1 new Crisis 
 
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 6eo. UP. Bell 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 Girard, Kans 
 APPEAL PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 19O3. 
 
 PRICE 50 CENTS. 
 
THE 
 
 CR85 
 
 B\ 
 
 GEO. W. BELL, 
 
 Author of "TRAMMELED TRADE," "THE ISSUES OE '88, 
 "AMERICAN SHIPPING," AND OTHER WORKS. 
 
 GIRARD, KAN., 
 
 APPEAL PUB CO. 
 
 1902. 
 
H 
 
 GIF! 
 
 Entered, According to the Act of Congress, in the year, 1887. 
 
 By GEO. W. BElvIv, 
 In the Office of Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I make no apology for presenting this volume to the public. 
 This is an age of books, and of criticism, in which all may speak 
 freely. I had something to say, and have said it a,s best I could, 
 under the circumstances. I have written what I believe to be 
 true, and offer it to the consideration of the public for what it is 
 worth. 
 
 We have reached a crisis in our national development. We 
 ha,ve rushed to this pinnacle of greatness with a mad impetuosity 
 unparalleled in the annals of the world; ignoring social adjust- 
 ments, essential to the symmetry and stability of a state. 
 
 My purpose being to prove the existence of a class con- 
 spiracy, the design of which is to subvert the principles of our 
 government, by a monopoly of all wealth, I have discussed the 
 merits of no measures, further than to prove their centralizing 
 tendencies. 
 
 The times demand the greatest intelligence; the concerted 
 wisdom of the wise; the grandest heroism of the brave; the purest 
 virtue of the good, and the most unselfish devotion of the 
 patriotic; and to contribute my mite in strengthening a feeling 
 of duty among the masses, was my object in writing this volume. 
 
 I ha,ve endeavored to discuss all questions in a purely non- 
 partisan spirit, and to be entirely impersonal, in allusions to 
 measures and policies. I have "appealed to reason," and not 
 to passion; to the understanding and not to the feeling of men, 
 
 These are times for ca.lm reflection, earnest investigation and 
 wise moderation. 
 
 I have not attempted to write a book of "standard facts," but 
 a brief review to excite public thought. I have avoided general 
 statistics as far as possible, using "facts a.nd figures" only to 
 show how recent legislation has resulted in centralizing wealth 
 
 44^908 
 
anu power. As far as I have used such statistics, I have endeav- 
 ored to select from reliable sources; from secretary's reports, 
 from the speeches of leading statesmen, and from political works, 
 which are recognized as authority. As I use figures only as cor- 
 roborating evidence, my argument would be little weakened if 
 they failed, in any particular instance, to stand a severe test of 
 criticism. 
 
 As the safety of the republic rests on the happiness of the 
 home, I have plead for comforts for the cottage. To ma,ny, our na- 
 tional strength and great wealth are our security. But remember, 
 the elements of liberty were never seized by force, but stealthily 
 taken under forms of law. The weakest and poorest nations of 
 Europe enjoy the greatest degree of safety, a,s wealth only excites 
 the cupidity of ambition. The tramp is rarely robbed; the hovel 
 is rarely burglarized. 
 
 I am aware that my suggestions will call out many severe, 
 if not acrimonious criticisms. For this I care nothing. Monopoly 
 has many and able defenders, insolent and aggressive; besides, 
 as long as it is infinitely easier to criticise a good book than write 
 one of but fair merit, there will be many critics for every new 
 publication, having sufficient strength to excite comment. 
 
 After a hasty review, I frankly confess that my composition 
 betrays almost unpardonable haste, with a leaning to careless- 
 ness, but, in extenuation, I plead a necessity, which gave me but 
 a few weeks for the work, with frequent interruptions by the 1 * 
 demands of business. 
 
 If this volume meets with public fa,vor, it will strengthen 
 the cause of the people; it not, it can injure only 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
7 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 An Oriental Tale of An Occidental State. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Malthusian. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Government By Consent. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Liberty. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 A Discovery. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Methods of Acquiring Wealth. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 The Great Conspiracy. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 The Conspiracy Continued Monopoly Grasping the Land. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 The Conspiracy Continued Monopoly Centralizing the La,nd. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Land and Its Ownership. 
 
-8 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 Monopoly of Money. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Monopoly of Trade. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Labor and Its Master. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Labor Continued Necessity of High Wages. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Transportation. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Transportation Continued How the System is Changing Our 
 Civilization. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 The Demands of the Hour 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 Conclusion. 
 
9 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 A PRETTY STORY AN ORIENTAL PICTURE OF AN OCCI- 
 DENTAL STATE. 
 
 OJOURNING in an old Moorish village in southern 
 Spain, where the dismal old mosque, with vine-cov- 
 ered minaret, the briar-grown fields and choked up 
 canals, furnished the only evidence of ancient civ- 
 ilization and splendor, I read a pretty story, once pop- 
 ular among those characteristically poetic people. It 
 was one of the charming oriental tales, so interesting 
 in its perusaj, while leaving a valuable lesson on the 
 mind of the contemplative reader. Of course, it was 
 of a prince, as stories to be pretty must be em- 
 bellished with the dazzling splendor of wealth. A 
 mighty prince, so the story goes, with all the love of pomp a,nd 
 show common in old Eastern times, prepared for a great feast. 
 His whole people were to be his guests, and the gorgeous splendor 
 of the occasion wa,s to eclipse all the festivals of his opulent an- 
 cestors. Stupendous preparations were made. A great mansion 
 was erected, with lofty rows of majestic pillars, balconies and bal- 
 ustrades, and alcoves and high-a,rched ceilings, upon which were 
 rich paintings in gold and beauteous colors, giving in life-like 
 reality the battles won by his warlike ancestors, the marriage 
 feasts and stately ceremonies of a, prince new crowned. At the 
 left, and looking to the east, were the canopied heavens, with 
 azure-tinted clouds from whose soft outlines angels emerged, with 
 heavenly harps happifying the glad occasion. Away back wa 
 the dark blue vault, studded with brilliant galaxies of stars, bear- 
 ing the outlines and names given by the old Chajdee, as he 
 watched from his cloudless desert the wonders of the skies. In 
 the palace wings were dancing halls, where light-hearted mirth 
 could trip the "light fantastic toe" and guide in the dizzy waltz 
 
10 
 
 some brown-cheeked beauty; and great drawing-rooms a^id par- 
 lors, whose deep, downy carpets drowned the slippered foot; with 
 silken gold embroidered doors and rare furniture, with brilliant 
 chandeliers that ravished the eye of the beholder. In the center 
 was the great banquet hall, with spa,ce enough to plant a province. 
 Its walls were deeply carved and gilded with gold. In bass re- 
 lief were forests green and fruitful. There were mountains clad 
 with vines, with pleasant cots hanging on the crags and dimpled 
 babes playing carelessly with the frisky mountain goat. There 
 were golden fields of ripened grain, waving in the summer 
 breeze, and a happy peasantry, with sickles sharp, trudging 
 gladly forth to reap the laughing crop. There were villages' and 
 towns with great mosques, from whose walls reaches up the tall 
 minaret, and so real is all, that one can almost hear the contem- 
 plative muezzin call the people to prayers. In shapely rows the 
 thousand tables stand to bear the feast when spread. Years were 
 spent in the great preparation, and the breast of the prince leaped 
 for joy as the last painter dropped the brush and saluted his 
 royal master with a tear and a, smile. The proclamation was 
 issued, and in the parchment corner was placed the seal of em- 
 pire. On ready horse, the swift couriers flew toward every breeze 
 of heaven. "All the people," from all the provinces, colonies, 
 satrapies, islands, and wealthy cities; all the sailors were called 
 from off the stormy seas; "all the people, from the gray-haired 
 old sire, who, with dimmed eye and dull ear, waited for the last 
 warning, to the undressed babe of an hour, were called, and the 
 cajl meant obedience. "Empty-handed, too," the prince had said, 
 "for has not the patient toil of these, my subjects, given me 
 enough that I may entertain them all? Who brings a grain," 
 he said, "insults my bounty, for I only feed them from a purse 
 which they themselves have filled and they are my guests." The 
 march began and a,s the lofty minarets appeared above the green 
 old palms, the people kneeled and sang for joy the praises of 
 their generous prince. Soon, the sweet swelling notes of music, 
 from a thousand trained throats, and timbrels and lutes and 
 harps greeted their ea,rs, and again they sang the praises of their 
 prince. Liveried servants greeted the guests with a bugle blast 
 and the prince, donning his rojal robes, and bowing his head to 
 receive the crown from loyal courtiers, ascended the throne a^id 
 
; 
 
 P- 
 
 2 
 
 11 
 
 e the people welcome, with a thousand smiles and becks, a 
 thousand protestations of love and gratitude for loyal, prompt 
 
 bedience. 
 
 At a signal given, the great doors swung on their golden 
 hinges and the banquet hall was opened wide. A shout from the 
 millions rent the air and the deep vales and forests took up the 
 notes and echoed back the praise of the generous prince. The ta- 
 bles groaned beneath the weight of all that satisfies hunger or 
 tempts the taste of the epicure. I said the banquet halls were 
 large and broad; and in East and West, in North and South, for 
 every taste and condition of men, the table groaned with plenty. 
 There were fish from every la,ke, sea and river, flesh from every 
 mountain and every plain, fowls of every feather, breads and 
 fruits and fine old wines, ripened into luxury by many years of 
 waiting, thickly strewed the great tables, and the people, as they 
 gazed in their bewilderment, aga,in shouted the praise of their 
 generous prince. 
 
 Tne dining hour approached, the signal sounded, and the 
 
 rderly multitudes, with orderly step and low obeisance, ap- 
 proached the luxurious table. But hebold! There were no plates 
 prepared, and here and there, at long intervals, on a cushioned 
 throne, sat a haughty noble, who mincingly tasted some choice 
 
 orsel and sent it away with a bitter fault. When the multitudes 
 advanced, these pompous few waved them ba,ck with a frown and 
 with harsh words of authority, and said, "take you hence, this 
 mine." "When shall we dine?" said a pale-faced woman, 
 
 'where are our seatr- a,t the feast?" "Don't know," gruffly said 
 e few well-seated, and each said, "this is mine." When hunger 
 
 rought the people nearer, and contention arose, bold ones de- 
 claring that they had been brought without their seeking, and 
 that there was enough for all, a, curtain moved, and armed re- 
 tainers, with keen blades, and shouting "conspiracy," slew many 
 of the people. They appealed to the prince, but the prince mock- 
 ingly sneered and called them idlers and conspirators, and he 
 ordered the "law to ta,ke its course." 
 
 Then the people gathered together and held earnest council 
 to determine what should be done to save them from the rapidly 
 approaching danger of misery and starvation, and it was decided 
 to send persons, fleet of foot and cunning in observation, to seek 
 
12 
 
 out a country that corn might be sown, vines planted and the 
 fruits of the land gathered to stay the famine. With a hope that 
 held impatient anxiety in check the multitude waited and soon 
 the shouts of joy once more rent the air, for their friends had 
 returned with the gladdest of tidings. They reported that to the 
 beautiful west, just across the mountain range, lay a vast expanse 
 of gently rolling plains, with the fattest soil, rarest fruits and 
 plants, with grea,t forests and meadows, and mines of boundless 
 wealth where never man had left a mark to show his presence. 
 There were lakes and rivers and beautiful lesser streams and a 
 pure, sunny climate that gladdened the spring with myriads of 
 flowers, that crowned the summer with a golden harvest and gave 
 each autumn the ripened fruits and crops that bring contentment 
 and joy to the cottage home. 
 
 They soon forgot their sorrows, and the strong man gathered 
 together his wife, his little ones, his aged parents, and made hur- 
 ried preparations to possess a new home. As the new land seemed 
 so much more promising than the land beyond the mountains and 
 seas, from which they came, the people forgot their sorrows, a,nd, 
 in happy anticipations of the future, fell on their faces and praised 
 the gods, that they had lead them to so great a good, through the 
 instrumentalities of a. bad prince. They even forgot the cruelty 
 of the prince a,nd returned to their former allegiance. 
 
 With glad hearts the great multitudes moved from the in- 
 solent throng that had mocked at their apparent misfortunes and 
 dividing into families and tribes, proceeded to select lor them- 
 selves abiding places. Some loved the mountain side, by stream 
 and forest. Some, the gentle hill, where flocks might gra^e on 
 the undulating slopes and rear their young in peace. Some chose 
 the broad valleys and plains where the patient ox could draw the 
 plow and prepare more easily for the golden grain. Soon the deep 
 valleys and hills and mountains rang with the glad songs of a 
 new life. All felt secure, as the land was new and unpeopled. 
 
 Some were guiding the plows, some with sharp sickles were 
 reaping the waving meadow, some felling the trees to prepare 
 a habitation, some patiently sitting on the stream's bank with 
 
13 
 
 baited hook, and waiting for the unwary fish to take a tempting 
 morsel, some sat in the cool shade, whispering tales of love and 
 others strolling over hills, plucking the bright May flowers and 
 weaving them into garlands to wreathe the brow of loved ones, 
 wnen the hasty summons came, by the prince's servant, that 
 others "owned the land," and the people were hastily ordered to 
 depart. 
 
 Debate and expostulations were in vain. Loyal appeals for 
 mercy and pledges for future service, were alike unheeded. 
 
 The prince had divided his dominion among a favorite few, 
 the fa,t, sleek sons of opulence who sat at the long table at the 
 great feast, and he must defend his dignity by saving his favor- 
 its estates from trespassers. The few owned this vast domain, 
 and though they never saw it and could not occupy it, their lazy 
 minds unfolding by the quickening powers of wine, feasted in 
 proud insolence on the mystic picture which they, drew of their 
 estates. So the prince issued a proclamation, commanding all 
 his people, under pain of expulsion by the army of the kingdom, 
 to depart from the lands which they had taken. 
 
 Merry laughter was changed to weeping, joy into sorrow, and 
 dajicing into the most grievous and mad murmurings of despair. 
 
 A grea.t tumult arose, and none could advise the people of any 
 other country. The darkest sorrow cast its shadow on the land. 
 The babe dropped its rattle, and clinging to the withered breast 
 of a shivering, wild-eyed mother, died in her arms. The blush 
 of hope faded from the cheek of beauty, and strong men yielded 
 to the power of want and died. 
 
 But from sleepless despair came frantic courage. As the 
 wounded lion unable to flee turns and rends his pursuers, so the 
 young and heated blood of young and daring spirits arose against 
 this despotic oppression. They appealed to the gods, and claimed 
 that the world was ma,de for all the children of men and not for 
 a few. They said, the world is wide and bountiful. There is 
 abundance for all. Man has but one body, with one stomach to 
 feed, one back to clothe, and none can use or consume the pro- 
 ducts of so vast a country, so 'tis evident tha.t God intended that 
 all should partake of His bounties. But the insolent nobles 
 sneered at the argument, in which they saw no force. They called 
 the people traitors, as they had violated "vested rights," and de- 
 
14 
 
 served to be extirpated from the earth. The haughty prince, 
 thirsting for glory, marshalled his hosts, of foot and horse, and 
 marched against his rebellious subjects. 
 
 But the multitudes flew to arms, the gods favored their cause, 
 they smote the army of the prince, hip and thigh, and drove them 
 into the walls of the city, where they prepared for a siege. But 
 the prince, nobles and rich, having grown effeminate by many 
 luxuries and much ease, maddened the soldiers with their inso- 
 lence and in the darkness of night, while the great halte~were filled 
 with revelry, and the inebriate nobles were drinking health to 
 fair Indies who wore their virtue and their raiment with an ease 
 in harmony with these voluptuous times, and mocking the unfed 
 and poorly clad besiegers, the gates were opened and the wild 
 multitudes, smarting from their many wrongs, rushed in and 
 seized the city. The prince commanded his troops to slay the peo- 
 ple, but the soldiers answered with a laugh, "we proclaimed" the 
 people, but the people answered with wild shouts of derision. 
 
 When the multitude beheld with what splendor and opulence 
 their rulers had lived, while they were so poor, they became like 
 infuriated beasts, devoid of mercy or reason. 
 
 They roasted the fat sleek rulers in their own grease; they 
 smothered the prince, and elevating his head on a pole, the young 
 men shot arrows at the ghastly face. They razed the palace and 
 the city walls, and the great estates of wealth and splendor, and 
 the chief marts and the temples, and places of amusement to the 
 ground. When the people tired of their work of destruction and 
 season returned, they held a, solemn council and listened in silence 
 to all who proposed plans for the future government of the coun- 
 try. 
 
 When an aged man arose and proposed the choosing of a new 
 king the whole multitude became clamorous with rage, and would 
 have torn him to pieces, had not the gods enveloped him in a 
 cloud so da.rk that they feared, and desisted from their rashness. 
 
 Soon their passions subsided and the council proceeded to lay 
 plans for the future good of the nation, and when it was proposed 
 that there be no high and no low, but that all should be equal, 
 that the people should rule by themselves or their chosen agents, 
 who should hold their powers by the suffrance of the whole peo- 
 ple, that ea,ch should have an indisputable right to the product 
 
15 
 
 of his labor; that none should have a right to demand tribute 
 from another; that none should own that which he could not 
 create, or mould, or fashion for the use of man, and detach the 
 same from the earth, a^id as the gods made the world for thd 
 habitation of the children of men, and the ownership of the world 
 by a few had always resulted in injustice, insolence and des- 
 potism, therefore, that the land be divided among the people as 
 each may need, to be held on such terms a,s the whole nation, or 
 its chosen agents, may determine; the loud huzzas of a wild and 
 happy people shook the very hills with boisterous echoes. 
 
 The council dissolved and the re-gladdened people went their 
 way. Soon busy hands were toiling; each for the benefit of home 
 and loved ones. Forests were felled, mines explored, hills adorned 
 with pleasant cottages, where hands of love pruned the rose and 
 the jessamine, and soft arms twined the neck of the evening re- 
 turning husbandman. 
 
 Farms sprang up, and busy market places, and the lowing 
 herds strolled lazily over the many grassy hills a<nd mountain 
 sides. The seasons came and went, and went and came, each 
 bringing its great harvest of grain and happiness. As nature's 
 bounties were greater than man's necessities, and none could ap- 
 propriate what he did not produce or could not occupy, there were 
 no rich, consequently no avarice, no tyranny and no despotism. 
 As there were no rich, there was no poverty, for plenty beckoned 
 every one to honest effort, and so, there was no crime, no prisons, 
 .no pauper dens of misery, and for a thousand years the people 
 dwelt in happiness, and the prattling babes were taught to curse 
 the name of king. 
 
16 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 MALTHUSIAN. 
 
 | HAT the sensitive nerves of the favored few might be 
 saved from the shocking presence of misery and want, 
 Dr. Malthus wrote a "labored treatise" arguing the 
 wisdom of placing such checks on population by gov- 
 ernment a would prevent it outrunning the food sup- 
 ply, as he argued that the food supply increased in 
 but arithmetical ratio, and population in geometrical 
 ratio; that over-population would soon be manifest 
 and great misery a,nd decay follow. The gist of his 
 argument was that the capacity of the world to sup- 
 port people was limited, those who gained possession 
 of it had the better title and that those who came to a world pre- 
 occupied, to a feast with no plate, had simply but one remedy; 
 to take himself away and die. He said, that it was plain, that if 
 a man came to a world already occupied, he was simply one too 
 many, and should depart; and nature stood ready to provide for 
 his removal. He argued that wars and disea.se and pestilence were 
 nature's instrumentalities which checked the over-population and 
 prevented greater misery. He suggested a rigid control of mar- 
 riage by the government, to check births and leave the care of 
 the young in more responsible ha.nds. 
 
 Dr. Malthus was a minister of the gospel, a follower of the 
 Galilean, yet he proposed to forbid the very class, among whom 
 our Savior mingled, for whom He came and suffered, from the 
 heavenly joys of home, from the councils of loving wife and the 
 caresses and prattling babes. According to Rev. Dr. Malthus, if 
 God sent one of His children to some spot on His footstool al- 
 ready occupied by some other of His children, this one was simply 
 one too many, a cruel mistake of God, and must take himself 
 away, and nature God stands rea,dy to enforce the decree. This 
 refined barbarism was the best apology ever offered for monopoly 
 
- 
 
 an 
 
 as 
 
 ; 
 
 17 
 
 despotism, and it was hailed with joy by the "genteel" of 
 all Christendom. Every "landlord" chanted his praise, the "noble" 
 applauded in eloquent phrase, and every blood-stained crown that 
 shielded low-browed ignorance from the darts of contempt, was 
 doffed to do him homage. He wined with dukes, dined with kings 
 d found a fawning sycophant in every gorgeous palace, for he 
 ,d solvju the problem of how the few might hold possession of 
 e world. 
 
 Proudhon believed in the fatherhood of God and brotherhood 
 of man. He believed in the inalienable right, to an absolute 
 equality of opportunities for all human beings; that every child 
 of God had a,n equal right to live in the world, on the soil, and 
 to clutch the raw material from nature's treasure-house and 
 fashion it into the necessaries to sustain for man's allotted time 
 the existence that was given him. 
 
 Proudhon was fined, persecuted by the monopolists, nobles 
 and fa,vored few; was cast into prison, his writings condemned 
 as mischievous, and his noble name pronounced by the "genteel" 
 ith bitter contempt and hatred. 
 
 The pious Malthus would have defended the orince in the 
 etty oriental tale, while the agnostic Proudhon would have 
 eaded the revolt before hunger suggested disloyalty, and snatched 
 from insolent aristocracy the powers which they had usurped, and 
 crowned humanity the just possessors of the world. 
 
