion of mind had its whole origin in the mother 
 or had he also been noble once ? 
 
 How little he had known this daughter! Per 
 haps had he not been so cocksure of his powers he 
 might have learned her secret and grown up to her 
 stature. He had despised the chance of true 
 union with the only living soul that had been on 
 his side of the terrible abyss between him and man 
 kind. 
 
 The awful loneliness of being shut out from 
 this one kindred being in the living world gnawed 
 him until he found relief by going to one of her 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 285 
 
 meetings. A little getting up gave him the ap- ^ 
 pearance of a stranger and he chose an incon 
 spicuous place. As Margaret spoke Giles felt the 
 load of care that had been heavy on him lighten 
 ing ; it was as when one starts on a long, peaceful 
 journey of rest, breaking the relentless spell that 
 has made the routine acts of the mind a galley tor 
 ture. 
 
 She was talking of the social revolution accom 
 plished by Trusts. It was not a revolution to be, 
 but one this instant in the height of fulfilment. 
 Stripped of side issues it was a revolution which 
 was wresting all the industries from the people 
 and degrading the entire mass of them, save the 
 owning few, to a hired population. That was a 
 distinct and amazing downfall, a passage from in 
 dependence, freedom, to the grade and contempt 
 of the servant. All men now came from the womb 
 of Being to lead a hired life. A hired man with 
 no option but to be hired is not one-fourth a man. 
 
 Were there wonderful co-operation and labor- 
 saving? Yes, a hired co-operation, and a saving 
 of labor which intrinsically assassinated and ex 
 terminated those whose labor was saved. Their 
 labor was saved and they were lost. The Trust Era 
 was the era of Industrial Assassination. Those 
 unneeded by Trusts were dropped into the Eiver of 
 Want which soon consumed their strength to cry 
 
286 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 against wrong and swept them down to the ocean 
 of death. The gods of wealth called them the un 
 fit, and said they ought to go. In truth, the un- 
 needed fit were made unfit by Want, then went 
 down. Unneeded, not by Life and the Growth of 
 Man, hut hy the Gods of Eiches. Unfit to add to 
 these gods riches that was their unfitness. To 
 be productive of values not comprehensible to 
 these creatures they were fit. The best, who 
 would not creep before the wealth majesties, went 
 down. The highest race-fruit stolen, destroyed 
 by these gods because they could not comprehend 
 and did not want it; the cream of mankind thrown 
 waste by them because their bat-blind sordidness 
 had no use for it. And the race was left sterile 
 and impoverished. The blind survived and wor 
 shiped the blind, and all united in hosannas to the 
 blindest. 
 
 But the Trusts opened the way to a social con 
 struction of the highest order, one impossible be 
 fore the Trusts came. They permitted a natural, 
 unforced association of mankind up to which men 
 were already trained. Not a single new or un 
 tried principle would have to be employed. Trusts, 
 by organizing industry had made the production 
 of such a quantity of wealth possible that there 
 was now no reason, real or fictitious, for giving an 
 unearned income to a few, there was enough for 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 287 
 
 all to have the best things of life liberally, with 
 out favoritism or exclusion. All could possess the 
 highest culture, as far as they had ability, making 
 obsolete the idea of a class of culture specialists 
 a class existing through the sm-culture of many, 
 yet pretending to exist to supply culture to the 
 many, a class like nobilities and kings always cer 
 tain to betray its trust. 
 
 There would have to be no starting at the bot 
 tom and building up new industrial structures by 
 battle and competition, the Trust structures and 
 amalgamated plants were there, already well built 
 up, with all the men in them accustomed to work 
 ing together. The partnership system of owners 
 and workers in one unity had been tried, wherein 
 the owners were the workers. And in other suc 
 cessful enterprises on a great scale the workers had 
 not only been shareholding owners, but actual 
 proprietors, directors, and managers, in associa 
 tion. Yet further, workers had started jointly at 
 the very bottom, possessing no capital but their 
 latent labor, managing everything, creating every 
 thing by toil, without a capitalist or a trained 
 industrial manager to help them, and they had 
 massed up a great capital plant, yet capitalist-less, 
 with which they had competed successfully and 
 still are growingly competing, with capitalist 
 steered industries. 
 
288 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 On these plants there were no unearning suckers 
 of the plant life why have them on any? But 
 why compel these industrial associations to grow 
 up out of nothing, keeping up the fiendish in 
 ternecine battle, when here they are already grown, 
 excepting an easy readjustment of the units 
 within? When in every line of production the 
 mastering tendency is to form one of these asso 
 ciations or trusts, smoothing the change to inter 
 nal democracy? 
 