 Sixty years have passed since the pious Malthus claimed the 
 world for the few, and thirty-six years ha,ve passed, since 
 Proudhon demanded, from his prison walls, the world for the 
 whole human family; and though the productive capacity of the 
 earth is greatly increased, the question of human rights more 
 earnestly demands solution tha,n ever before. 
 
 Times have greatly changed, yet as long as the masses take 
 their opinions ready-made from the classes, pliilosophy must yield 
 to sophistry and the Malthusian doctrine will rule the Christian 
 world. Who writes for fame or cash, must write for the few, 
 while he who writes for the people, has little compensation but 
 the satisfaction of having done his part in the emancipation of 
 his fellows from their willing servitude to the cunning few. 
 
 Malthus is dead. His cajiting philosophy has been long ex- 
 ploded by the discovery of the almost infinite capacity of the earth 
 
18 
 
 to produce, under more enlightened methods, yet all Christian 
 countries, including ours, are following out the Malthusian doc- 
 trine. 
 
 A small number of favorites, whom the fates have honored, 
 own the country, its soils, mines a,nd forests, and so completely 
 monopolize the conditions under which all must live, that a ma- 
 jority find themselves in a world already occupied at a feast 
 with no plate and are compelled to compromise with some one 
 more favored, for the privilege of existing on the earth where 
 God ha^ placed them. 
 
 I deny that the God of heaven has sent a majority of His- 
 frail children into this world, to toil and sweat in poverty, that 
 soft-handed idleness might fare sumptuously, or to be enslaved, 
 degraded and starved, because He had parceled out the broad 
 acres of His footstool to a favored few of His vain-glorious and 
 haughty creatures. 
 
 Never was there a spot on earth so richly endowed by nature 
 as to supply the a.varice of the few and the necessities of the 
 many. Luxury deepens greed, and at every sight of poverty, op- 
 ulence tightens its grip on its money bags and drives pale hunger 
 farther from me door. 
 
19 
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 'GOVERNMENT BY CONSENT. 
 
 r 
 
 lo 
 
 LL peoples have been ruled, or "governed" which is 
 a, modernized term, more soft and musical to our so- 
 cietyby organized intelligence. The number Of 
 shrewd, cunning people who desire to live luxuriantly 
 by their wits, and enjoy the heavenly thrill of public 
 applause, with good judgment of human nature and 
 skill in organizing, has always been so small, that 
 there has been little difficulty in formulating schemes 
 by which the masses of honest, credulous people, 
 busied with domestic cares and widely separated, 
 could be easily controlled. 
 
 The faults of the vicious few have given abundant argument 
 convince the people of the necessity of repressive power being 
 odged somewhere, and the apparent necessity for prompt and 
 vigorous Action in the suppression of crime or wrong, has recon- 
 ciled most people to a central authority with physical forces suffi- 
 cient to command respect. The basic idea of all governments 
 has been to "protect the weak against the encroachments of the 
 strong;" and this specious pretext won the respect, submission 
 and support of the populace. Governments once established, the 
 fundamental principles are subverted, and the cunning few be- 
 come rulers, having better opportunity to study the character of 
 the ruled, to think, to organize, to cultivate the arts of finesse, 
 to win each other's confidence and co-operation, and surround 
 themselves with a, halo of authority; and the whole machinery 
 of state-craft becomes an instrument for the aggrandizement of 
 tne few. The unorganized, uninstructed, credulous masses never 
 discover the change, except when the rulers becoming so intox- 
 icated with their success, abuse their authority over their equals, 
 r by other means expose their weakness or insincerity. 
 
 Because credulity can only be broken by a, shock, and rev- 
 
20 
 
 erence for superior authority nurses apathy, until some glaring 
 outrage fires the latent forces of human passion, no people on 
 earth ever revolted against uniform, careful, systematic oppres- 
 sion, however severe or exacting. A government of consistent 
 despotism has always commanded, and still commands, more loyal 
 respect and cheerful obedience than one of lax liberty. The gfeat 
 credulous masses repose at the base of the fundamental idea of 
 government, and reverence the authority, not for what it is, but 
 for what it assumes to be. The old music is so sweet, the mem- 
 ories so dear, the arts of the demagogue so seductive, that the 
 people have never discovered the departure from the true prin- 
 ciples, ajid thus modern governments, and ancient, too, when 
 once fairly organized, are carried on, not for the g(5od or security 
 of the many, or to "protect the weak against the encroachments 
 of the strong," but for the benefit of the few, and for the purpose 
 of taxing the energies of the weak, that the strong may become 
 still stronger. The strength of these centralized, governmental 
 organizations, depends upon the leader, or head, to keep recon- 
 ciled with his press or props, to the finesse of his diplomats, to 
 the loyalty of his courtiers and the skill of his satellites, in feed- 
 ing the credulity of the people. Here grows a fertile field for the 
 demagogue and the politician, and this lip service, by careful 
 practice, has taken many a man whom nature designed as a com- 
 mon dunce and transformed him into a polished, eloquent and 
 fashionable hypocrite. The rulers, because they have always 
 feared the discovery of their secret by the "common herd," have 
 always managed to provide themselves with means of defense in 
 case of emergency. To this end, under the pretended necessity 
 of a power to "check lawlessness," to hold in awe the vicious, to 
 quell domestic violence, or "impress" other nations, great armies 
 have been organized and kept ready for action. These grea,t con- 
 suming armies, every one in Europe today, are kept, not to de- 
 fend the rights or liberties of the people, but to hold in awe, 
 the "lower millions," to enforce the authority of their "govern- 
 ment," which only means to preserve the dignity and authority 
 of the ruling classes. 
 
 Thus we see in every country the melancholy spectacle of 
 people struggling under the burdens of outrageous taxation, and 
 giving their noble sons to the hated military service, to keep an 
 

 army to hold themselves in forced obedience to organized cun- 
 ning, who "rule by divine right." A government is the type of a 
 nation's ruling passion. The people are the rulers of a republic, 
 the stay of empire, or the prop of despotism; for the most cruel 
 yoke that ever galled the neck of toil, was fashioned by the fools 
 who wore it. 
 
 Trace the pages of history and you will see that the most 
 oppressed peoples have prated most of liberty, and the most 
 despotic governments h^ve been republics. All nations are ruled 
 by organized cunning, and the degree of liberty depends, not upon 
 the style of government, but upon the climate, soil and density 
 of population, if the civilization is sufficiently aged to be moulded 
 in harmony with the environments. The careful, discriminating 
 man, without prejudice, can more readily determine the power 
 exercised by organized cunning, through corporations, monopolies 
 a,nd caucus purchase, and thus define the degree of liberty re- 
 tained, by a process of deduction, than by reading the Declaration 
 of Independence, cheering the stars and stripes, or singing 
 "Yankee Doodle." If organized intelligence, through its great 
 wealth and combinations, exercises as much power over the 
 profits of industry a,nd production, as do the monarchs of Europe, 
 what is the difference in the degree of liberty enjoyed by the* 
 "subject" more than the greater opportunities given by a more 
 sparse population? 
 
 But what is liberty? Is it but a condition of the mind that 
 so reconciles us to our lot that we feel no desire to leap the pre- 
 scribed bounds? or, is it in reality such an absence of repressive 
 force as will permit us to enjoy enlarged privileges in locomotion, 
 in thought, in speech, in action, in the pursuit of property, of 
 happiness and the control of the profits of our own labor? Men 
 are not free if other men control the profits of their industry, 
 and the conditions under which they procure a livelihood, and if 
 organized cunning controls the profits of industry, imagination 
 alone can ease the yoke of servitude. 
 
22 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LIBERTY. 
 
 [UR national pride is so closely allied to vanity, that 
 we have educated ourselves into the notion that lib- 
 erty was begotten on the new soil of America, and 
 born in 1776, but a little careful thought dispels the 
 pleasing illusion. While it is true that every civ- 
 ilization that ever blessed or cursed a land, climbed 
 from savagery on the ba,cks of slaves, it is also true 
 that the first crouching wretch" who shrank from the 
 frown of a cruel master, longed for liberty and made 
 the first contribution to the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence. The spirit of liberty groaned in the chains of 
 ignorance through all the oblivious ages, and only awoke into 
 action on the shores of the New World, where the hand of mon- 
 archy, paralyzed by three thousand miles of waves, sat lightly 
 on its subjects; where muscles toughened by hardy use, hearts 
 grown brave and confident from frequent contests with wild 
 bea,sts, and wilder men, a fearless love of liberty, developed from 
 the free exercise of a will that was necessarily self-reliant. 
 
 Since the Angles and Saxons overran Brittania, there has 
 been an irrepressible conflict between monopoly and liberty cen- 
 tralism and local self-government but the colonies being so 
 grea,t a distance from this central body, the latter found room for 
 a rapid development. Norman centralism, or aristocracy in 
 England, assumed to monopolize the land, the circulating medium 
 and the nation's trade, while localism or liberty demanded a rule 
 by "common consent." 
 
 Centralism, or monopoly, assumed to tax the many for the 
 benefit of the few, while localism denied the right of taxation, 
 except by a law to which the taxed were a party. Every battle 
 fought in America's forests was a triumph for localism or lib- 
 erty, but the iron hand of monopoly showed its strength as soon 
 

 as there wa anything to tax, and then came the conflict. Mo- 
 nopoly, or centralism, had watched the people's struggles from 
 a foreign throne, and when it came to levy tribute from these 
 sturdy freemen, our ancestors denied the validity of the demand, 
 as they had not been consulted on the matter. They said taxation 
 against consent is slavery, and it was base to be a slave. 
 
 Being pressed in the matter, they hurled forth the immortal 
 Declaration of Independence, swearing that all men were "created 
 equal," and endowed with certain inalienable rights, and among 
 those rights were life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; To 
 derend these grand principles they struggled through an eight 
 years' war, and finally forced the surrender of the last army of 
 centralism in the New World. 
 
 As armed centralism succumbed, the people rejoiced in the 
 thought that they were free, and celebrated the victory with loud 
 huzzas, a,nd shouts and dance, and blare of horns and drums. But 
 as with all past ages, their boast of freedom was but mockery, 
 for all men with hearts and souls, soon read between the bars of 
 e "sacred emblem of liberty" a written lie, for beneath its very 
 folds, "protected" by its shade, millions crouched und*er the lash 
 of cruel masters, because God had stamped them with a dusky 
 cheek. The Declaration of Independence was a promise that all 
 should be free, and the victories of the revolution were seals to 
 the compact. But for eighty years the patriotic shouts of joy 
 were mingled with the groans of bondsmen, and the chains on 
 the limbs of men and mothers clanked in fierce discord with the 
 boastful songs of patriotism. 
 
 But conscience awoke, and the long deferred promise was re- 
 vived. The men of '76 said, "'tis base to be a slave," while the 
 men of '61 said, "'tis base a,like to hold as be a slave;" and when 
 old John Brown stooped from the gallows to kiss the lips of a 
 slave child, it was the grandest prophecy ever recorded in the his- 
 tory of the world. 
 
 The late "unpleasantness" was the first great strike against 
 "cheap labor," a, protest against the idle, coining the sweat of toil 
 into luxurious opulence, a declaration that cash should be sub- 
 stituted for the lash. Few men, 'tis true, confessed that they 
 had fought to "free the slaves," but the climax to the irrepressi- 
 ble conflict had come, and an irresistible destiny drove the free 
 
24 
 
 laboring men of the North, to snatch the fetters from the galled 
 limbs of toil and cast them into darkness, and there they lay, 
 rusting in the museums of the past. 
 
 I joined that great strike, and contributed my full share m 
 breaking my brother's chains. I saw "my brother," for there is 
 no color line between men of brains, and every man who stands 
 erect and wears the image of God, and carries in his bosom a 
 heart warmed by love, is my brother. 
 
 The struggle was long and severe, but when the tents were 
 struck, the muskets stacked, the cannons silenced and the smoke 
 of battle cleared away, the great old sun for the first time in all 
 its eternal circles in space, shown down on a nation of freemen. 
 
 Now, as slavery is a natural condition in certain stages of 
 national development, it is also as natural at certain other stages 
 to be extinguished. It is not the body, but the toil of a slave, that 
 avarice would own, and when the cost of keeping of the slave is 
 greater than the profit of his toil, the ownership of the body will 
 disappear. Where land is dea,r, raw material monopolized and 
 labor plenty and cheap, 'tis better, more profitable and safe to 
 hire the slave, than own him. This condition was rapidly ap- 
 proaching in America, a,nd with the strength of a monarchial 
 government, slavery would have disappeared without the shed- 
 ding of blood. 
 
 Yes, nearly a quarter of a century ago, black slavery was 
 abolished, and la,bor dignified with perfect citizenship, yet there 
 is a melancholy reflection, that today the labor of a freeman is 
 cheaper to the employer than would be the labor of a slave. In 
 other words, a freemen toils cheaper tha,n a slave; and, as it is 
 the profits of toil that the cunning desire to control, when "free 
 labor" is cheaper than slave labor, they prefer that system. 
 
 Liberty is the last thing the ruling class, or the cunning few, 
 have ever been willing to grant to the many, and a means by 
 which the profits of industry might be appropriated has puzzled 
 the shrewd brain since the world began. The new conditions 
 that canceled the personal ownership of the negro of the South, 
 ushered in an age in which, by the pursuance of a, new policy, 
 more civilized and equally certain, the whole profits of industry 
 might be turned into new channels leading to centralized ag- 
 grandizement. This meant the organization of wealth, and for 
 
25 
 
 le entire extinguishment of liberty, a, tribune monarch of mo- 
 >poly needs but the common skill of shrewdness. 
 
 The country was rapidly developing; the bulky products of 
 
 farm and mine were revolutionizing the world of commerce; 
 the people were educated and intelligent, but the individual was 
 so much absorbed in his domestic pursuits, and felt so secure 
 in his liberty and the perpetuity of the republic, that no encroach- 
 ments would arouse his fears, as he believed himself prosperous. 
 
 With a country so indescribably boundless in all its grandeur 
 and resources, where every change seemed prosperity, as it trans- 
 formed the valueless into the valuable, retrogression was impos- 
 sible. 
 
 In this happy condition, and so grand a prophecy for the fu- 
 ture, the people slept in proud security, while the cunning puz- 
 zled their brains to form a scheme for self-aggrandizement. All 
 countries, regardless of the name they bore, had been ruled by 
 a few for the benefit of a few, and this must yield to the same 
 fate when opportunity offered, or schemes gigantic enough to 
 compass the results, could be formulated. 
 
 This was no little kingdom, dukedom or principality, peo- 
 pled by a sluggish mass, whose spirits had broken under the lash 
 of tyranny, so to control the profits of the industries required 
 a vaster scheme than was ever conceived by monarch or con- 
 queror. The boldest and most cunning dared not dream of touch- 
 ing the liberty of the "subject" or the citizen but to carefully 
 and systematically shape the policy of all industries, and mould 
 the avenue through which wealth and fortune comes, would lead 
 unerringly to the most absolute control of a,ll profits, and finally, 
 
 property and all industry. 
 
26 
 
 CHAPTER V, 
 
 A DISCOVERY. 
 
 HEN the argosies of the maritime traders of the bar- 
 barous republics of the renaissance returned from 
 successful adventures, the wealthy merchant vainly 
 attributed his good fortune to his superior ability, 
 but when unwise speculations wrecked his finances, 
 he attributed his misfortunes to the caprice or hide 
 den purposes of the gods. So the people of America, 
 having witnessed such marvelous national develop- 
 ment, apid enjoyed such unparalleled prosperity, 
 vtainly assume that this happy condition is due tq 
 their superior virtue, intelligence and peculiar insti- 
 tutions. As long as the train moves rapidly and smoothly, there 
 is great Admiration for the mechanism of the locomotive; and as 
 our progressive development has been by the most wonderful 
 strides, our train must be of the most perfect construction, there- 
 fore, the most safe and faultless, and the officials the wisest and 
 most sagacious of men. 
 
 Speeding through a thousand years of conquests in half a, cen- 
 tury, and intoxicated with the rapid and ever-changing land- 
 scape and architectural beauties, a, dazed enchantment enslaves 
 our loyalty, and we close our eyes to every fault and open our 
 resentment to every critic whose treasonable tongue dare doubt 
 the infinite perfection of our laws, the spotless integrity of our 
 Authorities or the divine purity of "our party." With a senti- 
 ment so beautiful in its blindness, so charming in its stupidity, 
 so ecstatic in its ignorance and so misleading in its patriotism, 
 the cunning have small trouble in deceiving those whom they 
 would control. 
 
 People readily forget that we owe very much of our seem- 
 ing prosperity to causes quite remote from our intelligence, 
 patriotism or industry, and that even for those, we are indebted 
 
to opportunities never enjoyed by a^ny other people. We boast 
 of the grandeur of our country as though we were the authors 
 of its existence. People forget that we took this vast continent 
 fresh from the hands of Almighty God but a few years ago, with 
 not a stump in the great forests, not a tra,ck on the vast fertile 
 plains; with the greatest extent of arable and fertile soil, the 
 most extensive mines, of all valuable kinds, with the best and 
 cheapest buiiuing material, and all that contributes to a nation's 
 greatness, in the most fabulous quantities, and more accessible 
 than in any other country; and that just across the fields and 
 pastures, to the west, there was gold and silver enough to pay 
 all the bills. They forget that this stupendous amount of raw 
 and Accessible material and the boundless plains were given us, 
 and that all we had to do was to possess and go to* work to de- 
 velop nature's resources; and that the whole vast continent did 
 not cost the capital of a day's toil. Forgetting the part tha,t God 
 and nature played, and appropriating all the honors, then com- 
 paring the development with that of people who have struggled 
 through more than a, thousand years of despotism, no wonder 
 they are puffed up with self-glorification. 
 
 But, as in the wildest and most reckless lives, there come 
 moments of contemplation, so, in the march of nations, events 
 of such moment transpire as to arouse public attention and, pos- 
 sibly, demand public criticism and reform. 
 
 The great "strike" for free la,bor the late war was so 
 gigantic, and its sorrows so universal and deep that before it 
 closed, the whole nation was weary. The thought of final victory 
 and lasting peace, engrossed the minds of all patriotic people. 
 So when the war closed, each turned from the scenes of strife 
 with a sigh of relief and plunged into the private pursuits of peace 
 witii the same enthusiasm with which they had rushed to the 
 cnarge at the bugle's call. The demands of war had been so. 
 enormous that every industry had received a, new impetus. Money 
 was plenty, prices were high, and labor profitable. Relieved from 
 the anxieties of war and cheered by the ambitious hopes of pri- 
 vate prosperity, the whole people rushed almost wildly into the 
 various private and public enterprises. But soon there came a, 
 lull, as at the close of battle. Then the steeds began to weary, 
 the motive power to weaken, and the great engine that had 
 
28 
 
 plunged so fearlessly forward, threatened explosion. Careful 
 men began to realize that there were dangers, even in times ot 
 peace. From an elevated standpoint they surveyed the field and 
 the situation was found to be alarming. 
 
 They saw the most fabulous fortunes ever possessed by man, 
 that had grown from nothing in less than twenty years. They 
 saw the country laced with a network of railroads; the mines 
 developing at a raj)id rate; more and greater manufactures and 
 shops than in any other land; millions of fresh acres opened to 
 the plow and greater evidences of a country's capacity to feed, 
 clothe and house a great population, and to cluster a,bout each 
 home the blessings of a highly civilized life, than were ever en- 
 joyed by any people or any age. But they saw that the hand 
 of a cunning few had grasped the profits of a,ll industry, and that 
 the most gigancic monopolies that ever existed, held with a firm 
 grip the political and industrial forces of the nation. 
 
 They saw the great mills, factories and shops, stilled more 
 than ha^f the year, and the men turned from employment empty- 
 handed. They saw our commerce on the seas annihilated; the 
 circulating medium contracted and controlled by bankers and 
 speculators; the farms plastered over with mortgages; agriculture 
 prostrate; the public lands owned by a few favorites; competi- 
 tion abolished and prices set by congressional enactments; the 
 industrial centers filled with cheap labor imported from Europe 
 to take the place of American labor; great cattle syndicates driv- 
 ing off actual settlers with the people's a,rmy; and monopoly 
 choosing senators, bribing congressmen, moulding courts and leg- 
 islatures and absolutely owning the leaders of all political par- 
 ties. They saw millions of acres of unoccupied land, where man 
 never stood; elevators bursting with their weight, a,nd bread ma- 
 terial rotting, unsold; great warehouses filled with soft woolens, 
 decaying from moth, mould and time. They saw, too, thousands 
 of families starving for lack of bread, freezing for lack of cloth- 
 ing, and roaming disconsolate without a, home, not able to buy 
 land enough on which to dig a grave. They saw honest industry 
 die from want, in the very shadow of the palace erected from the 
 profits of its toil. They saw public opinion so debauched by the 
 corrupt use of monopoly power, that wealth had become the only 
 ba,dge of social distinction, and the man who did not enrich him- 
 
29 
 
 self trom public office was considered little above a dunce. They 
 saw the "free ballot" cast by the power of bribery or intimida- 
 tion. They saw rural districts retrograding, and small towns de- 
 caying, while great cities grew with wondrous rapidity, and they 
 sa,w them the centers of opulence and power and activity and 
 anxiety and idleness and discontent and sedition and conspiracy 
 and danger. They saw a thousand things, too terrible for re- 
 cital, yet too cruel for silence. They heard humanity protest and 
 justice demand relief, but they sa.w the prince of monopoly turn 
 away with a sneer, as he muttered, "the people be damned." They 
 sa,w less than a dozen men control the price of all commodities, 
 by setting prices on freights; eleven control the price of steel 
 and iron; twenty the price of glass; a few, that off coal; forty or 
 fifty of lumber; fifteen of nails; and the price of nearly every 
 necessity heldf in the iron grip of these monster monopolies, 
 whose vast powers are given them, as especial favors from the 
 great government. 
 
 In no country on earth does a smaller number control the 
 conditions under which all must live. When we calmly consider 
 that but a few years ago, this whole continent, with its boundless 
 wealth, in soil and mines and forests and minerals, belonged to 
 the people, and then reflect that now it is chiefly owned by a 
 few, ajid absolutely controlled by monopolists, by whose grace 
 these "sovereign people" must live, what an empty, boasting 
 mockery seems our "immortaj" Declaration of Independence. If 
 "all powers are derived from the people," what stupendous dunces 
 these people have been; for I assert that they have lost, yielded 
 or voluntarily surrendered more of their "natural rights," a.nd 
 the rights and privileges bequeathed to them by God and the 
 valor of our ancestors, in twenty years, than were ever wrested 
 from a people, in a century, by the strongest army ever mar- 
 shaled. 
 
 Never, in all the chilling history of the world, did barbarous 
 ambition win more by the sword, than has the cunning aristo- 
 crat snatched from this generation, and never wore monarch 
 more despotic power than is wielded by the monopolists of 
 America today. 
 
 Contemplating this alarming condition of Affairs, the world 
 
30 
 
 is shocked at the sight, and the chai^, having come with such 
 graceful rapidity, seems but the substance of a dream. 
 
 These observers saw the richest mines, quarries and forests 
 in the universe, with the exhaustless ra,w material scarce half 
 explored, while the most active, intelligent and industrious class 
 of workingmen who ever blessed the world with their efforts, 
 were roaming idly over the country, because the laws of a gov- 
 ernment "of the people, by the people and for the people," 
 had ceded these bounties of nature to a favored few, with whom 
 all must bargain for a. chance to live. They saw millions of broad, 
 fertile acres, where civilized man never set a foot; yet millions 
 of homeless people are crowded in dingy, stifling tenements or 
 damp huts in the cheap quarters of great "labor centers," and 
 forbidden to breathe the free prairie air, because a government 
 "of the people, by the people and fot the people," had ceded the 
 vast domain to the wealthy few, who own the mines, the forests 
 and the dark tenements, and the dirt where the hovel stands. 
 They saw the country so full of products necessary for man's use, 
 that a. cry of "over-production" was heard, because the wares 
 could not be sold, yet thousands upon thousands suffered the 
 most terrible agony, being unable to procure these necessaries of 
 life, because a government "of the people, by the people and for 
 the people" hd given the few favorites a monopoly, and enabled 
 them to control all goods and a.11 prices. They saw agriculture 
 crushed, the farm products unsold, the farms mortgaged to se- 
 cure a 14% loan to some "Eastern capitalist," because the great 
 government "of the people, by the people and for the people," 
 loaned its money at 1% to the great bankers, that they might 
 fleece and pauperize the public. They saw the most skillful and 
 patient industry that ever sweat under the lash, gradually yield 
 to poverty, while a few 'soft-handed idlers, conningly contrived 
 to appropriate the profits of all industry and revel in the most 
 gorgeous wealth and splendor, because a government "of the peo- 
 ple, by the people and for the people," had formed a partnership 
 with the aristocracy, and mortgaged the future efforts of the 
 American people to a syndicate of monopolists. 
 
 Then it occurred to these thoughful men to inquire how such 
 things could be. How came the home of intelligent industry to 
 be destitute, if indeed, not in want or absolute misery, while the 
 
who never enriched the world as much as a grain of corn, 
 live in princely splendor? How came agriculture, in so fertile 
 and easily cultivated soil, to be sunk to bankruptcy and despair, 
 hile millions are starving for its products? 
 
 La,bor produced this wealth more wealth than exists in any 
 er country. But those who produced it do not enjoy it, while 
 those who produce nothing own and enjoy all. How came those 
 who earned it to dispossess themselves of it? How came those 
 who never enriched the earth with a drop of sweat, to possess 
 and rule the whole? By what means may property be acquired? 
 
32 
 
 Tllllll 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 METHODS OF ACQUIRING PROPERTY. 
 
 HE acquisition of property, or as it is commonly 
 termed, "making money," ha.s become the ruling pas- 
 sion of our age. While every civilization has been 
 largely influenced by an ambitious class, who were 
 afflicted with an itching palm, it is doubtful if any 
 age ever entered into so mad a scramble for ga,in, or 
 paid more earnest homage to the man of cash than 
 ours. The times kneel at the shrine of wealth and 
 among all the worshipers of the "golden calf there 
 is not one hypocrite. 
 
 The causes for this seemingly strange condition 
 are not remote. The successful development of America ushered 
 in a ulitaria,n age. We had a most abundant and most accessible 
 stock of raw material. That which we had seen give place and 
 honor and power in other lands, here waited appropriation. For- 
 tunes were easily and rapidly made, and as easily and rapidly 
 dissipated. Wealth crowned the efforts of activity, push, energy, 
 shrewdness, and a lax regard for the old-time notions of honor 
 and propriety. Though in our country wealth was more easily 
 acquired, the same honor, dignity and applause followed its pos- 
 session. 
 
 The severity of climate made property a greater convenience, 
 If indeed not a greater necessity, than in other countries. While 
 we are young as compared with others, we are the richest nation 
 on ea,Tth. Our progress has no parallel in history. I will not 
 philosophize on the definitions of value, wealth, property, etc., 
 but discourse on those tangible things, such as houses, fields, 
 shops, factories, mills, wares, and valuable goods, and the thou- 
 sands of articles produced by the genius, or labor of man, and 
 which administer to his wajits, or contribute to his happiness, 
 
33 
 
 d are called, indiscriminately, property, and reason about how 
 ch things may be honestly acquired. 
 
 The wealth of a nation is the aggregate wealth of the in- 
 viduals composing the nation, plus the common property, such 
 as public buildings, equipments, lands, etc., and consists in the 
 total accumulated earnings of the whole people. 
 
 The profits of industry, is the difference between the value, 
 
 established by the ruling selling price of like property and 
 the cost of production; and the net earnings of a person or a 
 people, is the surplus of production over consumption; sa,ve what 
 political economists call the "unearned increment," that is, the 
 rise in land values. 
 
 Three factors, or ingredients, enter into the construction, or 
 make-up, of nearly all articles known as property, viz., labor, 
 capita.1 accumulated labor, or its fruits and material. In early 
 America, material being practically free, awakened all the latent 
 energies of man, and its being so abundant and Accessible, labor 
 was the chief factor in production. To nature, which aroused 
 the grandest energies, and labor, guided by the brightest genius, 
 we are indebted for all the vast wealth of which this vain gen- 
 eration boasts. 
 
 The $40,000,000,000 worth of property "on hand," gives us the 
 proud title of the "richest nation on earth." Truly our prosperity 
 has been phenomenal. This vast sum, if equally divided, would 
 give every person in the nation $800, surely a handsome little 
 sum; but this dissolving appearance, bringing the figures in reach 
 of our comprehension, detracts from the grandeur of the contem- 
 plation. Remember, too, this magnificent sum is the total fruits 
 of two hundred and eighty year's earnings. 
 
 But further, God Almighty gave us, demanding not a penny, 
 not the earnings of a day, a continent, with the most boundless 
 natural resources, consisting of soil, forests, mines, etc., that we 
 might simply come and possess. This vast store of raw material 
 was marked 0, in beginning our fortune. But remember, further 
 still, that 75% of the great wealth of which we boast, is in land 
 values, not produced by man's labor, or genius, or enterprise, but 
 by his desire or necessities. This va,st accumulation has not 
 been an "accumulation" at all, but a mere marking up of the 
 goods, and leaves us, as the net earnings of two hundred and 
 
 
34 
 
 eighty years, with all these grand opportunities, in tangible prop- 
 erty, less than $10,000,000,000, or $200 per capita. This invites a 
 still further scrutiny. Our people have brought much "prop- 
 erty," money, etc., from abroad, besides the strongest hands and 
 bravest hearts that ever invaded a land. 
 
 Let us think. I am not going into details, for I am writing 
 a book of ideas, and not general statistics, but let us reason. Now 
 for at least sixteen years, a,n average of 50,000,000 people have 
 been exerting an influence on this "common stock" of goods. 
 For thirty years there has been an average of 40,000,000, and for 
 a hundred years there has been close to an average of 15,000,000 
 of people. Then our ancestors had been "piling up" from the 
 most abundant and free raw materials, and furnishing to the Old 
 World for one hundred and eighty yea,rs longer. 
 
 Reckoning from the census valuation of tangible goods, a 
 careful study of the case will reveal the fact that the average net 
 earnings or accumulations, a,bove consumption, for the whole peo- 
 ple, has been less leaving out, as I remarked before, the "mark- 
 ing up" of land values than five dollars a year, per capita,. This 
 seems a startling assertion, but the reader will find much pleas- 
 ure and profit in a careful study of the ca.se. Remember, I say 
 the net earnings, or the accumulative power of labor, during our 
 whole history, has been less than five dollars per year per capita, 
 aside from rise in land values, which man does not earn. 
 
 Seeing the necessary consumption keeping so close company 
 with the powers of production, reminds us of how small a tax or 
 tribute, levied on the producing class would drain the whole 
 profits in a foreign channel. If there was a profit in every indus- 
 trial effort, and the earnings carefully saved and accumulated, 
 there could be no poverty among the workers, but it is equally 
 plain that there could be no great fortunes. 
 
 Here is a good place to remark, that God never planted a 
 colony of his children on any spot on earth, with a. sufficient 
 severity of climate to permit the rearing of a grand civilization, 
 where the labor of all adult males was not needed, a fair num- 
 ber of hours per day, tha,t the whole population might be provided 
 for. 
 
 So varied and complex are man's necessities and desires in 
 a civilized state, and rude nature having left so many difficulties 
 
35 
 
 to help in man's development, and the fact that most workers 
 have wives, children, parents, or other dependents to consume of 
 their earnings, that legitimate accumulations from toil, are of 
 slow growth, and great wealth, impossible. 
 
 j-nen, if you will show me a place Anywhere on earth, with 
 fair severity of climate, fair soil and fruits, and depending chiefly 
 upon domestic commerce or trade for prosperity, where inactivity 
 prospers and idleness lives in luxury, I will show you where ac- 
 tivity develops only in cunning, and industry starves in wretch- 
 edness. Show me a place where grea,t fortunes are accumulated, 
 and I will show you where the great masses are sinking with the 
 same rapidity, into poverty. Show me a place where great pal- 
 aces are being reared, with golden domes a,nd gorgeous furniture, 
 and I will show you in the very shadow of this princely mansion, 
 where gaunt poverty dies for bread. 
 
 It must be so, for man's earnings at best, above his necessi- 
 ties, are meagre, and to ma,ke a few rich who do not toil, a great 
 many who do, must surrender a part of their earnings. 
 
 Suppose there are a million men in a colony. They earn one 
 lollar per day and there is no other means of producing weajth 
 and suppose one idle man in one day acquires a million; it is 
 very plain that the others are robbed. Or, suppose they continue 
 to produce a dollar's worth, each, per day, and consume three- 
 fourths of it. It is plain if the worker retained the 25% that no 
 worker would be poor; but, it is also plain that no idler could be- 
 come rich. But, suppose by some "patriotic" jugglery, a, custom 
 prevailed, or a law be passed, taxing labor this 25%, that a few 
 may be benefited; it is plain that labor would remain poor, and 
 idleness, or cunning become rich. 
 
 To raise this tribute above the profits, soon produces destitu- 
 - tion, want and misery in the homes of industry, and as rapidly 
 enriches the favored few. Continuing this policy, the great mass 
 of laboring men will feel the influence for a single groan of mis- 
 ery or a single tear, affects to that extent the happiness of human- 
 ity ajid, gradually becomes unable to purchase necessities; this 
 affects a.11 producers, and soon there is an "over-production," 
 lockouts and starvation. Then, whenever you see a few, who do 
 not produce, grow rich, if you will look around, you will see the 
 marks of poverty on other doors, This result is inevitable, 
 
36 
 
 Wealth, or property, then comes from the accumulative earn- 
 ings of the workers, ajid when you reflect how slowly the profits, 
 or sum produced or earned over consumption, accumulates, it is 
 easy to see how small a tribute, tax or class interest distribution, 
 would turn the whole current of profits into one central channel. 
 When the net earnings of the most ''prosperous people on earth" 
 have been but five dollars per capita,, per year, think how many 
 of the "common herd" must be robbed to build up one million- 
 aire. 
 
 Practically, there are but three methods of acquiring prop- 
 erty, viz., by earning, by inheriting, and by robbing. Then, when 
 you find a dollar, or a million dollars, in the possession of a per- 
 son who neither earned it nor inherited it, you have unmistakable 
 evidence that somebody has been robbed. 
 
 The soil is the primary source, the fountain of all property, 
 all wealth and all value. Of course, there is much wealth that 
 has little or none of the earthly ingredients, but all a,re measured 
 by, or made valuable by reason of this primary source. 
 
 If there was a plan in creation, it must have been designed 
 that the earth, with its vast and varied supplies, should be the 
 store house of raw material from which all must live, and as a 
 necessary corollary, its freedom of access to each should be co- 
 equal witii the rights of all others. The right exists, a,nd if jus- 
 tice prevailed, the privilege of every man to appropriate as much 
 of the general stock as his needs or desires required, only limited 
 by the rights of others, would be granted and practiced. Labor 
 fashioned a.11 property, all wealth from the soil, and had the first 
 claim upon its title, or ownership. All property is the earnings 
 of labor, and came primarily from the soil. In all civilized coun- 
 tries where the arts of production have been specialized, there is 
 needed a joint action, or co-operation, to cajry on all great in- 
 dustries. 
 
 In an enterprise or industry requiring such joint action of 
 active labor and capital or accumulated labor the just earnings 
 of ea,ch factor in the productive force should be a pro rata divis- 
 ion proportional to investment. Nearly all industrial enterprises 
 are carried on by some such joint arrangement, usually, the party 
 furnishing the capital, or passive labor, guiding the industry a,nd 
 making the terms on which the work is to be carried on, 
 
37 
 
 : 
 
 In the division of earnings in such enterprises, 'necessity and 
 not justice, has prescribed the share of labor. As so great a per 
 cent of labor's products are consumed and the accumulations so 
 ow, but few countries have a supply of stored labor, or capital, 
 ual to the supply of active capital, or labor, consequently, in 
 enterprises requiring great capital, labor is at a disadvantage, 
 hen, too, even when the passive capital is equal to the other fac- 
 r in amount, it is always manipulated by so few that it ha,s the 
 power, usually, to make terms. The cruelest tyrant oftenest 
 talks of justice and mercy, and the greatest good to the greatest 
 number ha.s been the basic idea of all governments, yet this in- 
 ustice prevails everywhere. 
 
 Labor has never yet had an opinion, as the cunning have al- 
 ays formulated the social and political creeds; so a discriminat- 
 g custom has grown up, in the manner of distributing the profits 
 f labor, against which the toiler has never protested, because 
 cient usage has confirmed the prevailing practice. This cus- 
 m was inaugurated by the cunning few, who had first contrived 
 appropriate the accumulated earnings, then enforced the prac- 
 ce with the sword, then had it enacted into law by a, set of 
 sycophantic tools. 
 
 I protest against deifying cash, and demonetizing man; against 
 exalting the products of labor, and degrading the laborer; against 
 adoring the created and tearing from his glorious throne, the 
 creator. I insist that a brave, industrious man, farmer, mechanic 
 r laborer, who lives and loves, and dares the difficulties that gave 
 im strong hands and a true heart, is as good as a pile of yellow 
 gold, or a package of bonds, and that in every industry requiring 
 dead capital, and living cajpital : cash and labor the man should 
 be considered the more important element and the obliging party. 
 This would be true, too, were it not for the popular crimes of 
 those who have appropriated the profits of toil, in appropriating 
 the soil of the ea,rth, which no one can create or earn. 
 
 I protest against the refined brutality that excuses enforced 
 idleness and its concomitants, misery, starvation and shame, by 
 arguing that "the price of labor must be regulated by the law of 
 supply and demand." It is resurrecting the savagery of the lash, 
 for when my labor must sell like corn and cattle, to the highest 
 bidder, I am on the auction block, and the man who shouts "lib- 
 
38 
 
 erty" in my ears, mocks my wretchedness. We excuse this crime, 
 because we sanction the monopoly of the world, from which all 
 must live, and which compels us to compromise with some gov- 
 ernment favorite, for the privilege of existing. 
 
 But this false education, hoary with the infamies of antiquity, 
 must yield, for the dawn of a higher law has come, and if reason 
 and patriotism assert their power, soon every intelligent ^on of 
 God will demand a right to live in a world where he was placed, 
 without compromising all the pleasures of home, of luxury, of 
 liberty, of pride, or being forced to carry the burdens of some 
 local magnate for the precious privilege of "staying," where he 
 should enjoy the fruits of a grand ma.nhood. 
 
 Think of the sublime doctrines of the immortal Declaration 
 of Independence, about "equality," "inalienable rights," liberty 
 to "pursue happiness," and then think of a strong, grand man, 
 with callous hands, bronze cheeks, strong hea,rt, and muscles like 
 hickory withes, the husband of one wife and the father of thir- 
 teen grown children all girls uncovering his noble head end 
 begging of some little dapper fellow, who never added a ce.nt to 
 the world's wealth, wearing a No. 5 boot and a, No. 5^ hat, for 
 the privilege of cultivating a vacant spot oi ground, a thousand 
 miles away, or that the pale little gentleman should ajlow him 
 to work an "out-cropping" coal vein, that he might drive the 
 chilling blasts of winter from the door. 
 
 Too many people, chiefly those termed the "working class," 
 take too narrow a view of the question, when considering the pro- 
 ductive force of a nation or country, holding that all property 
 resulted from physical effort. Primarily, this is true, but with 
 so many qualifying phrases, as to leave it safe to say that me 
 physical force which wrought, would have been helpless without 
 many extraneous influences, a,s no people on earth ever put so 
 much brain into the work of production as the American people. 
 The planner, the contriver, the overseer, the great active mer- 
 chant and trading class, the carriers, the writers, speakers, plead- 
 ers, tea,chers, and all those whose mental energies were exerted 
 in legitimate callings, were as necessary to the success of physical 
 energy as is the hand to the body. The author of an article or 
 book which instructed a thousand mechanics or miners, certainly 
 
39 
 
 should rank ajnong the most useful of wealth producers, and, cer- 
 tainly, has well earned the price received for his labor. 
 
 To make a people intelligent and happy, increases their use- 
 fulness and even their powers of production, because it awakens 
 greater Activity and greater desire; so a person who delivers an 
 address that amuses, instructs or happyfies a thousand people, 
 earns his wages, because he has contributed to the necessities 
 of civilized society. Every physical or intellectual effort, which 
 contributes to the general good or to private good if it does 
 none other harm which increases the general stock of food, 
 clothing, shelter, etc., or advances intelligence, happiness, mor- 
 ality, or health, has a value proportionate to its influence, and 
 the operator who thus adds speed or spirit to the energies or 
 powers of others, is a producer of wealth. All these classes are 
 producers, and, in the specialized industrial system of our com- 
 plex society, are as necessary to a symmetrical development of 
 our civilization, as are the members of the human body to its 
 grace and locomotion, and a.11 are as justly entitled to a fair re- 
 muneration for their contribution to the general fund, as the maji 
 who raises corn, sells muslin, or digs coal. Whatever contributes 
 to the refined happiness of a nation, contributes to its wealth; 
 as a virtuous and happy people aj-e more sprightly, ingenious, 
 active and industrious; and hopes and desires for the future wel- 
 fare of loved ones, awakens the best energies. 
 
 A claim that physical la,bor alone, contributes to the produc- 
 tion of wealth, would practically dethrone brain and bring back 
 barbarism. The great steamer, that ta,kes in its hold the products 
 of a country, and turning her iron prow to the boisterous waves 
 and fierce lightnings of three thousand miles, and empties her 
 rich cargo into the great "soup-dish" that feeds a, hungry world, 
 first moved in the fertile, but weary brain of Pulton. The dash- 
 ing, rumbling train, that spins across the continent at fifty miles 
 an hour, first whistled "down-brakes" in the brain of the great 
 Scotchman. They did not bolt down the steel ribs, nor shovel 
 gravel on the western road-bed; but who contributed more to 
 these valuable industrial agencies? Whitney and Hargraves. in 
 whose brains were fashioned the warp and woof of humanity's 
 new uniform, if ta,ken from the world's producers, would leave 
 a wretchedness the very picture of famine. Such men must be 
 
 new uni 
 a wretcl 
 
40 
 
 styled workers wealth producers of the grandest type. Few 
 men, indeed, of exalted talent, have ever become wealthy, whose 
 energies were devoted to, the development of industrial forces, 
 or the betterment of humanity. 
 