 Industrial transitions cannot be guessed or 
 prophesied long ahead. Until we had the actual 
 Trust confronting us, worked out practically, 
 evolved along least resistance, it was impossible 
 to determine the wisest manner of general en 
 trance into the fruits of industrial conquest. The 
 frameworks that could undoubtingly be employe! 
 for a higher rise in progress were not here. They 
 could not readily have been artificially constructed, 
 they might have toppled down. But now social 
 nature has grown a living product, adjusted to 
 actual conditions up to a point, and only calling 
 for further intelligence to finish the adjustment 
 according to the highest insight of the time. The 
 growth came from the type of men we had, a 
 higher type would have done much better; the 
 growth was brutal, a higher type would have 
 wrought it humanly; but here it is, and let the 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 289 
 
 higher type now take the helm and guide it hu 
 manly. 
 
 A question was asked on the science of history, 
 whether a certain evolution of industry from 
 form to form was not inevitable,, Feudalism, Cap 
 italism, Socialism, et cetera, to which Margaret re 
 plied : 
 
 There is no science of history or economic 
 evolution. There are no fixed laws to which in 
 dustrial growth must conform. The controlling 
 force is in the men of the time, and what they 
 may do is uncertain. It rests on their intelli 
 gence and degree of will. The course of society 
 is continually moulded and altered in this way. 
 To say that it has gone thus and so because it had 
 to, or will go thus because it must, through the 
 guidance of some inherent economic principle, 
 is a fetish. It has gone according to the domi 
 nant light and strength in men from age to age, 
 and will thus waver or advance hereafter. Had 
 there been a little more intelligence at any past 
 time, a few better men living then, the whole 
 course of history would have been changed and 
 evolution would have brought us to a different 
 goal. We should have all been higher. It is men, 
 always men, and the quantity and quality of will 
 they have and apply to the great problems of life. 
 
290 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 And though fictitious economic or historic law? 
 may afterward be educed and called guides and 
 necessities, they represent but empiric surface 
 shows, while Power, alive with infinite possible 
 results and variabilities, bound to nothing but its 
 own degree and light, was below all in the brains 
 and wills of the living men of the period, giving 
 the push and progress. Laws are the pong balls of 
 their light and strength. There will be new laws 
 and economic necessities, idly so called, the mo 
 ment there are new individuals with more light 
 and strength. 
 
 And the supreme affair of those who would ad 
 vance the world and bring mankind out of its mid 
 night is, increasing the confidence of the best- 
 disposed in their power to mould and remould 
 everything, drawing them to act resolutely and 
 inflexibly upon their higher conceptions rather 
 than feebly succumbing to their lower ones be 
 cause of the formidable mass look of men, and that 
 cowardly intoning of the long blind ages that we 
 are Subject to a Destiny outside ourselves. For it 
 is the will and light in men s individual souls that 
 make the absolute laws, and they are only ab 
 solute awaiting the coming of men with richer 
 character and deeper sight. And if the number 
 born with higher will and clearer light can by 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 291 
 
 some application of our largening intelligence 
 be increased, then have we speeded the coming 
 of a new world with all the institutes of life re 
 made and all the codes of the universe rewritten. 
 
292 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 AT the close of Margaret s address Giles came 
 forward to the front of the hall. He did not look 
 at Margaret but faced the people with his strong 
 jaw set and the inscrutable twinkle in his deep- 
 set eyes. A tremor of excitement swept the great 
 audience at the menace of a battle between these 
 two powerful representatives of conflicting social 
 orders. 
 
 Giles spoke: "A capitalist deals in dollars. He 
 measures the good of the world by the number of 
 dollars there are in it, and especially by the num 
 ber of them for him. He can t think in other terms. 
 The progress of the world is to him the progress 
 of dollars, chiefly of his dollars. The object of 
 mankind is the increase of dollars. Society, edu 
 cation, religion, church, art, literature are all 
 machinery for the proper understanding of the 
 dollar. Flesh and blood are crude matter, the 
 finished product is the dollar. Man is not an end 
 in himself: his end is the addition of dollars 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 293 
 
 to the earth. The dollar is immortal. It takes 
 the form of capital and never dies; if a man 
 leases dollars behind him, though he may become 
 extinct, his essence lives after him doing the 
 mission of immortality ruling the destinies of 
 men through the laws of wealth. 
 
 "We worship the dollar in our churches: the 
 religious name of the dollar is God; in all our 
 schools we teach our children to adore the Holy 
 Yellow Deity. It is the Highest, for it rules this 
 world without taking advice from Heaven above 
 or Hell below. The pliant children harden in 
 the mould of coin, and when they grow are settled 
 idolizers of the One God, Dollar. All things 
 work together for good to those who trust in 
 Dollar and have it. As the hart panteth after the 
 water brook so panteth the souls of the young 
 after almighty Coin, when they have studied the 
 lessons of our schools and Sunday-schools and 
 pulpits and society and eminent examples and 
 books. The earth is the Dollar s, and the fulness 
 thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. 
 