 There is another error common among a sma.ll class, whose 
 powers of discrimination are, unfortunately, abnormal, and that 
 is, in a belief that all wealthy men are "sharpers" a,nd have pos- 
 sessed their property by devious means. While it is true that 
 every dollar possessed by the idler not inherited has been filched 
 from the hand of industry, and every dollar which any man ap- 
 propriajes to his own use, or gains and controls, more than he 
 has contributed to the general fund, is robbery; there are many 
 persons of considerable fortune, whose honest energy has en- 
 riched the world as much in proportion to what he possesses, as 
 the man who guides the plane or the plow. 
 
 The manufacturer who builds a mill and furnishes goods to 
 his community, cheaper by the difference in high freights a^nd 
 profits of middle men, may become wealthy, while all who pat- 
 ronize him will share proportionately in his prosperity. He has 
 "earned his money" and merits respect for his enterprise. 
 
 A merchant or trader may explore the world and bring to 
 his customers the things which necessity or desire prompts them 
 to purchase, and by a careful system of exchange, he may furnish 
 them these fabrics much cheaper than they could otherwise ob- 
 tain them. In a long course of business years the merchant may 
 become wealthy, and while he has been accumulating, he has en- 
 a.bled his customers also, to accumulate, to the extent that they 
 were benefited by the cheapness of his goods, or the convenience 
 of their possession. Then in a broad country, with many re- 
 sources and many wants, individual wealth is no evidence of in- 
 dividual depravity. 
 
 Rare intellectual force, combined with great physical indus- 
 try, is usually productive of fruitful results, when directed to a, 
 fixed and determined purpose, though confined to business of the 
 strictest legitimacy, and very often the interests of a whole com- 
 munity are advanced by the success of persons of such qualities. 
 
 Mr. Louis Harbach, of our own city Des Moines, Iowa is 
 a notable example of the class under consideration. He began 
 but a few years ago, with small means; but he possessed an 
 
Lie 
 
 41 
 
 ctive brain, a shrewd discriminating mind, while early necessi- 
 ties gave him vigorous health and untiring industry. He in- 
 tuitively knew people; he studied the tastes of the times; he at- 
 tended strictly to his own business, and never for a moment for- 
 got to be a gentleman. While he knew just what "the trade" 
 wanted, he constantly kept a little in advance, "coaxing" the 
 public to a higher ideal in his "line." Knowing what was de- 
 manded, he knew just what and where and when to purchase. 
 His promise was a bond; his word a guarantee; and the con- 
 stant growth of his business was never once checked by the cold 
 breath of suspicion. From a few dollars, he has become one of 
 the most wealthy men of the state. From a small shop, he has 
 erected the finest buildings in the city and has the most extensive 
 and valuable stock in "his line," in the West. By this one man's 
 industry and enterprise, ten thousand Iowa cottages and man- 
 sions are more beautifully and more cheaply furnished; and by 
 his taste ten thousand homes are more refined and happy. He 
 has "earned his money." 
 
 The "State Register" newspaper is another notable example 
 how persons of great intellect, combined with courageous in- 
 dustry, may build a private fortune, while benefiting those who 
 contribute to its success. Mr. J. S. Clarkson, "the responsible 
 editor," has an intellect as ponderous as a "Cunarder," with an 
 ambition that yields to no toil, a,n energy as savage as a Comanche 
 chief, and he has thrown himself and his whole powers in the 
 building of his business. His ambition was a grand one, for he 
 based his hopes of success upon merit. The determination of his 
 existence was to make his paper the best and cheapest newspaper 
 in the West, and the dreams of his life have been accomplished. 
 He has helped, with his own fortune, to build the city, and the 
 state, and contributed to the happiness and intelligence of the 
 people. He has "ea,rned his money." 
 
 There are many such persons who, by rare talent, industry 
 and close attention to one business, have built up, what in the 
 West, is considered a comfortable, or handsome fortune, while 
 benefiting their whole surroundings. 
 
 There is a growing tendency among those who will not dis- 
 criminate, to class ajl persons of wealth with monopolists, 
 
42 
 
 
 
 sharpers and tricksters. This is as ungenerous in its practice 
 as false in its inference. 
 
 But we may remember, that among this useful class, com- 
 paratively rich, there are no millionaires. "Millions" a,re not 
 made in this way, and if a person engaged in these productive 
 pursuits become such, you may be sure he has been in 
 "outside speculations," and had a "corner" on somebody or some- 
 thing. 
 
 In our new country, with no la,ws of entail or primogeniture, 
 there are comparatively few fortunes inherited, so, most of the 
 wealth possessed by private persons, is either the result of in- 
 dustry and should be denominated earnings, or the result of 
 "sharpness" and should be designated robbery. 
 
 There are many ways by which a person may honestly a,c- 
 quire a competence, and many ways by which a person may hon- 
 estly acquire a colossal fortune. 
 
 Wealth acquired honestly, comes gradually, and is the result 
 of economy and wisely-directed industry. The work of such ac- 
 cumulations usually exalts honesty, strengthens character and 
 refines morals. 
 
 I have reviewed the methods by which property may be 
 earned, but the UNEARNED fortunes are so numerous and stu- 
 pendous a,s to call for some consideration of their growth, and 
 the sources from which they have sprung. 
 
 Syndicates, or persons who buy the law, that gives them a 
 monopoly of the nation's trade, and saves a few from the com- 
 petition of enterprising traders and enables them to demand an 
 advanced price from all the people, while permitted to bring the 
 cheapest labor from the over-crowded herds of Europe to per- 
 form the physical tasks, do not "earn their money." As com- 
 petition is the life of trade, or commerce, and commerce the basis 
 of civilization, he who checks competition assassinates civiliza- 
 tion and calls barbarism from the cemeteries of the yast, to re- 
 habilitate the world with poverty, fear and tears. The tact chat 
 the operations were "sanctioned by law," only changes the legal 
 aspect of the offense, for it is robbery still, and shows the per- 
 sua,sive force of the shrewd man of cash. 
 
 The man or combination, that plans a "corner" on stocks, and 
 "scoops in a cool million," while fleecing a thousand other reck- 
 
less gamblers, does not earn the money. Though many of the 
 losers may deserve no better fate, society has been robbed, for 
 behind all this shajn and worthless trash, made marketable, th p ro 
 is a class of innocents to bear the weight of the polished and fash- 
 onable crime. 
 
 A great syndicate tha,t squeezes a railroad, throws ft into the 
 
 ands of a receiver, or buys it on a fraudulent mortgage at ten 
 
 cents on the dollar, issues to the members of the combina- 
 
 ion five times the value in stock, makes a show of improvement 
 
 nd sells the worthless shares to the people at pa,r, do not earn 
 
 earn its money; it gains simply by robbery. 
 
 A telegraph company, with rights to a schedule of charges 
 that will insure a profit of 10%, that 'waters the stock" up to 
 500%, and declares dividends on capital of such fluidity, does not 
 earn its money; it gains simply by robbery. 
 
 Transportation lines that reach away across the continent 
 n all directions, gathering the products from every climate and 
 il; which, by a system of pooling, gathers the profits of all 
 reductive industry, do not earn their money; they gajn by sim- 
 ple, legal robbers. 
 
 The man who buys a vacant piece of land in a village and 
 allows it to lay unimproved, a waste place for weeds and the 
 emptying pla.ce for offal, until the village becomes a town, the 
 town a city and the city a metropolis, does not earn the fortune, 
 he labor and enterprise and necessities of others has increased 
 the value and earned what he by law possesses. He has shirked 
 action, marred the beauty of the town, forced a different growth 
 f the city, and reaps the reward of an industry he did not share, 
 f an enterprise, to which his nature was a stronger. 
 
 Now, the $10,000,000,000 worth of tangible wealth or prop- 
 erty aside from land values constitutes the net earnings of a 
 nation for two hundred and eighty years, and every person who 
 produced more than he or she consumed, ha,s contributed to this 
 total fund, and every person who has taken a dollar from the 
 total earnings, or funds, more than he or she produced, or added 
 to it, except through efforts of friends or ancestors, has wrong- 
 fully taken some other's share, which is, practicably, robbery. 
 As before observed, the total earnings that is, the $10,000,- 
 
44 
 
 000,000 would equal $200 per capita. But who has it? The 
 workers? Those who have earned it? 
 
 One mild mannered gentleman owns $200,000,000. This equals 
 the share of one million people. Thus, either one million people 
 ha,ve none, or many have less than their proper share. Another 
 gentleman owns an equal amount; the two millionaires have more, 
 and many have less than their share. 
 
 A good authority claims that one thousand men own and; 
 control one-ha,lf the entire wealth of the nation, including land 
 values. If this be true, one thousand men own half the earnings 
 of the whole Nation's toil for two hundred and eighty years, or 
 twice the total of profits, aside from land values, while nearly 
 sixty million people own the other half. 
 
 How came they by it? 
 
 Did they earn it? Seven men own or control ajxmt one- 
 fiftieth of the wealth of the nation. How came they "by it? Not 
 one of them is known to have ever produced a kernel of corn. 
 At the rate of interest paid by the government, it would require, 
 not the profits, but the entire earnings, at average rate of wages, 
 of twenty-six thousand six hundred and sixty-six men to pay the 
 interest on one of these fortunes. 
 
 Jay Gould "owns" $200,000,000, or about one-two-hundredth 
 part of the nation's wealth, and to pay the interest at the rate 
 demanded by his railroads, it would require the entire wages of 
 an a,rmy of workers 50,000 strong. 
 
 How did he get it? Did he earn it? Let's see. The average 
 wage-earner receives about $300 per annum, or $25 per month, or 
 $1 per working day. Now, if Jay Gould "earned" that "little for- 
 tune" at the average rate, he must be over SIX HUNDRED AND 
 SIXTY THOUSAND YEARS OLD, and if he earned it in his 
 twenty-five years of active life, he has certainly been making a 
 "good thing," for it would amount to $8,000,000 per year, or $26,- 
 000 for each working day. Did he earn it? 
 
 I am not ra,ving at Jay Gould, nor denying his personal hon- 
 esty. He may be no worse than many "Christian gentlemen," 
 but I am showing the dangers of this centralizing policy, and that 
 men can only accumulate such fortunes by legal larceny. I do 
 not denounce men for following out a policy sanctioned by law, 
 applauded by custom, and upheld by "common consent;" and I 
 
tll( 
 
 
 
 have no respect for men who rave at Jay Gold, and then vote in 
 support of a policy that has crowned him the most colossal rob- 
 ber of the age. 
 
 It would take the entire earnings of six hundred and sixty 
 thousand men a whole year, to earn Jay Gould's fortune. 
 
 Now, a great majority of the men whose labor has enriched 
 is modern Croesus and his ilk, are today in embarrased circum- 
 sta,nces, or poverty. They have not "lived high," nor dissipated, 
 nor been needlessly idle. But the law has given cunning, the 
 power to rob the honest, credulous toiler and producer. The in- 
 fluence of these fabulous fortunes have been demoralizing beyond 
 all computation. All over the land, there have sprung up thou- 
 sands whose ambition lead them to ape these princely men and, 
 by the most corrupt schemes ever known to civilization, ha,ve 
 strewn the country with wrecked fortunes and blighted hopes. 
 I can understand how we should applaud the efforts to provide 
 for home and loved ones; but why we bow in honor to the hand 
 of avarice, that filches from patient toil its only comfort; clutches 
 the bread-money from the hand and leaves homes desolate, hearts 
 broken, and pure wives and helpless babes to starve and die; 
 leaves maidens to sink in shame, and strong, young men with such 
 fears for the responsibilities of life, that the gajne, has the love 
 should be lavished on a child, and the cup, the kiss should be 
 pressed to the lips of a doting wife, is indeed beyond my com- 
 prehension. What will these princes do with all this wealth? 
 They cannot "take it with them," and if they should, I am falla- 
 ciously ta,ught, or it would rapidly melt. The many have earned 
 and the few appropriated, yet the many sanction the laws, and 
 defend the policy by which they have been robbed "on party 
 grounds." 
 
 Our nation has produced more wealth than any other people, 
 yet who owns it? Not those who produced it, for a majority of 
 them are not thirty days from want. 
 
 Jay Gould has taken enough more from the labor fund than 
 he ever contributed, to impoverish a million laborers. I do not 
 say or claim that Mr. Gould is personally dishonest; he is a, typ- 
 ical rich man, the fruit of a discriminating policy, grafted on the 
 "tree of liberty," knowing it would bear such fruit; a policy that 
 
is a disgrace to our civilization and a burlesque on the Declara- 
 tion of Independence. 
 
 There is another method of acquiring wealth which is recog- 
 nized by law and society, because the cunning have moulded the 
 sentiment, which sanctions the wrong, and that is, by the in- 
 creased merchantibility of unoccupied la,nds. The justice of this 
 method of acquiring wealth, though sanctioned by custom, law 
 and hoary antiquity, I utterly and forever deny. I claim for every 
 man on earth the Absolute right to own and control his entire 
 net earnings, a portion of all the wealth which each can produce, 
 corresponding with his or her contribution in its creation; but I 
 deny any man's right to take more from the total wealth thaji he 
 contributes, to appropriate that which he did not earn, and es- 
 pecially to appropriate value wholly created by the efforts or 
 necessities of others. As no man, however free his access to the 
 stores of raw material, can create, produce or earn land, he clearly 
 ha,s no right to appropriate or own more than he can use, further 
 thaji by a custom, established by battle and blood, and sanctioned 
 by a sentiment based upon tradition. 
 
 Many of the great fortunes of today a,re based chiefly upon 
 the increased merchantibility, or value, of unoccupied land. In 
 many instances the non-producing owner has never touched the 
 estate, has never seen it, and yet it rapidly increases his wealth. 
 
 How can this be? As wealth consists in things, the products 
 of mental or physical labor, how can a man grow rich without 
 effort? Only through a false and barbarous custom, established 
 by a false and barbarous age, by a false and barbarous class of 
 tyrants, who have always cunningly contrived to live by other's 
 toil. Society and law, originating in a custom established by the 
 sword, says that such a tract of land "belongs" to "some Absent 
 speculator," and, though the land bears no evidence of occupancy, 
 or ownership, the longer it remains vacant, and the more families 
 starve, because excluded from cultivating its fertile surface, the 
 richer the absent lord becomes. What a burlesque on justice. 
 Sturdy men occupy and improve land adjacent to these vacant 
 tracts, and thus increase its value. Now, on principles of right, 
 who owns the increased, or a,dded value? 
 
 Because modern society clings to the polished chains of this 
 antique servitude^ and bows to an oppressive and demoralizing 
 
47 
 
 custom, established by force, great syndicates and wealthy per- 
 sons have "located" vast "estates" a,nd hold them until the future 
 
 cessities of the people will make the owners millionaires. 
 These fortunes were never earned, but acquired by an un- 
 
 stifiable wrong, only tolerated because sanctioned by ancient 
 usage, and practiced by those who moulded public opinion. What 
 a grand part these sublime old follies, established by cunning 
 rulers centuries ago, played in the new conspiracy, that has tra,ns- 
 ferred the wealth of the continent in to the hands of a few, by 
 turning the profits of all industry into the golden current that 
 flows to the coffers of the moneyed princes of the New World. 
 
48 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE GREAT CONSPIRACY. 
 
 IBERTY is the last thing the rulers, the organized, 
 have ever been willing to grant to the people; and to 
 mould a practical policy by which the profits of the 
 many's toil could be safely appropriated, has puzzled 
 the brain of the avaricious and ambitious aristoc- 
 racy since history left its trace on the first written 
 page. The new conditions that canceled the personal 
 ownership of the slave, ushered in an age, in which, 
 with a certain policy, a more certain, safe and profit- 
 able means of centralizing power and gathering the 
 fruits of the people's toil could be inaugurated. The 
 slave oligarchy was broken. The confederacy with an industrial 
 system based upon the power" of the lash, had gone down in 
 blood. It was evident that public sentiment demanded universal 
 liberty. Crude barbarism, unskilled in the villainies of higher 
 civilization, kept the fetters on the slave, tha,t the body might be 
 made an article of commerce, while refined barbarism, or aris- 
 tocracy, with courage developed into cunning, preferred the more 
 polished mode, of proclaiming the slave free, and then controlling 
 his opinions, his actions and the profits of his industry. 
 
 For the utter extinguishment of a.11 there is of liberty but the 
 name, it is only necessary to organize a triune monopoly, con- 
 trolling the land, the circulating medium and the trade or com- 
 merce of the country. 
 
 This will completely subjugate a, people, for though they im- 
 agine themselves free, as none can own them or drive them to 
 their tasks, they have just as much of the profits of their own toil 
 as the old slave of the South; as much as the master wills. La- 
 bor goes cheerfully at its task, when it feels the weight of no 
 fetters and, though it finds its aspirations curbed at every turn, 
 it sees no hand to oppress, and believing itself 'free, struggles on. 
 
49 
 
 is the people are the true source of all power, ajid as it is 
 humiliating to confess that their own management of their in- 
 terests have been so carelessly guarded that most of their in- 
 herited rights, estates and opportunities have been surrendered, 
 or seized, a,nd that present conditions suggest grave doubts as to 
 the success of popular government, they are slow to realize the 
 evils that have arisen and the dangers that threaten the future 
 republic. 
 
 To any fair-minded person, however, with sufficient mental 
 scope to survey the situation of the country; see the rapidly in- 
 creasing weajth of the few and the equally rapidly increasing 
 poverty of the many; see the despotic powers of monopoly over 
 the great masses of people; see pools ajid combinations con- 
 trolling every trade and industry; see idleness luxuriating in 
 princely opulence, while industry strikes for wages enough to hold 
 life to its household; see corporations boldly arrayed against the 
 people in the choice of law-makers and carrying elections by open 
 bribery, falsehood and fraud; see public morals so debauched that 
 all plunge into a mad scramble to gain fortunes by cunning 
 and craft, instead of by honest industry; in fine, see all power, 
 ajl authority, all fashion, all taste, all sentiment, all law and gos- 
 pel moulded by the idle few with cash, he must conclude that our 
 natures have become depraved, our trust betrayed, and the fund- 
 amental principles of our government subverted. 
 
 These powers and influences necessarily follow in the train 
 of monopoly, which overrides justice and humanity and consti- 
 tutional limitations, and crystalizes into an aristocracy, and, 
 finally, monarchy. 
 
 No fact could be plainer to the public mind than that a few 
 cunning and crafty men, by false teachings, deceit, and the 
 sophistry of an army of hirelings, speakers a.nd writers, and by 
 false promises to accommodating congressmen, have grasped 
 these triple conditions, a monopoly of the land, of money and 
 trade, that crowned monopoly the monarch of American values 
 a,nd opportunities. When the old slave system was fleeing the 
 land before the all-conquering bayonets in the hands of the free 
 laborers of the North, the old idea of centralism revived and re- 
 organized; and plans, even to the most minute details, were form- 
 ulated for a new system of serfdom, or slavery, more in harmony 
 
50 
 
 with this "highly polished" age, and more safe and profitable 
 to the upper classes, or the favored few. But who could have con- 
 ceived this gigantic scheme, and how could it be carried out? 
 How easy and with what alacrity came forth the cunning to plot 
 as the nation fought. 
 
 The care of the personal sla,ve had always been a hardship 
 to the master, so the new oligarchy carefully calculated how in- 
 finitely more profitable and agreeable would be the labor of a free 
 than a slave nation. So the new scheme was only to own the toil, 
 leaving the toiler free to choose a master and care for himself 
 when the task was done. 
 
 When the grand citizen soldiery of the progressive North 
 were fighting for the elevation of humanity; when liberty lay 
 prostrate under the drawn dagger of armed treason; when there 
 was an empty chair at every table, a pang in each heart, a cloud 
 on each brow, a groan convulsing every bosom, a tea,r dimming 
 every eye, and every ear strained to catch the last groan from 
 Southern battlefields; when the nation was wrapped in the ha- 
 biliments of mourning, and the whole mentality fixed and riveted 
 to the one great question at issue; in gorgeous parlors, surround- 
 ed with the most dazzling splendor, a small, but select group of 
 cunning men, with princely tastes, princely ambitions and princely 
 incomes, met, and, over their wine and cigars, crystalized the 
 scheme for the new order of things. 
 
 When all were busy fighting, marching, praying, with no hope 
 but of peace and unity restored, and no fear, but loss of honor, 
 and none guarding the rear, what a happy time to deceive the 
 people and lay the foundation for the future. 
 
 Land had been so plenty and cheap that the people held 
 it. of no value; "times," based upon the condition of finances, 
 were so out of joint that the people turned with confidence and 
 hope to the "great financiers," who had so "magnanimously come 
 to the country's rescue," so that the circulating medium could be 
 controlled; and as the nation wa,s embittered against England, 
 taere was no trouble in excluding foreign competitors and gain- 
 ing a monopoly of trade. To monopolize the land, the trade and 
 the money, and thus to absolutely control the conditions under 
 which all must live, was the long drawn plati, and every link 
 
forged by the hand of cunning, in the chain of the new slavery, 
 was hailed with delight by the "sovereign people." 
 
 These plotters were not the representatives of men of fami- 
 lies, or a particular branch of industry, but of a class; ajid to 
 establish a caste that would wield all wealth and power, would 
 wear all dignity and honor by controlling a,ll profits, to expunge 
 the whole middle class and rear a landed and monied aristoc- 
 racy, with the power and splendor and dignity, if not, indeed, the 
 titles and paraphernalia of a monarchy, on the ruins of the re- 
 ublic, was the "object of the meeting," the purpose of the deeply 
 aid and far-reaching scheme. Cheered by the infleunce of many 
 victories, the people were blind with national prid, and the citi- 
 zen, spurred to the wildest hopes by good prices and a reckless 
 activity, was absorbed in private and selfish pursuits. 
 