 "After you have taught us this and beaten it 
 into our open young natures and driven everything 
 else out, after we have succeeded and turned 
 our essence to gold, when we have traded our 
 souls, hearts, brains, and blood for dollars and 
 have nothing but dollars where was once a man, 
 
294 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 you think we shall by cherubic magic or miracle 
 change our granite-stiff characters and behave 
 as if dollars were not the all-stuff of our con 
 stitution, as by precept, environment and example 
 your sorcery made them to be? You had better 
 begin undoing your work before you do it. 
 
 "I figure up mules and men by the same com 
 mercial laws and shall never cease to. How much 
 is there in them; what can I get out? I never 
 think of a donkey s destiny; nor of a man s 
 how could I make a profit out of donkeys and men 
 if I did? I have no time to compute souls in 
 my accounts, it would swell the expenses of busi 
 ness shockingly; Sundays and sermons were in 
 vented for souls, a whole seventh of the time! 
 Think of the waste ! and I pay toward them liber 
 ally. A man ought to be thoroughly converted 
 in fifty-two days a year, why shouldn t I have 
 the rest of him? If he believes in heaven he be 
 lieves it doesn t make any difference what happens 
 to him here, so converting a workingman is a 
 mint cheaper than investing good wages, health 
 and intelligence in him. He thinks from Hades 
 here he pops into Bliss there, and he s a bundle 
 of blooming thankfulness to the giver of Hades. 
 If I thought horses and donkeys had souls I should 
 want them saved too, and would invest money in 
 churches for them if I thought it would conduce 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 295 
 
 to their submissiveness and I could have them to 
 kill profitably on week days without raising a 
 smudge. Men are that way, thanks to submissive - 
 ness and salvation. 
 
 "It is reported that one of our generals said 
 of our negro soldiery : In a fight I am not worried 
 about their safety, as it doesn t make any differ 
 ence whether they get killed or not. If a person 
 owns a thoroughbred or full-blooded dog and 
 also a cur, is it not natural that he would prefer 
 to have the cur killed before the other? I have 
 always looked on the workingman as the general 
 does on the negro ; I never could see that it made 
 any difference whether he gets killed or not. I 
 don t call them curs disrespectfully but merely 
 to fix their place in the world and classify them 
 compared with the rich. Capitalists have to look 
 at things in a large way like that to keep man 
 kind on its pegs. A few horses, donkeys, curs, or 
 workingmen, more or less, what does it matter 
 so long as P roduction goes on producing and 
 thoroughbred capitalists get rich? 
 
 "This is what I ve grown to and you all helped 
 me. I thought you loved treatment on the don 
 key principle; in all these years I never heard 
 you object, and you were always on fire to vote 
 as I wanted you to. It has been your fault more 
 than mine, I might say all your fault, for even 
 
296 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 a capitalist can t make a willing slave free he ll 
 run to bondage to some one else. 
 
 "You have made it very disagreeable for me 
 lately. Since you took to showing me contempt 
 I haven t felt like a natural capitalist. I am will 
 ing to admit this now. I shouldn t have done so 
 when I came here this evening. I seem to have im 
 bibed some new ideas to-night, though I can t just 
 see why I didn t get them before. They didn t 
 sink in before, whether I had them or not. I 
 have sent men about attacking your doctrines 
 of equality in these words, which I half believed 
 and the other half wanted to believe." 
 
 Giles took a circular from his pocket and read : 
 " Talk of the shriek of the factory whistle! 
 Under any plan of equality we would get up, go 
 to work, stop work, eat our dinner, play, marry, 
 beget children, live and die at the shriek of the 
 state whistle, or the order of the state inspector 
 which is the same thing. The arts would perish, 
 ; industries cease, the books that teach us the de 
 lights of life would no more be written for all 
 would be at the mercy of some state inspector. 
 Under any system of equality conceivable, if you 
 only trace out the details of its necessary conse 
 quences, any complete system of industrial and 
 social equality, the ruling of a man s life in i 1 ! 1 
 its details by the state, for industrial equality ar.r 1 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 297 
 
 such state rule are identical, will result in slavery 
 a dull and hopeless drudgery for a state ration 
 of food and pleasure a slavery from which there 
 will be no escape a tyranny more hopeless and 
 hideous than the world has ever known. 
 
 "I now know," continued Giles, ceasing to read, 
 "that this is not true. I now perceive that in 
 dustrial equality is not identical with state rul 
 ing of a man s life and affairs. I ordered this 
 circular from a Boston lawyer and commanded 
 him to lay chief stress on the point of state rule 
 over all life s details because we can best hood 
 wink the people with that fable against their 
 rights. If it were true I don t see that it could 
 be a tittle worse or more tyrannical than my rul 
 ing men s lives and affairs, as I rule all who work 
 for me. They every one get up, go to work, stop 
 work, eat their dinner, play, marry, beget chil 
 dren, live and die at the shriek of my factory 
 whistles. With them the arts ha ve perished, in- 
 dustries for any but the rich have ceased, the books 
 that teach us the delights of life are for them 
 not written and never were; they can t read them, 
 can t understand them and couldn t have the de 
 lights of life described in them anyhow. They are 
 all at the mercy of Me. Slavery, drudgery, tyran 
 ny, hideousness? If I had been in their places 
 every man, woman and child of them would have 
 
298 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 committed suicide or made an industrial revolu 
 tion and sent me kiting long ere this. 
 