 The masses believed themselves free. They saw the country 
 improving, notwithstanding the ravages of war; they saw the 
 national name being received with honor throughout the world, 
 and, forgetting their great opportunities and God's countless 
 blessings, believed themselves indebted, for a,ll they possessed, 
 the wisdom of their peculiar laws. With every ambition cen- 
 tered in domestic or private gain, with a perfect confidence that 
 the Declaration of Independence would forever be blinding; that 
 the constitution could never be violated, except by armed force, 
 which they were ready to meet, and a blissful faith tha,t none 
 could dream of national humiliation, all slept securely in their 
 proud patriotism. The mines seemed going to waste, and the 
 eope werel willing that some one should work them; the bound- 
 less prairies made land so cheaj) and plenty that they were anxious 
 that some one should appropriate them, and the profits were so 
 great that no taxes aroused their opposition. They celebrated the 
 Declaration of Independence; they worshipped the flag; they sang 
 thrilling songs of liberty a,nd equal rights, and in joyous shouts, 
 called the oppressed of the world to join the army of progress. 
 They were so intoxicated with the idea of personal worth and 
 national greatness that they were a willing prey to ajiy who- 
 would flatter them. 
 
 From a people so strong, so brave, so intelligent and so 
 patriotic, the emblems of liberty were never taken by force; but 
 cunning, if able to lull vanity into security, and organize factions 
 
52 
 
 which would busily dispute for precedence, or for choice of mas- 
 ters, might secure the substance and leave the patriots reposing 
 under the shadow of the mighty Republic. Among a people of 
 such marked individuality, such strong convictions, such personal 
 pride and a, dogged determination, each to have his own way in 
 small, as in great matters, there was little difficulty in organiz- 
 ing parties, which would, under proper training, become factions, 
 waste energies in trivial debates, while purchased leaders could 
 turn the current of ajl industrial profits to the channel that leads 
 to the vaults of the few. 
 
 The first meeting, when these plots were roughly mapped out, 
 was held in a very private parlor, in a fashionable New York ho- 
 tel, with but few in council, with doors doubly locked and trusty 
 servants pacing to and fro in the lofty halls, that there should 
 be no intrusion. 
 
 No council ever held on earth, since the forming of the sec- 
 ond triumvirate, when Antony, Octavius and Lepidus met and 
 divided up the Roman world, had for the object of its delibera- 
 tions such stupendous schemes, and no plans ever conceived by 
 ma,n were carried out with less variations from original lines. 
 The gentlemen who sat in this close council and plotted this con- 
 spiracy, were men of the most exalted intellect. They knew the 
 past, the present and the future. They knew the springs from 
 which flow sudden wealth and lasting power. They knew the dig- 
 nity and honor at the command of men of cash. They knew the 
 people. Their pride, their vanity, their avarice, their ignorance, 
 their egotism. They had mastered the weaknesses and frailties 
 of human nature. They knew the ruling passion of society, and 
 they could feed, flatter and mould that passion. If history sha.ll 
 ever be truly written, these few men, scheming for the civil and 
 peaceful conquest of an empire, and that empire a continent; for 
 the rule of a people, and that people the most free, educated, in- 
 telligent a,nd patriotic people on earth, will be recorded as the 
 most wise, brilliant, sagacious, ambitious and daring men who 
 ever blessed or cursed the world. They were cool, calculating and 
 intrepid. With a perfect confidence in the supremacy of cash and 
 cunning, they feared no exposure a,nd wasted no words on possi- 
 ble failure. The "entertainment" was but a game, and the profits 
 of a nation's toil were the stakes, In appearance they were as 
 

 53 
 
 "mild-mannered men a,s ever cut a throat or scuttled a ship," 
 with such graceful ease in ceremony as one would think they 
 were planning a monument for a Howard or a Cushman. 
 
 A committee was appointed to draft a line of policy, a,nd were 
 to confer with "suitable persons," including great bankers, finan- 
 ciers and speculators of England. These shrewd men were ripe 
 for the scheme, and there was small delay in reports ana arrange- 
 ments for a future meeting. 
 
 The great war, then raging, was carefully reviewed, ajid 
 shrewd financiers plainly saw that with a certain line of policy, 
 the "great bankers" who were to lend the government its finan- 
 cial backing, could be prolonged until the pla,ns iui a reaslble, 
 centralizing scheme could be consummated. They knew the na- 
 tion had but one thought, and that before the people turned 
 their faces from the conflict, the project could be so well under 
 way as to insure success. Bold, shrewd, men, with vaulting am- 
 bition and audacious experience were chosen to ca,rry out dif- 
 ferent branches of the grand plot. A few of the "great bank- 
 ers" of Wall street and London were to look after the "money 
 interests of the government," and formulate a policy of finance 
 that would build up an enormous national debt, and give the ab- 
 solute control of the circulating medium into their hands. For- 
 tunately for the schemers, the people had a weakness for "hard 
 money," already cornered by the syndicate, so that this part of 
 the plot, which was the most gigantic financial scheme ever con- 
 ceived, was the least difficult in its execution of either, in the 
 triple infamy. 
 
 Another committee of shrewd, experienced and successful lob- 
 byists, well armed with such "eloquent arguments" a,s was known 
 to be most convincing to congress, was to look after tariff legisla- 
 tion and secure a monopoly of the nation's trade. Of course, in 
 such trying times, patriotism would suggect that the people buy 
 the fabulous supplies for public and domestic use, at the cheap- 
 est possible rate, but as the confiding and easily deceived poyii- 
 lace would attribute all the coincident hardships to the evils of 
 wa,r, such a grand opportunity must not be lost. 
 
 But to make assurance doubly sure, and silence doubt with 
 pleasant dreams, a purse well filled with the most "advanced 
 thought" was furnished for the patriotic editor and politician. 
 
54 
 
 This part of the scheme required the greatest skill in its ex- 
 ecution. Of course, the people could be depended upon for a loyal 
 support of such measures, for there should be no secret, that all 
 protective laws were purely in the interest of the farmer, laborer 
 and business man. The syndicate would teach, at its own ex- 
 pense, a higher patriotism a,nd the ennobling influence of buying 
 and selling in our own grand country. They were to show the 
 vicious influence of "cheap goods," which almost obliterates 
 class and how undignified it was for a proud American to wear 
 a coat made by the "Britishers," when some of our own fellow 
 citizens would furnish one just a,s good at twice the price. Of 
 course, a people so intelligent as ours, would naturally grasp the 
 philosophy of this advanced political economy and especially if 
 it could be firmly established as a necessity of the great civil 
 conflict. The gigantic difficulties in carrying out this pa.rt of the 
 scheme, as plainly foreseen, was the fact that such a multiplicity 
 of interests would clamor for a share of the plunder, that the 
 favored class would be much larger than desired. However, the 
 haj>py thought of pooling, and combinations, of buying and crush- 
 ing the weak, after the policy became firmly established, was a 
 compromise for the conscience of the more princely of the plot- 
 ters, and the details of the scheme were carefully arranged. A 
 small body of select gentlemen from Pennsylvania, Massa,chu- 
 setts, Maine and other quarters, were soon ready to concentrate 
 their vast abilities in this service, and, by legislative enactments, 
 place the entire tra.de of the country, and its vast profits, in the 
 hands of a syndicate of "wise and experienced" gentlemen. 
 
 To lay a plan for the monopolization of the land, required 
 persons of masterly minds, "exalted patriotism" and ripe experi- 
 ence in conceiving and executing stupendous schemes. Such gen- 
 tlemen were easily found, as previous success had stamped a few 
 as the masters of nineteenth century enterprise. When the plans 
 for this branch of the plot were unfolded, the "assembled wis- 
 dom" of that peerless galaxy of talent was awed into astonished 
 silence by the colossal majesty of the unparalleled undertaking, 
 that was to startle 'an admiring world by the brilliancy of its 
 success. 
 
 With what cunning ease the people were duped; how suc- 
 cessfully these gigantic schemes for class aggrandizement ha,ve 
 
been carried out, and with what despotic power these monopo- 
 listic measures have clothed the few, all thinking people may 
 now clearly understand. 
 
 As evidence of a dark, deep conspiracy, to grasp a, monopoly 
 of the land, the finances and the commerce, and thus enslave la- 
 bor, though the laborer may be ostensibly free, by controlling ab- 
 solutely all the conditions under which all industries exist and 
 all people must live, I a,sk the reader to ?o with me through the 
 succeeding chapters, where I will show how the measures pro- 
 posed were executed and how unerringly the results lean toward 
 the final consummation of the great centralizing scheme. 
 
56 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE CONSPIRACY CONTINUED MONOPOLY GRASPING 
 THE LANDS. 
 
 OW let us examine briefly this dark conspiracy and 
 see how the cunning contrived to execute their well 
 concerted plans. How crafty it wa,s when every hon- 
 est and patriotic heart beat only with hopes centered 
 in the South, for these men to cast their eyes to the 
 great West, and thus further their designs for the 
 conquest of empire. Our great need then, was money 
 and muscle to fight down treason, but these shrewd 
 speculators had little difficulty in persuading congress 
 that it was high time that "the star of empire" should 
 "take its way" westward, and that to "open up the 
 country," it was necessary to have great railroads. 
 
 When the results of the war were in doubt, and the whole 
 land almost paralyzed with dread, and a.11 movements of men and 
 freights to the South, these conspirators conceived the gigantic 
 scheme of building half a dozen railroads across two thousand 
 miles of desert plains and mountains, "connecting the oceajis," 
 and easily persuaded congress of its necessity, and thus began an 
 invasion of an army of adventurers to win the unoccupied land 
 of the country. 
 
 On their part, of course, it was "pure patriotism," and they 
 v/ere ready to sacrifice personal ease, and push these great en- 
 terprises, providing the government would only pay the bills and 
 grant them the country "opened up." 
 
 No man ever claimed tha,t half these proposed roads were 
 then needed, and no sensible man ever denied but that they would 
 have been built by private enterprise and private capital when 
 they became a necessity. But the scheme was to acquire the ter- 
 ritory. The people knew little of the extent or value of the public 
 

 
 
 57 
 
 domain. But the shrewd aristocracy knew the importance of the 
 soil to royalty. They knew the wealth, power and dignity that 
 followed the ownership of that upon which all must live, and they 
 knew that the only firm, reliable and permanent basis for nobility 
 or aristocracy was in landed estates. They had studied the his- 
 tory of great movements of men, and saw the tide turning to 
 our land. They saw over-populated Europe, with its hardy mill- 
 ions of industrious and discontented people, seeking out a place 
 refuge from starvation and oppression. They knew that our 
 omestic war would draw the attention of the civilized world to 
 our country and its worth. They saw an early inundation of our 
 vacant land by an industrious population, earnestly striving for 
 brea,d. They saw its future value, and the power and revenues 
 derived from its ownership, when its settlement and cultivation 
 was so soon to be an accomplished fact. Since the invasion of 
 ia by that grand, insane Macedonian, so gigantic a scheme for 
 rritoriai aggrandizement was never conceived. 
 
 To save our country from dismemberment, and prevent a por- 
 ion of our territory from falling into the care and ownership 
 f other conspirators, every home was robbed of its best blood 
 d draped in mourning, and a vast army took UD arms a,nd waded 
 through four years of war and conflict; but these gentlemen were 
 better skilled in diplomacy and finesse, and asked the great gov- 
 ernment to give them a territory grea.t enough to sustain half a 
 dozen kingdoms. Further, as if to test the imbecility, corruption 
 or madness of congress, they asked for money from the public 
 purse to enable them to build themselves from twelve thousand 
 to fifteen thousand miles of railroad on their new domain. 
 
 Since 1802 there has been a practice of giving, by the general 
 government, of the public lands to the states, to a,id them in pro- 
 viding an educational fund or assisting them in some needed in- 
 ternal improvement scheme. The people had scattered all over 
 the continent, and towns, cities and communities were great dis- 
 tances apart, a,nd highways for trade and commerce were so nec- 
 essary, and the communities so poorly prepared for building them, 
 or paying the expense, that it was thought to be the part of wis- 
 dom to give such aid. Starting, too, on so grand a future, with 
 a great fa,ith in the necessity of education tor the perpetuation of 
 the republic, vast tracts were freely given for those praiseworthy 
 
58 
 
 objects. Such a feeling then existed in regard to "state rights," 
 that there seemed little objection in allowing a state a large share 
 of authority in controlling her territory. 
 
 But in 1862, the system wa,s changed, for new claimants for 
 public donations had appeared. Then for ten years there was the 
 most gigantic, destructive and greedy scramble for despoiling the 
 country of its public domain and changing its future success and 
 development, ever undertaken by mortal man. 
 
 On the first day of July, 1862, the Union Pacific Railroad Com- 
 pany was incorporated, and for the entire length built, a grant of 
 each alternate section for ten miles on ea,ch side was given it, be- 
 sides bonds to the amount of $20,000 per mile. 
 
 The act of July 2, 1864, amended this act and broadened out 
 the granted territory to twenty miles on each side; and excepted 
 coal and iron in its reservation of minerals, on this gra,nt. What 
 a princely gift. Think of it. The American congress, giving, not 
 to the homeless, but the rich aristocrats, an empire forty miles 
 wide and reaching half across the continent, that the grantees 
 may ha.ve a place, a country of their own, on which to build a 
 great railroad. Then, lest these gentlemen, these princely land 
 owners, would not, or could not, accomplish so grand an improve- 
 ment, congress takes from the people's treasury, and gives them 
 bonds to the amount of $20,000 per mile to induce them to build 
 themselves a railroad on their own territory. This, too, when we 
 had so grea,t dangers hanging over us, that we had little money 
 and so little credit that our bonds were selling at a heavy dis- 
 count. 
 
 By the law of July, 1, 1862, the Central Pacific, the centra.1 
 branch of the Union Pacific; the Kansas Pacific, a.nd the Sioux 
 City and Pacific, were chartered, and strips of land ten miles wide 
 on each side were given. On March 3, 1863, four more long roads 
 received grants of twenty miles wide on each side, and ten miles 
 each side additional, as indemnity for lands previously taken up 
 by the people. July 1, 1864, the Northern Pacific, with forty miles 
 ea.ch side and ten miles indemnity tract, or a strip one hundred 
 miles wide, reaching half across the continent, was given, to aid 
 this great centralizing scheme, and bonds again, to the amount 
 of $20,000 per mile. These enormous grants include more than 
 215,000,000 acres, and over 330,000 square miles. In size, this va^t 
 
59 
 
 empire is nearly as large as the original thirteen states, more than 
 six times as large as Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois, Missouri 
 or Iowa, a,nd larger than British India with 240,000,000 of people. 
 It is larger than England, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, 
 Germany and Prance combined, and has a sufficiency of arable 
 land to sustain a population of 50,000,000. As compared with these 
 vast domains, the landlords of Europe are pigmies, and to our 
 aristocracy, the majority of British lords and dukes are "small 
 fry," indeed. 
 
 As one instance, the Central Pacific received in lands a,t gov- 
 ernment value bonds and corporation and individual donations, 
 $150,825,000; and Fisk and Hatche's circular shows that from 1869 
 to 1879 the net earnings ha,d been $67,370,000, of which $18,453,000 
 were paid in dividends, and this made 34% on the entire capital 
 stock. In 1882 it was officially ascertained that over 100,000,000 
 acres of these lands had been forfeited, and yet, as it requires 
 congressional action to restore them to the people, there seems 
 little hope for a "consummation so devoutly to be wished." 
 
 Then we have donated to six of these companies, $64,623,000 in 
 6% thirty-year bonds, and having guaranteed the interest which 
 they were to pay we have had to pay interest on them to the 
 amount of $55,344,000 more, making a total of $119,968,000 cash, 
 or enough to build and equip a double track road from New York 
 to the Pacific Ocean. If the enormity of this crime against the 
 people was not obscured by the incomprehensible magnitude of 
 the donations, a protest would go up from every patriotic throa,t 
 that would demand a reversal of the destructive policy. 
 
 How we pity the conditions of the peasantry of the Old 
 World, who have struggled for existence under the iron heel of 
 a landlord system that was more unrelenting than the demands 
 of a,ny monarch. We read of the forced collection of rents, the 
 eviction of tenants and of the riotous living of the landed gentry, 
 and we are happy in the thought that we have escaped these evils. 
 But, remember, we have laid the foundation of the most stu- 
 pendous landlord system ever known on earth. We doii't do 
 things in a half-way manner. And our great estates are not 
 confined to Americans, either. The lords, the dukes and the rich, 
 who proposed to be so in other climes, saw the drift of affairs 
 and rushed to our country to avail themselves of the opportunity, 
 
60 
 
 and, with the cash wrenched from their robbed tenants in the 
 Old World, they came to build more grandly in the New. 
 
 Below is a list of twenty-seven corporations and syndicates, 
 who own more land than there is in the whole of Ireland, with 
 much less waste: 
 
 Names. Acres. 
 
 An English Syndicate, No. 3, in Texas 3,000,000 
 
 The Holland Land Company, New Mexico 4,500,000 
 
 Sir Edward Reid and a Syndicate in Florida 2,000,000 
 
 English Syndicate in Mississippi 1,800,000 
 
 Marquis of Tweedale 1,750,000 
 
 Phillips, Marshall & Co., London 1.300,000 
 
 German Syndicate 2,100,000 
 
 Anglo-American Syndicate, Mr. Rogers, Pres., London.. 750,000 
 
 Byran H. Evans, of London, in Mississippi 700,000 
 
 Duke of Sutherland 425,000 
 
 British Land Company, in Kansas 320,000 
 
 William Whalley, M. P., Peterboro, England 310,000 
 
 Missouri Land Co., Edingurg, Scotland 300,000 
 
 Robert Tennant, of London 230,000 
 
 Dundee Land Co., Scotland 247,000 
 
 Lord Dunmore 120,000 
 
 Gal 16 THE NEW CRISIS. 
 
 Benjamin Newgas, Liverpool 100,000 
 
 Lord Houghton, in Florida 60,000 
 
 Lord Dunraven, in Colorado 60,000 
 
 English Land Co., in Florida 50,000 
 
 English La.nd Co., in Arkansas 50,000 
 
 Alexander Grant, of London, in Kansas 35,000 
 
 English Syndicate, (represented by Close Bros.,) Wis... 110,000 
 M. Ellerhauser, of Halifax, Nova Scotia, in West Virginia 600,000 
 
 A Scotch Syndicate, in Florida 500.00C 
 
 A. Boysen, Danish Consul, in Milwaukee 50,006 
 
 Missouri Land Co., of Edinburgh, Scotland 165,000 
 
 Total 20,700,000 
 
 Then, there are eighteen real, live British lords, and one 
 "lady," who own nearly one and a half millions of acres iri 
 
America, or an average of over seventy-three thousand acres 
 eh. 
 
 The table is from the "Irish World," a journal as careful in 
 tement as intelligent in observation. 
 
 The simple ownership of land in Europe confers authority 
 d social distinction, as the great non-owning majority, feel and 
 realize a sense of inferiority, which this dwarfing policy has 
 stamped upon their natures, and recognize their necessary de- 
 pendence as guests, or sojourners, who remain the world by the 
 grace of a more favored class. 
 
 Owing to a cheapening of fa,rm products, by the successful 
 development of agriculture in America, and the wasteful extrava- 
 gance and insolent demands of land owners in the United King- 
 dom, landlordism is weakening, and the lords who see a rapid 
 peopling of the whole inhabitable world, are in haste to transfer 
 their institutions to a grander field. It took five hundred years 
 to perfect an absolute mastery by land ownership in Europe, a,s 
 the population increased so slowly, but there is more history in 
 the nineteenth century, than in a thousand years following the 
 fall of the Roman power. 
 
 Talk of the oppressive landlord system in Ireland. The es- 
 tates in Ireland are but small farms as compared with those of 
 our country. But when the above list is examined, we see that 
 we, too, have some live lords, who are rapidly gaining a power 
 and political influence greater than possessed by their class in 
 Europe. 
 
 I have traveled through the vajleys and over the mountains 
 Kerry, on the vast estate of the Marquis of Landsdowne, of 
 121,000 acres and have seen the distress of the peasantry. The 
 "estate" is rugged and mountainous, the farms small, a,nd often 
 reaching away up the sides of the heights; and I have seen women 
 carry manure up the steeps on their shoulders to fertilize the 
 lord's domain. They pay from twelve to fifty shillings per acre, 
 and non-payment of rent means eviction and eviction means the 
 work-house. The soil is wet, and often cold a,nd poor, but the 
 rents must be paid. Nearly 12,000 people live on this "Christian" 
 nobleman's estate, and the noble Nun of Kenmare" gave me 
 true pictures of their horrible condition. In 1880, about five 
 thousands of these peasants were dumped into Castle Garden, as 
 
62 
 
 garbage in the sea, as they were five thousand too many, and 
 must be removed to save the rest. 
 
 I have seen the poverty, wretchedness, beggary and actuaj 
 starvation on Kenma,re estates, where the barbarous Hussy raised 
 increased th'e "lord's" income $50,000 per annum to save him 
 from bankruptcy, by systematically raising the rents. The 
 beautiful lakes of Killarney, on the estate are full of fish, but 
 they are all for the "lord," and the peasant might starve before 
 being allowed to spear a sajmon. I have seen the hated tyranny 
 on the Isle of Aron, the estate of the profligate Hamilton, and 
 learned to despise, and abhor the very name of landlord. But 
 these landlords are small farmers, compared with the great lords 
 or America. 
 