 "You say they don t marry and beget children 
 by the shriek of my whistle ? They do. If I hold 
 a bright serious-minded young workman close to 
 the buzz-saw of low wages he dares not marry or 
 beget. If I draw him back a little from the fear 
 of mangling want, by a small wage increase, he 
 risks it. Every workman s marriage is a pure 
 risk and a terrible one. Hades sits enshrined in 
 his house all the time, not angels or God. He sees 
 its vast terror skulk aver his wife and little ones 
 while he eats, he lies down to sleep to dream of it. 
 It is the Hades of Poverty and its obscene tortures. 
 Let me increase his wages a little more and he 
 will bring Me more children to be My later slaves. 
 It is the shriek of My whistle that rules his 
 marrying and begetting and dying, too, for if 
 I cut down wages on him I can reduce the nutri 
 tion and size of his family very fast. My fac 
 tory whistle controls population and funerals. 
 From womb to coffin, it is Me, Me, Me, Me. Could 
 the state at its worst and meanest equal this 
 Omnipotent Capitalist, Me? Oh these prevarica 
 tors who prattle about state tyranny and won t 
 see the black horror of capitalist tyranny over 
 every move in the life of every son of man who 
 toils ! Blast and blast such pretended density ! 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 299 
 
 i 
 
 It s the cowardice of us that s damning, even more 
 than our selfishness. I knew what I was do 
 ing in this sphere all the time, and juggled my 
 consciousness when it seldom pricked. My plea 
 to myself was that all men are natural cattle 
 who submit to this swindle, proper food for utter 
 slavery to him gifted of God to swindle them. 
 
 "But would an industrial state take it again 
 at its worst employ its tyranny as I have to 
 squelch the blood and vital fire out of its mem 
 bers ? Bosh. For whom ? Who would do it ? the 
 state inspector? He could not unless empowered 
 by the members themselves. Would they empower 
 him ? No. I succeeded only because they empow 
 ered me. It is just that which your revolution 
 teaches them not to repeat. 
 
 "I see that equality is attainable without a 
 state mechanism to absorb and direct everything, 
 attainable by great reduction of state mechanism. 
 And I have grown convinced that there never will */ 
 be the slightest approach to peace and happiness 
 in the human race without industrial equality. 
 
 "I never was much of a reader, though I have 
 read more since I was internationally discovered 
 to be a wise man on account of my riches and 
 I find it said of the Eoman empire that Heavy 
 fines, banishment, torture, death, are all ineffec 
 tual to check the inevitable corruption of a bu- 
 
300 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 reaucratic government operating ove r an area 
 probably the widest which has ever been ruled 
 directly from a single centre/ * Precisely what 
 they did not have, however, and went to ruin for 
 want of, was industrial equality. The whole Ro 
 man Empire was a St. Louis or a Philadelphia. 
 All politics was a strict department of business 
 the Boodle department. It was the most lucrative 
 of all industries because manufacturing was then 
 light and trusts unconceived. Emperorship was 
 the highest branch of the boodle trade. The 
 capitalists of the time were the great land-owners 
 and state officials, mostly the same men. They 
 boodled serenely on all the small of the empire 
 of every station, the dumb majority, swallowing 
 up the lesser landowners. Army and Government 
 were their bailiffs. They were not ready for in 
 dustrial equality. We are. 
 
 "But nevertheless Government is always natur 
 ally a tyrant. If we are to have organization of 
 industry I want it without centralization, essen 
 tially without government. I want the govern 
 ment to do only this: to see that where individu 
 als will not freely and voluntarily organize in 
 dustries on lines of equality and equal good, with 
 an industrial centralization only of federation, 
 that is, where individuals still selfishly seek a 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 301 
 
 private capitalist grip, they shall be required to 
 organize on the principle of equality. This is 
 quite different from philosophical anarchism or 
 no government, and from state collectivism or state 
 owning and managing of the whole thing, even if 
 the state be a peopleized or democratized one as 
 far as possible. Grant the state directive power, 
 though it be a popularized state, it might soon 
 show itself to be a repetition of the Monarchical, 
 Eepublican, state and re-commit all its crimes 
 and oppressions, as republics have reproduced the 
 tyrannous wrongs of monarchies. 
 
 "The state as an organ of all the people to 
 enforce upon the selfish the adoption of an equal 
 copartnership system of industry, to be evolved 
 and conducted by the people from below up into 
 a unity of manifold individual intelligence, initia 
 tive coming from the individuals instead of going 
 from a central organization down, the state itself 
 only requiring industry to be newly formed and 
 preserved on this pattern, but not itself becoming 
 an industrial manager or actual organizer of the 
 whole that I think is the proper use of the State 
 or government in the next stretch of human 
 growth. 
 