 The difference, too, in the power of the lord, is only the dif- 
 ference in the population, and with our present increase, those 
 are born who will see all the horrors of landlordism ever suffered 
 by the crofters of Scotland, or the poor victims of Bence Jones, 
 in Kerry, in our country. 
 
 I once crossed the North Sea, in the fine little iron steamer, 
 "Mary Stewart." The sta,te-rooms were all taken, chiefly by 
 English and Scotch snobbery, and through the courtesy of the 
 American consul at Leith, I was the guest of the captain, shar- 
 ing his room and sitting at his right at the table. He was a, jolly, 
 generous old "tar," with a varied sense of humor, piety and pro- 
 fanity, that was a safe relief from ennui by its constant sur- 
 prises. His blessings for "this bountiful tajble," in which he 
 never failed to ask God to "carry our good ship safe to the 
 Hague," was usually interrupted by an impatient desire to damn 
 the French cook for over-spiced "sole." 
 
 Among the most interesting of the passengers was a Scotch 
 manufacturer, from Glasgow, a maker of woolens. He was a gen- 
 tleman of good education, and well informed, but he spoke as 
 broad as a rustic from Glencoe, and was as awkward as a, York- 
 shire corn broker. 
 
 Being two days delayed on the high seas by a broken en- 
 gine and a ca,lm, we talked of many things, and among others 
 of the troublous times in Ireland. 
 
 He, as myself, deplored the condition, but attributed differ- 
 ent causes; finally, we discussed the landlord system, when I 
 
63 
 
 grew earnest, and possibly, offensive. Of the two, he was the 
 more of a gentleman, as my anger had almost betrayed my tem- 
 per. I told him finally, that in our country farmers owned their 
 own homes, and that we knew nothing of a landlord system. 
 
 He politely asked to be excused a moment, and in his ab- 
 sence I felt tha,t I had made a mistake. He soon returned, and 
 seating himself, calmly unfolded the maps of Nebraska and Kan- 
 sas, and pointed to red squares where he and his partners three, 
 I think owned 200,000 acres, and, saicl he, with a, happy but 
 polite air, "there is more good land on our American estate than 
 on all the estates of which you have spoken." I was mad, and 
 "adjourned the meeting." 
 
 When we consider the magnitude of these estates; the small 
 number of persons who control them; the power that will follow 
 their ownership, with the increased density of population that 
 is increasing with unparalleled rapidity the further fact that a 
 majority of farms in the great West are heavily mortgaged to 
 the same class of men, and that the mortgagees as a class be- 
 ing great capitalists, have the power to shrink values by increased 
 freight charges, or high duties that will drive away our cus- 
 tomers thus crippling the ability of 'the debtor class to meet 
 their obligations, the future looks alarming indeed, if not almost 
 hopeless. The lands given away are equal in extent to all the 
 lands actually "under plow" in the United States. 
 
 What a frightful condition! The apologists for the present 
 evils, argue and "prove" by "statistics" that the great estates 
 a.re falling to pieces, and that the land will finally be more equally 
 divided. That is not the way things go, and that is not the way 
 the books read. 
 
 From 1870 to 1880, the changes have been, as shown in the 
 following statement: 
 
 Farms under 3 acres decreased 37%. 
 
 Farms from 3 to 10 acres decreased 21%. 
 
 Fa,rms from 10 to 20 acres decreased 14%. 
 
 Farms from 20 to 50 acres decreased 8%. 
 
 Farms from 50 to 100 acres increased 37%. 
 
 Farms from 100 to 500 acres increased 200%. 
 
 Farms from 500 to 1,000 acres increased 379%. 
 
 Over 1,000 acres 668%. 
 
64 
 
 Then, too, the man who cannot see the grea,t advantages that 
 an extensive farmer, or land owner, has over a small one, in the 
 economy of buying and selling, in machinery, in labor, in build- 
 ings, and the rotation of crops, pasturing, etc., must be blind in- 
 deed; and just to the extent of tha,t advantage, will the large 
 farm or estate grow larger and the number of small ones dis- 
 appear. 
 
 No, the landlord system has come, and it has come in the 
 regular American style, on a "big scaje," and upon this point, 
 the conspiracy of the few to grasp all the profits and control all 
 values, has worked without a protest from the victims. The great 
 landed aristocracy a,re firmly established in the New World, and 
 will wait but briefly to gather the revenues. 
 
65 
 
 CHAPTER IX, 
 
 E CONSPIRACY CONTINUED MONOPOLY CENTRALIZ- 
 ING THE LAND. 
 
 Having shown that the monopolists have gained a "con- 
 'olling influence" in the land, I desire to call attention. to the 
 power following its ownership. First, let me show how tney hold 
 a controlling influence in the land vajues in the country. A few 
 years ago, before these great western lines were built, the fron- 
 tiersman was isolated from civilization and the cost of trans- 
 portation was so great that there wa,s little profit in any products 
 but live stock. Then there were no schools, churches', or oppor- 
 tunities for mingling with refined society. These hardships 
 seemed to men reared in a more densely populated country to 
 be so great as to repel the western movements, except under cases 
 of necessity, or by the few whose tastes and manners fitted them 
 for this hardy pioneer life. As a, consequence, rents were fair- 
 as prices would justify more extensive farming and many de- 
 siring to enter into agricultural pursuits, preferred buying farms 
 in an older country to moving west and waiting for developments. 
 With these great railroad lines stretching in all directions, low 
 prices for grajn, constant advertising "cheap lands," "free homes," 
 and "glorious climate" and such irresistible inducements for em- 
 igrants; with cheap rates for long hauls, and numerous "land ex- 
 cursions" and exaggerated "statistics" of fabulous crops, of rap- 
 idly developing country, of cities tha,t had sprung into existence 
 as if by magic, of fortunes so easily acquired, the laborer with 
 small means, the tenant farmer and restless business man set out 
 on a new career. The small farmer, too, moved with the noblest 
 desire, to better the conditions of his sons a,nd daughters, and 
 those whose mortgages weighed so heavily on them, "sold out," 
 and following Mr. Greeley's advice went west. 
 
 So overwhelming was the desire to carve out a new future, 
 tat in many places there were very marked changes in the citi- 
 
66 
 
 zens and population in a few months. Ma,ny farms were left ten- 
 antless, the small farmer sold to his more wealthy neighbor, and 
 the debtor compromised with the mortgagee and "left the coun- 
 try." This very materially depreciated the value of farms in majiy 
 localities, even as far west as Illinois and Iowa. Among ail new 
 land seekers, the first and most important question wa,s how far 
 the land was from a railroad. There was no question as to rates, 
 but they were advertised as "low," and compared with the cost 
 on short ha,uls, were so. Then began a new criterion of values 
 on farms. Railroad facilities being equal, the value of a farm 
 began to be based on actual cost of improvements, plus the value 
 of wild land. 
 
 To more rapidly increase the desirability and value of their 
 great estates in the far West, and develop a country whose culti- 
 vation would furnish the most fabulous amount of freights for a 
 very long and profitable haul, the transportation lines ma,de a 
 great show of favoring these distant points by low freights. As 
 the world judges by comparison, it was easy to convince men in 
 certain localities that they were favored in freight charges, if the 
 people "along the line" at a small part of the distance from the 
 eastern markets, were charged two or three-hundred per cent 
 more, proportional to distance, thaji themselves. The low freights 
 of the long hauls were imaginary, as, I believe, no railroad was 
 ever built or operated as a charitable institution, and no honest 
 railroader has ever pretended that they intentionally did busi- 
 ness for amusement. The outrageous and unjustifiable discrim- 
 inations against the localities along the line and much farther 
 ea,st, had a double purpose. First, to draw or drive people to the 
 settlement of their dominions in the far West; and secondly, to 
 vastly increase their revenues, knowing that they could plead 
 justification on the "long and short haul" question, and by aigu- 
 ing the advantage of present rates over the cost under the old 
 ox-team system. These shrewd corporation managers knew the 
 people would submit, as they knew just how to control the politi- 
 cians, who controlled the people's votes.. 
 
 So, land in the West being cheap, and freights being compara- 
 tively low, this new mode of valuation depreciated the desirability 
 of farms in the older localities. The sajne influence that de- 
 preciated farm property, fell with crushing weight on many small 
 
67 
 
 rns and villages, and to intensify this force, a discrimination 
 in freights, so nearly absorbed all profits, both of farming and 
 business, a,s to greatly accelerate the movement. Of course, this 
 whole movement was in the interest of the great land owner, 
 whether in the West or "in the states," and was especially a,d- 
 vantageous to the transportation lines, built by land subsidies. 
 First, it rather sensibly cheapened the products of the farm, and 
 cheapened the farms in the older stages, and hastened the fore- 
 closure of innumerable mortgages, and enabled the wealthy specu- 
 lator to add to his acres at lower prices. Then the settlement 
 of every man on the prairies of the West, increased the value 
 of the lands Adjoining him, and his products gave rich employ- 
 ment to the great Central Railroad Company, whose flaming hand- 
 bills and cheap land excursions, had bred his first desire to emi- 
 grate. The land princes saw this movement, and prepared for 
 it in the details of the great conspiracy. No observer has failed 
 to notice that these great lines have been as "generous" in ad- 
 vertising the "free lands" of the government, as their own. 
 
 On the sa,me bill I have seen in all the states and in all the 
 European countries, that railroad land was worth from $2.50 to 
 $5 per acre, and that in these same limits, on the "even num- 
 bered" sections, there were millions of acres to be homesteaded. 
 From a business standpoint, it mattered not to them whether the 
 men from Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, Ireland, Prussia or France, 
 bought land of the monopolist, or took free homesteads on the 
 government sections. If the new-comers bought railroad land, 
 the company absorbed the entire profits in transportation, and 
 if they homesteaded, and formed a nucleus for a town or neigh- 
 borhood on the lands, those of the company were greatly in- 
 creased in value, and the rates of transportation were so fixed as 
 to absorb all the profits, so that there was little difference in the 
 comparative advantages. The lands were acquired, and the most 
 Herculean efforts put forth to settle the country. Millions of 
 foreigners from all nations, were brought by the inducements 
 of these corporations, who either settled directly on these lands, 
 or crowded out the laboring men of the country by a general low- 
 ering "of wages," so that they were forced to do so. The corpora- 
 tions were equally benefited whichever process was enforced. 
 The homestead laws were brought into harmony with these great 
 
68 
 
 interests, and the foreigner, from whatever country, could set- 
 tle on a tract of land the next day after arrival and become the 
 immediate owner, so tha,t vast territories have been inundated 
 by an industrious class of strangers, whose presence increases 
 the "lord's" estates, whose products give valuable employment 
 to the corporation's railroads, and whose swarming numbers 
 have taken the opportunities which should have been reserved, 
 for a, time, at least, for our children and our homeless. 
 
 The national generosity has been so flattered and pampered 
 that we have declared our country an "asylum for all the world," 
 a sort of universal poor-house, where the outcasts were not only 
 welcome, but made partners b'y an immediate division of prop- 
 erty and privilege. To settle up the waste lands of the far West, 
 and thus augment the value of the vast estates of the monopo- 
 lists, or enrich them by the hauling of the bulky products of the 
 new farms, was the policy of the few, and they have been fortu- 
 na,te in always having the multitude "rise and sing," when they 
 have recited the creed and sounded the key. 
 
 The fact that about 88% of emigrants seek and find employ- 
 ment in great industrial centers, shows the sharpness in competi- 
 tion among laboring men, arising from this cause, and shows 
 that vast numbers of "American born" have really been driven 
 from employment to become wealth producers for another class 
 of the great monopolists the land owners. 
 
 With a national policy based upon justice, every strong, hon- 
 est and industrious person who came to our shores would be a 
 blessing to the whole society, but with all land and the great 
 store of raw material, from which all must live, monopolized by 
 a few, every acquisition to our- population, only benefits the mo- 
 nopolist, by increasing the demand for his goods, and sharpening 
 the competition for the privilege of producing them. With the 
 lands and mines controlled by a few, every able-bodied producer 
 who comes from Europe, adds to the wealth of the material 
 owner, by giving him a better market for his possessions and a 
 cheaper market for his material, which is la,bor. 
 
 I have not the data, as I have taken no pains to search out 
 and compare statistics, but reasoning inductively, I a,m confident 
 that such a comparison would prove that the years, seasons or 
 periods of the greatest immigration, had been followed closely 
 
= 
 
 - 69 
 
 by the most serious labor, financial a,nd business prostrations, 
 if, indeed, not of strikes, lockouts, riots and the most fearful busi- 
 ness failures. 
 
 With society, business and industry, moving in a normal 
 stage of advancement, the advent of a half million sturdy peo- 
 pie in a single yea,r, belonging to one class and seeking means of 
 livelihood through one channel, must create a wonderful dis- 
 turbance in the industrial world. It breaks the symmetry of 
 growth or action, and cannot fail to affect the whole mass. As 
 there are so many sources of evil, so many causes to which we 
 may safely attribute evil results, that we are usually blinded to 
 the demerits of that which we advised or approved. But monop- 
 oly, a monstrosity born of an abnormal condition, must depend 
 pon Abnormal conditions for growth and success. This being 
 these social convulsions or spasms, give monopoly its rich- 
 t harvest. It is a time for closing mortgages, for exacting 
 usury, for cornering grain, and for crucifying the conscience, that 
 evil dreams may disturb the wine-fed phantoms of sleep. 
 
 If the monopolists have the power to regulate values on land, 
 they ha,ve no less power in crushing out the small farmer as a 
 class. In no field of investigation or experimentation has genius 
 developed more practical results than in labor-saving machinery 
 for the farm. With land monopolized, and large capital invested in 
 farming, the benefits of this improved machinery will so largely 
 accrue to the rich as to give them great advantage in the field 
 of competition. I have shown how rapidly large farms are in- 
 creasing in number and this is largely attributable to the same 
 influence that annihilated the old-time blacksmith, shoe-maker, 
 carpenter, weaver, etc., and centralized the whole manufacturing 
 industry in the great ma,rts, where costly methods could produce 
 better, cheaper and enough more rapidly, to silence all private 
 workers. 
 
 As before remarked, we have now more tenant farmers 
 than the British Isles, and when the great army of small farmers 
 ajad those who hold by virtue of cut-throat mortgages join the 
 forces, there will be more farm laborers in this, than in that coun- 
 try. With this monopoly, the great farm that will move with 
 the same precision as a great factory, with no waste, with the 
 more improved methods, and with an experienced management, 
 
70 
 
 is to be the farm of the future and, gradually, is the small farmer 
 yielding to these inevitable results. No man who has a home to 
 support can compete with the great cold machines, tha,t have no 
 backs to ache, no hearts to break, and no -wife and babes crying 
 for bread. 
 
 The steam plow, the electric reaper, and the corn husking 
 machine, are even now waiting the call of the capitalist farmer. 
 Who is to be benefited by this triumph of genius? Only the 
 farmer with many broad acres can afford the assistance that will 
 enable him to produce cheaper than his less fortunate neighbor. 
 
 A thousand nations have sunk; yielded to the inevitable and 
 died out under the withering curse of landlordism, yet on no sp it 
 on earth has the system ever assumed such gigantic proportions 
 as in our country. 
 
 What a change has come to cloud the future of the poor, the 
 unfortunate and the ambitious young men, who for years have 
 found a, refuge on the fertile prairies of the West. 
 
 Up to quite recently, a pleasant home on the gentle hills of 
 the new states or territories, away from the disappointing cares 
 of precarious business life, where trade and commerce are battle- 
 fields for contention and strife, with failure often snatching the 
 prize from the liajid of confident success, awaited every man, and 
 those who brought courage and industry were promised a new 
 hope and a better future. But now he must stay with his hard- 
 ships, and fight the battle of life with the other millions in over- 
 crowded center, many of whom, too, would gladly flee for the 
 free air of the great West had not the opportunities been cut off 
 by the rapacity of the cunning few. 
 
 A majority of persons engaged in gainful pursuits in Amer- 
 ica must always be farmers, but where will they get the farms? 
 
 Half of California, including more than three-fourths of the 
 best arable and pasture land, is owned by less than five hundred 
 men. Traveling once in that paradisical country, where nature 
 seems to have halted in awe of the great Pacific and emptied out 
 her precious load of all that could happify a world; so rich the 
 soil, so bountiful and luxuriant the fruit and vegetable world, so 
 vajied the climate and pure and healthful the air, that it seemed 
 I could hear the gods whisper from the snow-capped mountains 
 and the tropical valleys, for man to come and eat and drink and 
 
71 
 
 N, 
 
 be happy, as plenty defied exhaustion of her stores. Driving up 
 a valley so rich, fertile ajid beautiful, I halted in wonder, and 
 stood in silent amazement, beholding the enchanting scene. On 
 one side the bold mountain stood grandly erect, with snow- 
 capped summit that, like a crowned giant, guarded the fairy land, 
 and the fleecy clouds that floated naajectically over from the sea, 
 stooped to kiss the fair cheek of the generous- king of the West. 
 The montains' brows were hung with fruits and vines, from which 
 hung great festoons of ripened grapes of nature's kind. 
 
 The forests were silent, except for the music of the birds and 
 the sweet purling rills; the grass uncropped, except by the timid 
 deer and antelope; the soil unbroken, except by the track of the 
 freighter's lonely team, and the lonesome world of beauty seemed 
 tc sigh for some to pra,ise and enjoy. The smiling valley was 
 nearly as wide as that of the Nile, and as fertile as that of the 
 Po. Thirty miles from a human habitation, I came upon a train 
 of sad, wea,ry, slowly-trudging emigrants. The teams were jaded, 
 and every step of the weary animals wa^ a silent protest against 
 the pleading driver for an onward movement. There were seven 
 teams with seven families. The men were sad, sturdy, honest 
 and bra,ve-looking pioneers, with browned cheeks, worn and dusty 
 clothing; and a look and word of subdued kindness, showed them 
 
 I honest and true. There were seven wives and mothers, from the 
 bride of a few months to the gray-haired dame, who lived again 
 for her children's children. And, oh, what a sad, weary, hopeless 
 looking group they were a they moved like ghosts about the 
 camp fire, preparing their frugal meal. Their eyes were deep and 
 sluggish; their cheeks were brown, but sunken; their forms were 
 bent and their arms lean and weak. Tired nature ha,d chased 
 away womanly modesty, pride and loveliness. The withered 
 brea,sts of almost savage mothers were unblushingly exposed, and 
 scrawny babes were vainly trying to gather from the dried-up 
 fount the means of life. What looking children! There were 
 twenty. Were a smile to come that way, the pouting faces would 
 frighten it away, never to return. Nature opened her acres and 
 seemed in glee to cheer the hearts of those new-comers. The 
 rustling trees sa,id, "come to my shade, and rest until you build 
 a habitation." The fertile soil said, "plow me up, and quickly I 
 will fatten the sides of all the weary coloay;" and the fruits said, 
 
72 
 
 "pluck and eat, for the gods have provided for the children of 
 men." 
 
 With prospects so charming, why were these people sad? 
 Why did they not rejoice, like the pilgrims of old, or the multi- 
 tudes in the oriental taje, when they found a like country? They 
 were searching for homes, for a place on which to build a hab- 
 itation, where they could cultivate the soil, sow crops and rest 
 at even, under their own "vine and fig tree." Why were they 
 sad and helpless? For ten leagues there was no habitation, and 
 why not bless God and go to work? 
 
 They were hunting homes in a world where nature placed 
 them. They were hunting a resting place on God's footstool, 
 where they might humbly toil at His feet and praise Him for His 
 bounties. They were hungry, lonely, sad and wea,ry, and were 
 praying for a place where plenty would reward labor, and bring 
 again the rose of health to the cheek of loved ones. This spot 
 was a paradise, and why go farther? 
 
 Oh, cruel fate! Oh, fiendish! For shame upon society and 
 government; for these honest men remembered with a sigh, that 
 it was somewhere written, "thou shalt not tarry here, for this 
 beautiful world 'belongs' to another." 
 
 The train ha,d trudged nearly two whole days and camped 
 three nights on the wild, uncultivated land, "belonging" to ONE 
 man. How came the absent man of ease "to own" and keep from 
 cultivation this garden of the world? By what right are these 
 poor, weary children of God, pushed from this vacant spot on 
 His footstool, to tramp farther, they know not where, to find a 
 spot on which to live or die? 
 
 Oh, thou direct curse, that ever damned the world; that sent 
 virtue in raggedness to insanity; industry to want, beggary and 
 starvation; the blushing maid to unspeakable shame; the dimpled 
 babe to lean wa,nt and misery; that polluted the saintly lips with 
 a curse; that ever drove in insolent haste the helpless innocents 
 from cottage hearth into the winter's blast; that filled the prisons 
 with criminals, the church with hypocrites, the judiciary with 
 hirelings, the legislature with knaves, and snatched the promise 
 of God from nature's hand and forged it into a lie; thy name is 
 Monopoly. 
 
 It is said, "Uncle Sam is rich enough to give us all a farm," 
 
73 
 
 but the imbecile old dunce has given his possessions to a few of 
 his idle sons, the sharpers, and left the balance to wrestle with 
 life as best they can, in a "world already occupied." 
 