 "I had different purposes with society : I freely 
 acknowledge that I adopt this just regime only 
 because you will otherwise force it upon me. If 
 
302 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 you had given me a little more time I should have 
 put you in chains. It was the interference of agita - 
 tors that saved you. I abhor agitators except 
 J my daughter they interfere with legitimate 
 slavery. You never would have done anything 
 for yourselves if agitators hadn t stirred you up ; 
 the canaille of the world pardon the word never 
 did anything without agitators to shake them. 
 From my point of view as a capitalist, who wants 
 to put the world in his vest and walk away with 
 it, an agitator is the worst thing on the verdure 
 of human happiness. I acknowledge I am the- 
 verdure of human happiness. The capitalist is 
 it or was before the eruption of agitators. From 
 the people s point of view, the agitator is the best 
 living thing. Agitators came among you, and now 
 after patiently serving masters for six thousand 
 years, you propose to take your own world and be 
 your own masters. 
 
 "You may like to know what I intended to do 
 if the agitators had tarried away a little while. 
 Reduce you to the passivity of penury. I have 
 heard socialist speakers say that reduction to want 
 goads the common people to assert themselves, 
 change the system, and get justice. It s just the 
 reverse. If the people are debased slowly they 
 will sag torpidly into a half-alive state of moral 
 physical exhaustion, with spring neither for 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 303 
 
 ideas, emotions nor actions. Then will they be 
 your sodden slaves, power of reaction gone, and 
 you may belash and kick and club them, they will 
 not turn or sting, because the nerve centres are 
 spent. 
 
 "But you will believe this if I shore up my 
 opinion with the observation of others who have 
 no bias. Here is a London writer who is stunned 
 with amazement by the passivity of the world s 
 poor. (Takes a cutting on The Passivity of 
 Penury from his pocket-book and reads.) 
 
 "When the money boxes are being carried round 
 for contributions in relief of the distress of the 
 unemployed, the West End man, and the villa 
 man as well, . . . gets angry at what he con 
 siders the pushfulness and the energy of the work 
 ing classes, backed by their trade unions, in bring 
 ing their troubles before the public, and thinks 
 they show abnormal and misplaced persistency in 
 putting forward their grievances. . . . The 
 fact is, the well-to-do Londoner .... starts 
 off on altogether the wrong note when he thinks 
 and speaks of the great mass of working people 
 as assertive, and arrogant, and insistent on receiv 
 ing help and the redress of their grievances. The 
 most remarkable thing about what we may call 
 the one pound ($5) or twenty-five shillings 
 ($6.25) a week working man, who is at least three 
 
304 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 to one compared with his more fortunate class 
 man, is his apathy and stolidity; his mental and 
 moral inertia; his acceptance, without protest and 
 discontent, of conditions which would make his 
 critics writhe in fury if they felt themselves as 
 helpless as he is; his hopeless lack of ideas as to 
 obtaining redress, even if the thought occurs to 
 him that redress is possible ; his acceptance of low 
 standards of life and means of enjoyment com 
 parable to the passivity and fatalism of the Indian 
 ryot. 
 
 "Let the well-to-do critic imagine himself in 
 the position of the thousands of men from whom 
 this severe weather suddenly cuts off their means 
 of livelihood. ... It would not be long before 
 he and his fellow-miserables gave tongue. 
 
 "It is worth while considering this dumb apathy 
 of the lower masses of the people who must be at 
 the extreme of poverty even for them, at starva 
 tion point in fact, before they resent their circum 
 stances. If they have any standard or ideal theory 
 of life at all, it seems to consist in the pride or 
 vanity of endurance. They seem as proud of their 
 superiority in misfortunes as others are of their 
 successes. It is only amongst the higher work 
 men that there is any theory as to the social and 
 economic disabilities of their class; and if these 
 attempt to give them voice they are received 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 305 
 
 nowhere with such cold indifference and contempt 
 as by those for whom they claim to speak. Neither 
 the economics nor the politics of the genuine poor 
 take any wider view than the casual accident of 
 the moment which may affect to the extent of a 
 shilling or two a week their precarious wages. 
 When we wonder if it can be any theory, or what 
 we may call philosophy, which keeps them quiet 
 under such harassing conditions as theirs, a tithe 
 of which would throw their social superiors into 
 a revolutionary fever, we cannot find any. There 
 does not seem so much as this that if they go 
 into the streets and raise disturbances they will 
 be put down by the police or the military, and 
 gain nothing by their efforts. Indeed, that, if it 
 were so, would suppose a capacity for generaliza 
 tion, and a moral power of self-restraint and calcu 
 lation which, in the moment of the enduring of 
 such sufferings, would be a miraculous mental 
 phenomenon. The impulse of higher intelligences 
 and natures in such circumstances would be to 
 throw prudence to the winds; and the relief to 
 be obtained in violent outbreak and the letting 
 off of pent up feelings in some physical demon 
 stration or other, even if it led to prison, would 
 be almost a necessity. They have to be very bad 
 before it comes to this, with the great body of 
 the respectable poor. The chief reason of their 
 