 There are strong, vigorous men now, a part of our noblest 
 mannood, who started out in life without a dollar, and crossed 
 the Mississippi River with all their worldly goods in a cotton 
 handkerchief. The world wa,s before them the western world 
 and as it was then no disgrace to be poor, they faced the new 
 difficulties with courageous joy. A young man left the old home, 
 with nothing but a strong body, a manly will, good health, and 
 pleasant memories for the past, and cast his fortune in the new 
 empire. Wearily trudging along over the swelling prairies, guid- 
 ed by the dim track of an early pioneer, might have been seen, 
 almost any day thirty years ago, a strong young ma,n seeking a 
 fortune, with untamed nature. He approaches a rude cabin, is 
 admitted, finds employment, makes love to and marries the 
 farmer's daughter. He takes a claim just over the hill, and lays 
 the foundation for a future home and a future usefulness. With 
 industry he opens up his "claim," rajses good crops, feeds his 
 flocks on the "thousand hills," and before his locks frost, he is 
 among the "heavy" men of the state. He serves with "distinc- 
 tion" in the legislature, and holds prominent positions of trusfr 
 and profit, and is an honor to his state and country. He owes 
 a,ll not to his good start in life, for he had not a penny; not 
 to his education, for he had very little but to the opportunities 
 of taking a home, and the ambition, hope and manhood that suc- 
 cess develops in a fertile soil. 
 
 But, "my dear reader," where are the opportunities for the 
 present a,nd the future generations? Where will they get their 
 homes, to help develop their manhood? 
 
 If any of you, my readers, came to the new and giant West, 
 and found and enjoyed such blessings, tell me where your soris 
 and your neighbor's sons, who love your sweet daughters and 
 would gladly make them their wives if they sa.w a possibility of 
 making them comfortable, are going to get their homes? Your 
 boys cannot do as you did, for your "servants," your representa- 
 tives, have given the land that belonged to your sons, to a few 
 sharpers, and they must compromise with them, and get a home 
 at their terms, if at all, while you got yours on your own terms. 
 
74 
 
 You have worked hard, and hoped to give your children better 
 chances than you had, but have you? You may have sent them 
 to better schools, a,nd taught your daughters more music, but do 
 you leave the world with as good opportunities for your children 
 as your fathers left for you? Where will your children go? 
 Where are the homes for your boys? Let your sons start out as 
 many of you did, and when ten miles from home, they would 
 be hissed from the door as tramps, and if they should make love 
 to the daughter of a, western cottager, with that "wardrobe," in a 
 coiton handkerchief, she would loosen the bulldog on him. You 
 "lords of creation," you "sovereign people," you free and "inde- 
 pendent voters," you have robbed your children and my children 
 of their birthright; you have given the country to the idle and 
 the sharpers; you have made them outcasts; you put upon them 
 shackles and deeded the soil upon which they stajid to another; 
 you have brought your children into a "world already occupied," 
 and occupied by those who claim your sanction by your vote; 
 you have placed fetters on all the future generations, and you de- 
 fend the withering curse, the unparalleled infamy, because it was 
 the policy of your political party. Shame! Forever shame! 
 
 Our people have dreamed securely, soothed by the siren songs 
 from tne silver tongues of paid rhymers, until the fetters of 
 servitude are riveted upon them, and, when aroused, they see 
 themselves outcasts in the land of their birth; while the cunning, 
 with a fiendish smile, feasted, the "people's servants," contributed 
 generously to the campaign fund, fed the hungry politician and 
 quietly grasped the land upon which all the dupes sang in elo- 
 quent praise, the glories of our progressive country. 
 
75 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LAND AND ITS OWNERSHIP. 
 
 [HO owns the world, anyway? Does God's children 
 own it, or only a few of His favored, idle sons, who 
 always shirked the stern duties of life and managed 
 to appropriate the earnings of the more noble and 
 industrious boys, and live by their wits? Is God 
 more partial than the Asiatic prince? Has he bid us 
 come to this gorgeous temple where nature has 
 strewn her fruits, breads and luxuries with such lav- 
 ish hand, only to find every seat occupied by some 
 aristocratic idler, who insolently bids us depart from 
 his possessions? 
 
 Is our Heavenly Father more cruel than an oriental prince? 
 Was there a divine purpose in this arrangement, or has the 
 creature usurped the prerogatives of the Creator, and assumed 
 to divide out among a, few, the patrimony of all? The land, 
 directly or indirectly, is man's only means of subsistence, and 
 when man depends upon another man for means with which to 
 live, he can enjoy but a small degree of freedom. Who owns the 
 soil, owns the people on the soil, because he controls the condi- 
 tions by which they live. Surely a man, not himself being owned, 
 may accept or reject the proffered conditions; but to reject mea,ns 
 to accept a condition of nature, which is, nourish the body or die. 
 The crofters of Scotland, half of whose earnings as fishermen 
 must be added to the profits of the entire crop, to pay the "lord's" 
 rents, have learned that he who owns the soil, owns the people 
 on the soil. The tenant farmers a,nd farm laborers of England, 
 who have striven down through generations of the same class for 
 eight hundred years, have learned that he who owns the soil, 
 owns the labor on the soil. The honest, pious, quick, patriotic 
 and industrious peasants of down-trodden Ireland, living under 
 a Christian government, whose enlightened policy lias made the 
 
76 
 
 nation the commercial mistress of Christendom, and is giving its 
 language and spirit of progress to the world; but being oppressed 
 by a system of landlordism, that clutches all the profits of the 
 toil, that raises rents as the holding is improved, that took from 
 the country in the dread famine yea,r of 1880 14,000,000, or about 
 $7u,000,000 worth of grain to pay rents, while thousands of peo- 
 ple died in the highways, of starvation, and the nation almost 
 saved by American generosity, has learned that "who owns the 
 soil, owns the la,bor on the soil." And even the tenants of the 
 model landlord, Scully, of the free state of Illionis, who takes 
 from them $200,000 per annum to spend among the royal snobs 
 of Europe, have learned that "who owns the soil, owns the labor 
 on the soil." And the people of America will soon learn, with a 
 more gigantic landlord system than exists in ajiy land, that, "who 
 owns the soil, owns the labor on the soil;" and they are now 
 learning another lesson, almost as important; that he who con- 
 trols the profits of the soil by freights or other monopoly owns 
 the labor on the soil, just as absolutely as the other, though he 
 may shirk the repairs and taxes. 
 
 Now, what is it to be free? To enjoy an equal right to life, 
 liberty and the pursuit of happiness, with all other creatures. 
 What is it to be a slave? To be compelled to accept the condi- 
 tions of another for the privilege of existing. In the design of 
 nature, man leaves the soil as a, means of earning a livelihood, 
 as a maner of choice, and returns to it upon necessity. It is the 
 first and last expedient, for it is indirectly the source of all means 
 of subsistence, and when man can no longer win the fruits of 
 the soil, produced by others, a.s a last resort he rettfrns to the 
 original source and gathers his own means of living. But if it 
 is monopolized, the degree or severity of the conditions exacted 
 by the owner, depends exactly upon the sharpness of competition, 
 that is, on how many others are being driven to this last resort. 
 If the competition is sharp, as in Ireland and some other coun- 
 tries, the owner is aji autocrat and the toiler a serf. Our coun- 
 try, being owned by a few, what a beautiful burlesque is the im- 
 mortal Declaration of Independence, "that all are created equal" 
 and endowed with rights of "life, liberty and the pusuit of hap- 
 piness." 
 
 If our wise forefathers had foreseen the present conditions, 
 
77 
 
 they would have declared that man should have been endowed by 
 his Creator, with NINE LIVES, that he might have the "liberty" 
 to the "pursuit of happiness" in exterminating these despotic pol- 
 icies. What a beautiful "equality," a,nd how the devils must 
 laugh and the ajigels weep, to see a strong man of toil, with hat 
 under arm, and a subdued look of melancholy, pleading with some 
 soft-handed, perfumed idler, for the privilege of tilling the soil 
 that God had given to His children. 
 
 Who controls the conditions by which I live is my master, 
 whether that be myself or another. The necessity that compels 
 me to toil for another, makes me that other's sla,ve. 
 
 To call a man free, does not make him so. To call a country 
 a Republic, does not give its inhabitants the spirit, powers and 
 privileges of a Republic. If Another owns the soil, where is my 
 liberty, and how will I engage in the "pursuit" of happiness? 
 Without a legal compromise, or acceptance of the conditions of- 
 fered by the owners, I am a trespasser, and he has the "right" 
 to grasp me with the strong arm of the law, and evict me; 
 and wherever the officer of the law sets me down, I am still a 
 trespasser, unless he compromises for the privilege of "unload- 
 ing" on that other's premises. Of course, the air is free, and so 
 far, the light is free, but I cannot live in the air, as I am not 
 planned by nature for such exercise, and I have no "liberty for 
 the pursuit of happiness," even by lounging in the free light of 
 heaven, unless I first rent a spot upon which to stand. Then, I 
 am an outcast in my father's house, though born in wedlock. 
 Dear Nature is the mother of us all; shall our mother deprive her 
 weary children the privilege of laying their aching hea,ds upon 
 her pulseless bosom? 
 
 Do you say I draw the picture too strong? Think of the 
 power a monopoly of the land will give when population becomes 
 more dense; labor-saving machinery makes capital more inde- 
 pendent, and the competition for the right to cultivate a piece 
 of land grows more sharp and desperate. You say these are re- 
 mote contingencies. Look over the past few year's change and 
 compute the future, and then answer the objection from your ov?n 
 convictions. Unless war or famine comes neither of which may 
 be a,s remote as we hope the arable portions of America will 
 soon be densely populated, Modern methods have so increased 
 
78 
 
 the productive capacity of labor, ajid turned over so mu-jh en- 
 ergy to machinery, that a dense population will bring more misery 
 and cause a sharper competition for the use of the soil thaji ex- 
 ists in any of the older countries. 
 
 But see what this competition for land, and war for bread, 
 has done in other lands. 
 
 India is among the most wealthy and productive countries 
 on ea,rth. Her valuable fruits, wares and merchandise have en- 
 riched the whole English nation not the people has placed 
 luxuries on every table in Christendom; has supported the most 
 wasteful, extravagant and voluptuous class of lords, nobles and 
 local tyrants of the gorgeous East; but the toiling, degraded 
 millions, who produced this weajth, sweat under their tiresome 
 duties for six cents per day. I have seen thousands of strong, 
 industrious men in Spain, Italy, Scotland and Ireland, because 
 they were absolutely excluded from the use of the soil, because 
 of their inability to make terms with the "lord," work on the 
 farm for from ten to fourteen cents per day. Because others 
 owned the lajids, less than one-sixth of which, in either country, 
 is under actual cultivation, they were compelled to accept 
 these conditions, and except for these being offered, a 
 "generous" government would have taken them to the poor-house, 
 or allowed the "human form divine" to feed the buzzards after 
 death by starvation. These are not extreme or uncommon ex- 
 amples, for these conditions are the inevitable results which fol- 
 low all landlord systems when the population becomes dense. 
 
 Now, while I am in perfect harmony with the opinions of 
 Henry George as to the "injustice of private ownership" of land, 
 I am not fully persuaded that his remedy, or any remedy, in fact, 
 is practicable; yet my argument is framed to prove the exist- 
 ence of the class plot, to monopolize the lands, the money and 
 trade, and turn the profits of all industry in the one channel, and 
 rear a vast aristocracy, or monarchy, on the ruins of the republic, 
 and not to defend a,ny theory or policy. As the land is the basis, 
 the source of all life and the fountain from which all must drink, 
 the store-house from which all must be fed, and empowers the pos- 
 sessor to carry out all other plans of centralism, I decided to elab- 
 orate that first; and if I conclude to express opinions a,s to remedy, 
 they will be found toward the close of this volume, At present, 
 
am only discussing that degree of private ownership, known 
 and designated, monopoly. Of course, all private ownership of 
 land partakes somewhat of the nature of monopoly, but there is 
 a.s great a difference between the possession of the necessary land 
 from which to gain the means of livelihood and holding vast tracts 
 for rise or revenue, as there is between a slight indisposition and 
 the last stages of typhoid fever. 
 
 The exclusion of the people from the soil, as agriculturalists, 
 by these great monopolies, is by no means the only evils arising 
 from this policy, and, possibly, not the greatest. The land, with 
 its natural treasures, constitutes the supply of raw material of 
 the world. The true and only dignity of labor depends upon its 
 freedom, or otherwise, of access to the stores of raw material. The 
 soil, the mines, the minerals, the forests, the rocks, and the vari- 
 ous elements, plants and vegetables of nature, constitute these 
 raw materials, and are the basis of a.11 wealth, known as prop- 
 erty. In a country so richly endowed as ours, if labor had free 
 access to these inexhaustible stores, want would be impossible. 
 The fields for enterprise would be so broad, the opportunities so 
 inviting, and the industries so multifarious that every taste and 
 degree of talent and temperament could seek the employment best 
 suited to promote health and happiness. With free access to 
 "raw material" there could be no strikes, no lock-outs, no pool- 
 ing to raise prices, and no poverty for lack of profitable employ- 
 ment. The ea.se with which labor could move from one place to 
 another, and find employment, and the faculty with which changes 
 could be made from one industry to another; the inducement to 
 develop industries as near market, and otherwise conform to the 
 demands of trade, would tend to a more harmonious Adjustment 
 of supply and demand, both in commodities and labor. 
 
 There would be no difficulty in forming great companies rep-, 
 resenting the requisite capital for any undertaking, for co-opera- 
 tion between intelligent la,bor and generous capitalists would de- 
 velop results such as never have and never can be attained where 
 one party strives only to make the greatest possible profit, and 
 the other, to perform the least work that will insure the wages. 
 But we find the soil, mines, forests, rocks, and all of nature's 
 bounties monopolized; and men are now more rigidly excluded 
 from the wealth in the earth, than from the soil on the earth. 
 
80 
 
 These wonderful monopolies only intensify the hardships and 
 multiply the power given by the soil, or surface monopoly. The 
 surface monopoly deters thousands from agricultural pursuits, 
 who would be dra,wn from the great labor centers, and ease the 
 competition among employes. They are thus forced to seek em- 
 ployment in the mining, manufacturing or lumber centers, to the 
 detriment of other laborers and the advantage of the monopo- 
 lists. Of all the foolish, unjustifiable crimes ever committed by 
 a government, or by rulers, to strengthen the hands of tyranny, 
 the granting of a, monopoly on coal, iron, copper, lead, and other 
 ores and minerals, must be considered as among the worst. The 
 copper boulders may lay loose in the earth, of ea,sy accessibility 
 to a needy man, but the mines belong to some great capitalist. 
 The deep coaj vein, built from the piercing rays of light and heat, 
 which God snatched from the sun for His children, crops out on 
 the margin of a hundred hills, and thousands of homes are cold 
 for need of fuel, yet, some mighty senator, or bank president or 
 syndicate, owns the few thousand acres which cover these mines, 
 and the needy, but ambitious laborer, must go a few miles to the 
 "works" of this company and make terms with the supsrintend- 
 ents for permission to shaje what God gave as a free gift to all. 
 With labor excluded from access to the mines, it is compelled to 
 accept the terms of capital, and from the enormous profits great 
 works are erected, small operators crowded out, and then pools 
 and combinations formed which exacts a greater price for the 
 product. With these powers, combination, and not competition, 
 becomes the monarch of value. Cost of production has nothing 
 to do with selling price, which is based on the "decision of the 
 conference" the strength of the pool. If the profits of this ar- 
 rangement do not satisfy the greed of avarice a#d it never does, 
 for avarice fattens on what it feeds a shrewd, oily-tongued gen- 
 tleman, repairs to the Washington lobby and furnishes thousands 
 of convincing arguments impressed with the sea.1 of the com- 
 pany why this industry should be "protected" from the com- 
 petition of any outsiders, who might be willing to give the peo- 
 ple cheaper commodities, and, armed with a copy of this patri- 
 otic law of congress, the philanthropic operator meets the rep- 
 resentatives of the leading "concerns" and the wages a,re marked 
 down, the goods marked up, and the dividends become more 
 
~"t 
 
 .. 
 
 "handsome." The ownership of soils, mines, etc., has given cap- 
 ital so strong a monopoly, that a few great industries are crush- 
 ing or Absorbing the smaller ones, that pools may be more easily 
 ected, and high prices more secure. 
 
 With each of the numerous branches of industry being rep- 
 resented by a limited number of gigantic corporations, competi- 
 tion can be entirely banished, and consumers will be at the mercy 
 of this despotic, centralized power. Even now, before the plans 
 are consummated, these shrewd managers have so perfected the 
 control of labor, that if a workingman dare complain, disobey, 
 or cast a "free ballot," against the will of the overseer, he is; 
 blacklisted, a^id though he may trudge across the continent, he 
 cannot find employment in the same industry. With this mo- 
 nopoly, every labor-saving machine invented, benefits only the 
 land or mine owner. The raw material in the soil of the mo- 
 nopolist, is valuable just in proportion to the demand of the com- 
 modities, into the making of which it enters, and the cost of 
 making or manufacturing. Then every invention that cheapens 
 the process of making, thus lowering the labor cost, increases the 
 value of his material to just that extent; and to just that extent 
 he can dispense with the help of laborers, because that much more 
 independent of them. Labor is valuable just in proportion to the 
 demand of the commodities which are the work of its hands, and 
 the value or accessibility of the material. Then a machine that 
 performs the work of man, places a greater value upon material, 
 by cheapening the process of making, makes labor more de- 
 pendent. With a given price for marketable products, every in- 
 vention that cheapens production transfers the difference in the 
 labor cost, to the advantage of the materia.1 owner. The 
 use of gas as a motive power saves the consumption of 180,000 
 bushels of coal per day in Pittsburg. It saves the labor of nearly 
 2,000 men. It eases toil, and the nation rejoices. For wha,t? What 
 has become of the two thousand men whose families barely lived 
 on the wages they earned. They are tramps in the West. But, 
 we say, it cheapens production and benefits the consumer, and it 
 is a, "triumph of genius." What products have been cheapened? 
 When did the price fall? No, it has strengthened monopoly, and 
 given capital more "argument" to convince congress that com- 
 petition from abroad would ruin our industries and degrade labor. 
 
82 
 
 Yes, it did cheapen one thing, labor; for the two thousand men, 
 whose toil ha,d been eased by this "triumph of genius," were 
 forced to enter into competition with the others and thus lower 
 wages. How refreshing it was to read, about the time this "tri- 
 umph of genius" had "eased" so much toil, that thousands of men 
 were begging for work; about the operators meeting in "President 
 Jones' parlors," and deciding on a 10% cut of wages. This wa,s 
 called by all the "public educators," "business." 
 
 When the next night the men met not in a parlor, but in a 
 cheap, cold hall and drafted resolutions, asking a,n investiga- 
 tion as to wages and cost of living, this meeting was called by 
 the same public educators conspiracy. True, one man standing 
 a,t a machine, and having become a part of it, can do more work 
 produce more than twenty men, a quarter of a century ago. 
 But the man who manipulates the machine, wages as severe a 
 war for bread as did his Ancestors; and ask the other nineteen 
 of their tasks are eased, and witness the reply. It is true, the 
 productive capacity of labor has immensely increased of late, but 
 it has only increased the profits of the monopolists, the a,varice 
 of greed and the misery of the poor whose tasks have "been so 
 lightened. With all the boasted increase of the productivity of 
 labor, the task of the laborer, to earn the necessities of life, was 
 never a harder one. Of course, "genius" ha,s quickened the "art 
 productive," but monopoly has pocketed the whole advantage, and 
 the consumer has taken his share of the glory, in boasting, and 
 the laborer in enforced "ease." 
 
 In this new a,nd grand country of ours, but in its infancy, 
 "genius" has so far "eased" toil, that there are now, in dead of 
 winter, more than one million men enjoying this (enforced) 
 ease, while there are 2,000,000 but seven days ahead of actual 
 wa,nt, and a majority of those have families to support. 
 
 The divine mission of genius has been subverted, and, instead 
 of lightening the burdens of toil, lighting every home with hope, 
 every cheek with health, and every heart with a laudable ambi- 
 tion to happify the age, it has crowned monopoly the monarch of 
 American value and the despot of American labor. 
 
 Because monopoly grasped the land, and thus the profits of 
 every industry, the "triumph of genius" was a triumph of cunning 
 over honesty; of idleness over industry; of avarice over gener- 
 
83 
 
 osity; of vice over virtue; of conspiracy over loyalty; of selfish- 
 ness over humanity; of hypocrisy over credulity. Genius breathed 
 life into the locomotive, and the steel ra^il shot out like a ray of 
 light, and monopolists boarded the train, was hurled across the 
 continent at fifty miles an hour, and "marked up the freights" 
 along the track to pay the wine bill. Genius pointed the homeless 
 to the "boundless West;" but the monopolist visited congress the 
 next morning, and the great secretary signed the papers, trans- 
 ferring the empire. Genius sent pure air into the coal mine, and 
 monopoly secured an "option" on a million acres that same even- 
 ing. 
 
 The divine purpose sent genius into the world to rest the 
 weary, bless the humble and elevate humanity; but as monopoly 
 "procured the first interview," the capricious god crowned low- 
 browed ignorance with the badge of authority. 
 
 How perfectly has the plot of the great conspirators worked. 
 How vast their fortunes have grown. How rapidly has the profits 
 of toil flowed into the coffers of the cunning few. How readily 
 the politicians bow to the power of cash, and how loyally the 
 "dear people" fa.ll into line when monopoly fills the campaign 
 purse and whispers the party "shibboleth." "Clear the way for 
 the king's chariot," for if there be the burning words, "liberty," 
 "equality" and "fraternity," written on a clip of six-cent muslin, 
 and tacked to the "dash-board," the mob will shout a hearty wel- 
 come to the moneyed despot. 
 