306 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 quietude is their low intelligence and their low 
 standard of comfort, as the economists call it. 
 Their resentment is not aroused by any general 
 sense of wrongs; they cannot get to the mental 
 attitude of tracing their misfortunes to general 
 causes, such as the political or economic constitu 
 tion of society. Their grievances are specific and 
 individual. Whether their employer is a good or 
 a bad paymaster, and can find them in jobs/ 
 sums up for them the whole economic situation, 
 and there are no other problems visible in the rela 
 tions of capital and labor. They are the men 
 who see nothing in politics and local elections, . 
 . . unless they can get some casual job or a few 
 shillings or an allowance of beer out of them. 
 They do not see politics in relation to anything. 
 
 "All these things have one root, intellectual and 
 moral apathy and imperviousness to ideas of any 
 kind. . . . Perhaps it may need another cen 
 tury to determine whether that is the fault of 
 education, or whether it proves that Nature for 
 some wise purpose has endowed large numbers of 
 her children with the blessing or the misfortune, 
 as yet undetermined, of an almost animal impas 
 sivity and stolidity. . . . Chill penury does not 
 serve in the mass, as individual poverty does some 
 times, as a stimulus to better things. It has the 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 307 
 
 opposite effect. ... Let sleeping dogs lie is 
 a human policy we do not like to avow, even if we 
 practise it. ... The silent poor are utterly 
 unable to work out their own salvation. They 
 cannot help themselves: help can reach them only 
 from without. [Saturday Keview.j" 
 
 Giles threw his great shoulders back and 
 looked defiantly into the faces of the crowd. 
 
 "I give you this true picture of Old World 
 society and human nature that you may know what 
 my plans against you were/ he said. "Waking 
 dogs may be put to sleep; the capitalist has got 
 that art. First make men dogs, then they go 
 to sleep. The masses of Europe are fast asleep 
 from long degrading oppression; I purposed to 
 give you sleep by gradual doses of the same want. 
 Men are not born of God broken-spirited and dead 
 of mind; they are mentally killed by the blows 
 of poverty struck on them by their kindred men. 
 I should have impoverished three-fourths of this 
 nation s workers, brought them down to the shame 
 and bloodlessness of penury, where they would 
 have been men no longer, but soulless, courageless 
 man-shadows, to do my will for a crust and straw. 
 They would have voted my will, worked my will, 
 fought my will. Who could have aroused them? 
 Because their vital force had been starved to death, 
 the truth and eloquence of those beating the fir- 
 
308 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 mament to move them would have shattered 
 against a silence of stone. I should have parted 
 many from employment, to cheapen production 
 and lessen costs to the consumer as we say to 
 amuse the consumer and the cheated consumer 
 would have believed and sustained me. He always 
 does. He is made of the gas of credulity. 
 
 "The derelict unemployed waifs would soon 
 have rotted away into my character-killed dum 
 mies of men. I might have employed them inter 
 mittently to soothe the public; a day s work, with 
 seven or eight of idleness to consume the earnings 
 and rest their apparatus of nutrition, paying well 
 enough for the single days to edify the public with 
 the fairness of their incomes. The public is lightly 
 soothed. If it isn t starving itself it takes the 
 starvation of others calmly. Of workingmen 
 especially. They never had much, and starving 
 isn t a great change. In a little while all trt c c 
 unemployed would have reached the depths of 
 speechless stolidity in suffering. God is good, 
 suffering is its own anesthetic, enough of it. 
 
 "I have not portrayed all the sunkenness of 
 partial starvation, the creeping death I had in 
 store for you. Don t be excited, you have escaped. 
 With softened faculties, these sad three-fourths 
 gkip on their quaking legs to fill our armies to 
 shoot the intelligent who tell them of life and 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 309 
 
 freedom. They stagger with half-maniac pride 
 when they can lift the guns of their masters and 
 waddle forth in pomp to murder the friends who 
 would save them and give them food and a humap 
 life that would make them human. Their degra 
 dation is then absolute, for they glory in patient 
 starvation and fight under the banner of their 
 starvers to defend their sacred privilege to starve. 
 
 "You see, friends, I have sufficient contempt 
 for the objects of my creation. Don t call me a 
 demon. I was only doing what had to be done (/ 
 to sustain capitalism. You wanted capitalism 
 sustained until the other day, didn t you? Ic 
 couldn t have been without systematic under- 
 nutrition of a good part of your class and slow 
 extermination of the unnecessary. I was no more 
 wicked than others in seeing what we all knew 
 we were doing, and acknowledging it to myself. 
 The rest were all hypocrites, humbugs, liars, to t j 
 themselves and the world. Capitalism couldn t 
 survive without using fiendish means, and I say 
 every one of us knew in his heart it was so. 
 You knew it, too, didn t you? If you didn t, I 
 am sorry for your intellects. If you did, you too 
 knowingly upheld the system that required us 
 capitalists to be fiends. Draw what consolation 
 you can from that. 
 
 "Even the higher workingmen, with trade 
 
310 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 union shibboleths,, are not far higher than the un 
 employed, being appeased with little concessions 
 in wages and hours, but not demanding the 
 abolition of masters. When their delegates go to 
 play the part of labor-lobbyists at Congress and 
 the State Houses,, they are contaminated by the 
 wiles of the professional politicians. 
 
 "If the people were different., were men, they 
 would rise in every country in mass, break their 
 yoke, and change the fashion of the social organ 
 ism that keeps them miserably dishonored. So 
 would the horse probably revolt against his brutish 
 servitude if he were different. You couldn t 
 harness the lion to an ash-cart. 
 
 "But we, the mighty, have knitted the ideas of 
 goodness, respectability and submissiveness tightly 
 together in the poor man s poor mind. Fooled, 
 he abhors wandering from respectability into com 
 motion to save his nature from emaciation and 
 death; he reveres the law which destroys him, 
 electing his masters to make the law; quiet and 
 orderliness are his idols, while those who have pro 
 nounced order good and non-resistance sublime, 
 take his bread and let him perish by the wayside. 
 And if he protests they club and shoot him to 
 death in a peaceable and orderly manner. 
 Peace and order are sublime for owners of prop 
 erty, that the horde with no property, death- 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 311 
 
 marked by want, may not rise and take a mouthful. 
 
 "I can speak honestly since I am beaten, and 
 fjjat dignified old order of legal crime is gone. 
 It does me good to speak out and tell everything. 
 If the poor of the world had been gifted with the 
 vaguest stirring of true intellect in these years 
 past they would have risen and risen again, until 
 society had been impossible and life unbearable 
 for the dominant conspirators who mure them in 
 the dungeon of penury ; they would have made the 
 days of these feelingless few unboundedly 
 wretched until justice was done. Nowhere in the 
 world could the insurgent poor have been put 
 down had they demeaned themselves like men. 
 
 "I may as well make full confession. I m going 
 to read a document prepared by me for my 
 daughter while I still expected victory, while I 
 thought she would fail in her evangel and return 
 to me in her right mind. I intended her to have 
 it as soon as she proved herself good capitalist 
 timber. Here it is: 
 
 TO MAKGAEET. 
 
 "You learn life very slowly, and are full of 
 ideas beneath your circumstances. I wish I could 
 impress some of the doctrines of that eminent 
 Capitalist and Psychologist, the King of Belgium, 
 upon you. Although a King, he is a Light of 
 
312 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 Civilization. The capitalist is the proper king, 
 made over to fit modern styles. 
 
 "Leopold has written a book for the benefit of 
 his heir presumptive; if I had the naming of it- 
 it should be called The Capitalists Bible/ I 
 will quote a few gems of his advice, most of which 
 might have been written by any American con- 
 soli dator to his heir presumptive. A capitalist 
 must be as bright as the kings to keep his throne 
 on the nation and protect his annual rake-off 
 for the canaille are always the same, in America, 
 Germany, or Belgium. 
 
 "Leopold says: Now that you are king, I be 
 seech you to stick to this maxim: Never give any 
 thing in writing at all, for subjects never forget 
 a pledge of that sort, nor can they be persuaded 
 of any double meaning it may contain. Verbal 
 promises, on the other hand, are mere sound and 
 smoke, quickly forgotten and usually ill-reported. 
 At leaot, the official press may hint that the latter 
 is the case. Besides, the common people hate 
 writers and thinkers, because thinking is outside 
 their own sphere. 
 
 " Do not read books on philosophic, economic, 
 or social-problem topics they are liable to in 
 fluence you against your own interest. 
 Read solely to amuse yourself, novels old and 
 row. 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 313 
 
 "This is wise counsel for you as well, my dear 
 Margaret. Never make the common people any 
 paper promises. And you know I have brought 
 you up not to read at all. Adhere to it. Even 
 some novels have an occasional thought in them. 
 
 The king continues: As a shining example, I 
 recommend to you Leopold I., your grandfather. 
 Originally a mere adventurer, he rose to the dis 
 tinction of the Councillor of Kings. My army, 
 my court, my ministries and parliament are 
 peopled with his illegitimate sons. . . . Yet 
 Grandfather Leopold had the reputation of a 
 virtuous monarch. He maltreated his wife, an 
 Orleans, but as her moans never reached the ears 
 of the people it mattered not. As I said, he had 
 illegitimate children by the score, and died in the 
 odor of sanctity ! 
 
 " The above teaches you, my dear Albert, thai 
 outward aspect is everything. 
 
 "I quote this, Margaret, to show you our great 
 superiority over the Old World in real moral 
 matters. This is conduct I do not approve of. 
 The family is most important for righteousness. 
 If that is allowed to be lax the State and Industry 
 may totter; if the people are virtuous in their 
 family relations the} will never disturb the Laws 
 of Property. Yet we must be lenient with Leo 
 pold, for the Old World is like the Old Biblical 
 
314 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 Dispensation. In questions of virtue the United 
 States is to Europe what the New Testament is 
 to the Old. We are blessed to have been born at 
 a distance from Evil, but in Statecraft and Econ 
 omy Leopold is quite modern, he is a very capi 
 talist. His next remark proves him to be a mem 
 ber of the New Dispensation. Counsels he : 
 
 " The abo-ve teaches you, my dear Albert, that 
 outward aspect is everything. As for myself, I 
 was compelled, I am sorry to say, to kill more 
 negroes than all the slavers Great Britain hunted 
 down during the nineteenth century, yet I re 
 tained the reputation of a "civilizer." I introduced 
 a new sort of slavery, and am hailed as "liberator." 
 All the blame for the Congo atrocities, so-called, 
 is charged to the account of my partners by un 
 prejudiced people, and my own prestige remains 
 intact. 
 
 "This is quite right, dear Margaret, it s busi 
 ness. I have large investments in the Philippine 
 Islands and South Africa, and he has caught the 
 truth with a camera. We must mow down the 
 negroes for Traffic s sake and call it God s sake 
 Civilization s sake will do as well for those who 
 have outgrown God but we don t need to blister 
 our palms with the scythe ourselves. Let the 
 armies do it, and take the responsibility for killing, 
 while we take the dividends. The masses will not 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 315 
 
 let the thinkers attack the army for doing our 
 killing; besides, the masses will pay the army for 
 doing it. It s like paying our taxes. Bemember, 
 Margaret, that the army is the life of the capital 
 ist. Patriotism is what keeps the army alrve. 
 You must, therefore, subscribe liberally to the 
 Fourth of July and hang the flag out over your 
 consolidations. The people have no stake in the 
 country, but they have a stake in the flag. If you 
 let it float over your consolidations which once 
 were their property the accommodating idiots 
 will believe they have a stake in the consolidations. 
 Beat your drums and they will enlist to die for 
 you. Turn the crank of patriotism and the people 
 will confirm your monopolies with their blood. 
 
 "I now come to Leopold s most precious senti 
 ments for the capitalist; take them into your 
 bosom and you will thrive, neglect them and you 
 will adorn the commercial gibbet. 
 
 " Avoid being a mere man, my dear Albert/ 
 warns this royal reader of men. A king has no 
 business to have a heart. I killed mine long ago, 
 the day I mounted the throne. Do the same, 
 Albert, if you want to be a successful ruler. Heart 
 less by my own free choice, I saw around me much 
 blood and dirt, yet kept aloof. No one ever saw 
 me affected or disconcerted, no matter what hap 
 pened. . . . Eemember these maxims : 
 
316 The Monarch Billionaire. 
 
 " A king must be big enough to do without a. 
 heart. 
 
 " A woman born in the purple must not even 
 know that she has a heart. 
 
 " c Be heartless, Albert, if you want to be suc 
 cessful. Your brother tried to be, and was, but 
 made an exception in the case of women. That 
 led to his death your elevation. A hysteric lady 
 of our highest aristocracy is indirectly responsible 
 for his death ; her husband killed him. I sent the 
 avenger of his manly honor to Africa, ordering 
 him to commit suicide, which duty he performed. 
 He might have defied me, but he had too much 
 heart to do it. Beware of affections of the heart, 
 Albert. 
 
 " My second daughter ! She, too, could not 
 divorce herself from her heart, and is living in 
 an insane asylum, though every one says she is 
 sane. . . . Albert, let the fate of my daughters 
 be a warning to you. They are ruined because 
 they could not live as befits royalty. Your success, 
 too, will die young unless you live up to the max 
 ims of a successful king, who remains, your loving 
 uncle. LEOPOLD/ 
 
 "Some of you will say that Leopold never wrote 
 that : it doesn t make any difference, he has lived it; 
 if some one else observed his life and transcribed 
 
The Monarch Billionaire. 317 
 
 his moving principles, it is the same as if he had 
 \vritten them out himself. It is a true picture, 
 and a true one of what the capitalist has to be 
 and is, to succeed. 
 
 "I admit my defeat. You have risen at last 
 and my strength is shorn; I m going to enter 
 willingly into the new order of things and lend it 
 my help. But I take pride in saying as an un 
 repentant commercial warrior of the nohle old 
 monarchical school that if you had waited just a 
 little longer I should have brought you down to 
 degradation so subtly and rotted your character 
 AS absolutely that you would not have had will, 
 wish, or power to rise. You were saved by the ef 
 forts of agitators with higher ideas, who 
 broke your lazy slumbers, who forced your hostile 
 ears to hear, who drove aspirations into your in 
 different souls, which grew there in spite of you 
 and with no credit to you, and finally gave you 
 spirit to put forth your invincible arm." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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