 Gra,nd America, but recently as wild as untamed Niagara, the 
 broad and smiling face of which promised a refuge for the op- 
 pressed, and revived the hopes of the world, has been divided up 
 among the favored few, who control its industries and gather its 
 revenues. Those who come now are called to a feast with no 
 plate spread, to a, world already "occupied." They see the boun- 
 ties of lavish nature wasting in the exuberance of their being, 
 while with haughty insolence the pampered few drive hunger 
 from that which they themselves cannot consume. 
 
 Shall the Malthusian doctrine prevail, and these unprovided 
 for guests retire ajid, with a curse and a groan, breathe out the 
 soul which God had mockingly given, as was suggested by the 
 nobles in the oriental tale? Or shall the doctrine of Proudhon 
 prevail, by the people reasserting their inalienable rights, and re- 
 
84 
 
 inhabiting the world as a common brotherhood? The former 
 seems the more likely to prevail, with the present apathy, preju- 
 dice and party loyalty, and is in perfect harmony with the plans 
 of the conspirators; but if monopoly becomes too merciless, the 
 second act in the oriental tale may be repeated and the sun of 
 this gorgeous reign of cash, go down in utter darkness. 
 
85 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 MONOPOLY OP MONEY. 
 
 ROM the earliest history of our country down to the 
 great civil war, the finances had rarely, if ever been 
 on a perfectly safe and satisfactory basis. The sad 
 experience of our people with fraudulent banks and 
 worthless paper money schemes, had proven very con- 
 vincing arguments in the hands of those who could 
 not emancipate themselves from the old-fashioned 
 notion that "money" must not only possess value by 
 rea,son of its interchangeability, or the representa- 
 tive character given by common consent, but that it 
 must BE value in its nature as an entity. While from 
 the necessities of commerce a more liberal, if not enlightened, 
 definition of money was born and a more liberal scope accorded 
 for the exercise of its functions, the superstition demanding a. 
 faith that behind every note, promise, token, or other representa- 
 tive of value, which circulated as money, must lay hidden a piece 
 of metal of a certain kind, weight and fineness, ready to spring 
 to the rescue when doubt arose, served a^i excellent purpose, when 
 the game for empire was to be played. To pay, feed and equip 
 a million men, and furnish the great field supplies and munitions 
 of war, required a fabulous expenditure of wealth. 
 
 As nothing but money would purchase these supplies, the 
 nation, with strong, patriotic men ready to fill the ran^s of a thou- 
 sand regiments, with fields and elevators full of grain, pastures 
 of flocks, and genius and industry to turn the ores into missiles 
 of death, stood ready to start into action at the word of command, 
 yet an adequate means for marshaling these vast forces was want- 
 ing, and the nation stood helpless in its gigantic despair. 
 
 The constitution vested in congress the power to coin money, 
 but as the government had no mountains of gold or silver, at the 
 mint ready for the workmen, the word "coin" seemed the bane 
 of the nation. The idolatry and superstition tha,t lurks in the 
 
86 
 
 civilized man, turned pale and cried, "sacrilege," when it was 
 vaguely intimated that congress might coin anything into money 
 but gold and silver. The "golden calf" had been enthroned in Wall 
 street, and he who would impiously appeal to any power but this 
 ancient god, was denounced as a heretic. The financier, the day 
 dreams of whose life is to heajp up great fortunes, is a thinker, 
 and these shrewd gentlemen had read to some purpose. Ex- 
 perience and history showed the power of wealth, and that its 
 power increased by centralized control, in more than geometrical 
 ratio. They knew tha.t a monopoly of any commodity for which 
 there was a strong demand, empowered the holder to exact prices 
 corresponding to the intensity of such demand. They knew a 
 monopoly of land made the world dependent, and they knew that 
 the value which every dollar in money represented ajid would buy, 
 depended upon the amount in circulation, and its freedom from 
 class, corporation or individual control. They saw their oppor- 
 tunity. They knew the ancient love of the people for gold. They 
 knew a sorry experience had engendered a prejudice against any 
 money but tha,t with real value in its nature and composition. 
 They knew that the business of the country and its activity would 
 transfer, in a few months, property amounting to the entire wealth 
 of the nation. They knew that an attempt to conduct this vast 
 undertaking on the limited supply of money coin would give 
 princely fortunes to the money holders. The gold was "cornered" 
 and cast into the vaults or exported. The nation in the throes 
 of Almost death, appealed in patriotic voice for money, and the 
 capitalist shrugged his shoulders and fastened his lean fists more 
 firmly on his money bags. 
 
 A false notion of finance, honor, and patriotism prevailing, 
 the government was at the mercy of the capitalists", and when the 
 Rebellion was defeated, the nation found itself in the firm grasp 
 of moneyed despotism, as relentless as the Jewish leaner of 
 Venice. 
 
 Now, every man is in duty bound to come to the protection 
 of his country, when its honor, peace or safety is imperiled, and 
 the service rendered should be in proportion to the benefits of the 
 government to the individual, or, as he needs its protection. When 
 the great president called for national defenders, a half million 
 men, brave, patriotic and true, almost unanimously, from the great 
 
middle and poorer classes, rushed to ajms to save the flag from 
 dishonor and the country from dismemberment. There was not 
 a regiment of bank clerks in the whole army; and if there were 
 "tellers" and clerks from those places, they were furnished with 
 offices. 
 
 Our country needed men and it needed money. It needed 
 muscle and it needed capital. But how differently our govern- 
 ment dealt with the two elements that were to gather our final 
 victory. The government called for men, and the men had to 
 go. Honest, noble men, with no capital but health and strength; 
 no use for a government but to save them from assassination, 
 were dragged from newly wedded wives, from humble homes 
 with helpless children clasping their knees, or from the embrace 
 of parents trembling with age. 
 
 The poor had to go, and leave their happy, humble homes, 
 leaving loved ones to face the cold charities of the selfish world, 
 and dare death on southern fields. They marched in front of 
 cruel bayonets and took their places and were patriotically shot. 
 But when money was remanded, how different. When money 
 was needed to buy blankets to bury these slaughtered soldiers 
 in, the most humiliating compromise was made, and a mortgage 
 on the life's toil of the slaughtered soldiers' children was de- 
 manded before a, dollar could be had. Though it came from no 
 part of the historic "calf," "gold" was deified and man degraded, 
 driven like an ox to the shambles. The patriotic man sold his 
 life, that the country might live; the capitalist sold the use not 
 of his gold, for there was not enough in America to la,st a month 
 but his name, his credit, that his posterity might live on the 
 sweat of the toiling nation. Was the gold dearer to the capital- 
 ist than the life to the poor man? Were the bonds of the rich 
 dearer to the wife and loved ones, than the body of the kind hus- 
 band, indulgent father, or promising son to the poor? The course 
 of the government in hiring, or drafting men to fight the coun- 
 try's battles, was justifiable, but when one hand of power was 
 stretched out to take from home a father, husband or son, the 
 other should have reached for the swollen purse of wealth, that 
 needed more, and ha.d more at stake, than the poor man, and made 
 the law of necessity a law of justice and equality, as near as 
 ish can be made as precious as life. The same proclamation 
 
88 
 
 that called for an hundred thousand men from the ranks of the 
 common people, for this is the source from which they came, 
 should have called for $500,000,000 from the "upper class" to pro- 
 vide for their maintenance. Of course, a policy so just, would be 
 too ridiculous for practice by a Christian nation, and the dis- 
 cussion of so "visionary a theory" now, can only escape serious 
 criticism by reason of its "absurdity." 
 
 As the rich are the governing class, these methods had other 
 objections than their justice, and their feasibility was not even 
 suggested. But the nation must have money, for already supplies 
 were needed, troops to be clothed, and even now clamoring for 
 pay for service already rendered. It was a dark and awful crisis. 
 Delay seemed only to multiply the difficulties, and while armed 
 treason shook its red flag of defiance in sight of the very dome 
 of the national capital, there was not wanting plenty of able and 
 patriotic men, who denounced every proposition to provide for 
 the nation's safety, except by the old established methods. Elo- 
 quent appeals were made to save the honor of our ancestors raid 
 the "integrity of the constitution," by disfavoring any scheme for 
 providing money but by recognizing the infallibility of specie, or 
 "coin," as money. These gentlemen did not care to be saved ex- 
 cept by the power of their own god. They had great reverence 
 for constitution and precedence, but a small realization of the 
 danger, or owed stronger allegiance to the aristocracy than to 
 tne republic. 
 
 In this fearful dilemma, the banks held the government by 
 the throat, while treason stood with drawn dagger, threatening 
 the nation's life. 
 
 I am not going to argue the financial issues. No question in 
 American politics ha,s furnished so copious, fertile, comprehen- 
 sive a,nd patriotic a literature; yet so successful have the cun- 
 ning been in forming public opinion, that the books are unread 
 by the many, the writers ridiculed as demagogues and the policy 
 that is hurling the nation along to aristocracy or monarchy, is 
 lauded by millions who are prostrate under its iron wheels. While 
 the "greenbackers" would hardly claim fellowship with me, they 
 will most readily confess the truth of these statements, as most 
 of them are carefully read on these financia.1 questions. As my 
 object in writing, as before remarked, is not to discuss politics 
 
89 
 
 in detail, but to prove the plot to subvert the principles of our 
 government, I aim only to follow the different topics far enough 
 to show that their tendencies are strongly toward centralism, and 
 that the results have been fulfillments of the plains; so I will 
 point out only the prominent mile-stones along the path of our 
 last quarter of a century's history, and give a general view of the 
 field. 
 
 The necessities of the nation demanded money, and without 
 delay. Congress a,nd the lobbies of congress, and the whole city, 
 and the departments were full of moneyed men; many of whom 
 saw in this national sorrow their long-cherished opportunity. 
 What was to be done? There was no gold for so gigantic a pur- 
 pose, the little there was lay hidden under the hand of avarice. 
 Monopoly had grasped it at the first appearance of the contest. 
 When strength is always confident, and anxious for the fray, the 
 golden calf ha,d sunk behind the veil of its ancient temple, that its 
 worshipers might sing its praises without exposing its weakness. 
 In this terrible emergency, a new conspiracy, wrapped in the 
 folds of the national flag, and making subdued and eloquent pro- 
 fessions of patriotism, showed the work of a cunning hand. Here 
 was the first act in which capital was deified and labor chained. 
 Here was opening a contest between the aristocracy and the "ple- 
 bian," with the lower millions so absorbed in other matters, that 
 the cunning only needed to be anxious about a means for convey- 
 off the plunder. 
 
 In this trying hour, the "great government" reached out an 
 ploring hand to the great bankers for aid. The great bankers 
 responded with alacrity. How? With money? No, the capital- 
 ists never loaned the government one dollar. 
 
 They "loaned" their "credit." Think of it! A great govern- 
 ment, even then the most prosperous a,nd wealthy on earth, kneel- 
 ing before its own subjects, and "borrowing" their credit, for the 
 purpose of enabling it to buy its munitions to whip the other sub- 
 jects into loyalty. 
 
 The great bankers, being consulted, permitted the government 
 to issue a certain amount of high interest bearing notes, agreeing 
 that said notes might pass through their banks. This was the 
 credit given. This was the first "backing" of capital. This was 
 "patriotically rushing to the rescue and laying their treasures 
 
 imi 
 
90 
 
 on the altar of their country." But more money was needed, and 
 the "great bankers" graciously granted a further privilege as the 
 immense profits plea.d eloquently for their patriotic service. 
 
 But the war did not down in ninety days, as prophesied by 
 Seward, and the rebels, that boastful Pennsylvania offered to 
 "whip" alone, were as confident as they were belligerent; so, 
 there was yet more money needed, and a necessity for some more 
 reliable and strong method for raising money was acknowledged. 
 The "necessities of war" silenced the "constitutional objections" 
 of many and, as a "temporary expedient," the wisest system of 
 money ever devised by man was admitted under protest for a brief 
 service. 
 
 A national currency, redeemable at the option of the govern- 
 ment, becajne a necessity, and, having received permission of the 
 great bankers, a limited amount of national paper money was to 
 be issued. Here the cunning hand of capital showed its power, for 
 against the protest of the wisest and some of the strongest men 
 of the nation, regardless of political party, the greenback was 
 stamped with certain "exceptions," that sent it out shorn of half 
 its power, and all of its respectability. This forced business men 
 to buy gold already so monopolized that the holder could de- 
 mand his own price to pay duties on imports, and the govern- 
 ment to buy gold to pay interest on the public debt. These ex- 
 ceptions were ma.de, to- wit: "except duties on imports and inter- 
 est on the public debt." Think of it! The bankers demanding 
 of a great government that it make an exception against itself, 
 binding itself, practically, to buy gold of them, at their price, to 
 pay their interest on the "credit" they had loaned it. Could a.u- 
 dacity go farther? The first five-twenty bonds were issued under 
 the same law. 
 
 But the limit of the issue was soon exhausted, and still the 
 cannon boomed and the contest was more bitter and determined. 
 More money was needed, a.nd another compromise was necessary 
 as, without permission of the "great bankers," nothing could be 
 done. Permission was granted for issuing another certain amount 
 of legal tenders with the exceptions noted but this was to be 
 the limit, ($450,000,000, in three issues of $150,000,000 each.) 
 
 Very soon, this, too, was exhausted, and va,st sums were in 
 
91 
 
 addition needed to pay the exorbitant interest on the previously 
 issued notes. 
 
 The sale of bonds brought in little money, the revenues were 
 being lost through fraud, the war was consuming millions, and 
 more money was needed. What could be done? Another com- 
 promise with the "grea,t bankers." Greenbacks had depreciated, 
 as per arrangement, and the great bankers "patriotically rushed 
 to the country's rescue" again, with a proposition by which the 
 government might be permitted to issue more- money. What could 
 be done? The government had reached the limits prescribed by 
 the banks. Bonds were issued, vajied in interest and terms, and 
 offered to the market. But capital was "timid," and there were 
 few buyers. Banks and syndicates were offered enormous dis- 
 counts, and the banks and syndicates, pocketing the discounts, 
 took considerable sums of the bonds, but sparingly enough to 
 lea,ve the government a suppliant for favors through them. The 
 government had shown so little skill in such affairs that it was 
 no longer to be trusted with the important duty of issuing money. 
 It was manifestly unequal to the great emergency. 
 
 It will be remembered that the issuing of the five-twenty 
 bonds was provided for at the same time with the legal tender 
 notes, or greenbacks; and they were made purchasable in green- 
 backs at par. As the bankers desired to depreciate the green- 
 backs, wnich was no difficult task, with the "exceptions," and the 
 necessities of the government for gold, there were no bonds issued 
 until there were about $400,000,000 greenbacks thrown into cir- 
 culation. The greenbacks so rapidly depreciated tha,t by 1864 it 
 took $2.85 in greenbacks to buy one of gold. The bonds soon be- 
 gan to find a market, for under the enormous bounties paid for 
 their negotiation, and their being purchasable with greenbacks 
 at pa.r, considerable amounts were held, especially by the banks 
 which had benefited both by the discount and by the depreciated 
 paper. All the five-twenty bonds were bought with greenbacks 
 at par, the greenbacks themselves costing from forty to seventy 
 cents of gold on the dollar. 
 
 The "bankers" patriotically proposed that the great govern- 
 ment print a, limited amount of money $354,000,000, but after- 
 ward the limit was removed, to be denominated "National Bank 
 Currency," to be loaned to the banks at 1%, the bankers to se- 
 
92 
 
 cure the government for such money by a deposit of $100,000 of 
 bonds for each $90,000 so loaned. To further depreciate the bonds, 
 that the backer's "collateral" might not be too expensive, six 
 days after the acceptance of this kind proposal, March 3, 1863, 
 $900,000,000 6% ten-forty bonds were issued, and when satisfac- 
 torily depreciated, were taken for this banking purpose. 
 
 To remove every obstacle and clea.r the way for a monopoly 
 for the newly made favorite banks, a law was passed to tax the 
 state banks 10% on all money issued, and drive the $238,000,000, 
 which had stood the test a,nd played a valuable part in abnormal 
 business, out of circulation and many of the bankers into ruin. 
 It seems incredible that such audacious measures could win sup- 
 port from the representatives of a people, who were straining 
 every nerve and shedding "rivers of blood," to save the nation's 
 honor. 
 
 We a,re often entertained by corner brokers with the boast 
 that these national banks "came to the rescue" and saved the 
 country when it was in its greatest peril. This preposterous claim 
 is so silly, that I am generous enough to believe those who made 
 it are ignorant "of the fa,cts. As the great bankers had not suc- 
 ceeded as well as they had hoped in depreciating the legal ten- 
 ders, with which to buy bonds for banking purposes, they made 
 no haste in availing themselves of the national banking law priv- 
 ileges, so that in 1864, over one year after the passage of the law, 
 tttere were but $30,155 of this currency in circulation, and just 
 before the close of the war, in 1865, there wajs hardly $70,000,000. 
 However, in the latter year, the legal tenders having depreciated 
 to 37 cents, so that bonds could be cheaply purchased, and as 
 Secretary McCullough had determined to call in and destroy the 
 existing pa.per money, so that these national banks could have 
 a monopoly, this currency became popular, and in 3866, there was 
 $213,237,530, in circulation. This much for the empty boa,st. 
 
 Of all the schemes ever invented to rob the laborer, business 
 men, producers and the government itself, this was the most 
 colossal and most successful. John Sherman himself, confessed 
 in his report of December 12 ,1867, that the greenbacks were de- 
 preciated for the very purpose of making a market for the bonds. 
 John Law's banking scheme was not more profitable, or more 
 damnable, than this national banking policy. Of course, the bills 
 
93 
 
 were and a.re good, for the government stands at their uack, with 
 a greenback, but the banks are but sewers througn which the 
 profits of every American industry flows to the great money cen- 
 ters. They have collected the semi-annual interest on the bonds 
 deposited, which cost them less than forty cents on the dollar, 
 and from the circulation just such interest as the hard necessi- 
 ties of a. people will pay, and they have moulded the circulating 
 medium just to suit the business interests of the bankers of the 
 East. 
 
 In 1865, the rebels threw down their arms and hurried home 
 to their wives and their "Johnnycake." The war had been a 
 strife of Titans. The waste and expense had been enormous. 
 Fraud and speculation had taken much, but the exciting scenes 
 so awakened the energies of the country, that we came out of 
 the contact much richer than we went in and at the close, we 
 found the most wonderful prosperity ever enjoyed by a people. 
 We had wasted, destroyed and consumed billions of dollars worth 
 and paid untold taxes, but so irresistible wa,s our awakened en- 
 ergies, that production outran waste, extravagance and consump- 
 tion. We are told that our prosperity was only imaginary, and 
 unreal; and being built on an unsubstantial basis, necessarily gave 
 way. What folly! No nation ever advanced so rapidly in real 
 wealth. 
 
 Private indebtedness was much less than ever before or since; 
 there were more new towns, new villages, new homes, new and 
 substantial business blocks, more domestic comforts, more new 
 farms opened, railroads built, and private enterprises carried out, 
 than ever before or since; and people had better clothes and food, 
 better furniture, more of the real blessings of civilization than 
 any people on this earth ever did before or since. There was no 
 idleness, no despair; everything was hope and joy. Prices for 
 everything were good. The poorest laboring man in the country 
 could promise "ten dollars at the end of the week," and keep his 
 promise, for there was a market for every fibre in his toughened 
 muscle. True, we had contracted a, debt of $3,000,000,000, at least 
 $2,000,000,000 of which bore interest, and the money-lords had a 
 mortgage on years of our toil, but we had to help us in our strug- 
 gle, $1,850,000,000, or about $50 per capita, in circulation; which 
 General Grant said a.t the time, was the "best currency that our 
 
94 
 
 country had ever possessed," and "that there was no more in 
 circulation than was needed for the dullest season of the year." 
 
 Smiling peace had come, and everything wa,s "booming." The 
 world of trade had put on a new life, and plenty healed the sca,rs 
 of war, and new hope drove away the tears of sorrow. But the 
 "great baiikers" had fastened their nets in all localities, and were 
 able to call "time" on every industry. We were soon told that 
 we had a "redundant circulation," that our prices were "inflated," 
 and that our prosperity and happiness were not real, but imag- 
 inary. But the farmer, the business man and the laborer, and 
 every wealth-producer was rapidly bettering his condition, and 
 accumulating substantial evidence of real prosperity. But the 
 cost of every home, and every farm, and every business block, 
 and every shop, was based on the high prices of "good times." 
 Every debt was contracted on the basis of prices of good 
 times. The bankers were not satisfied to see the people reap the 
 fruits of their own industry, and the time had come to turn this 
 golden stream of weajth into the coffers of the aristocracy. Un- 
 der conditions so universally favorable, there was little oppor- 
 tunity for the ba'nkers to exact exorbitant usury, illegal bonuses 
 for foreclosure of mortgages and reducing the wages of their em- 
 ployes. Too many private individuals of the grea,t middle class 
 were gaining a competence, and local enterprises were so rapidly 
 multiplying, that pools and combinations would fail in their power 
 if not checked. The cards were all in their hajids, and it was 
 time to play them. They had shaped the policy of the politician, 
 and shrewdly kept a goodly number in congress, and in all de- 
 partments. 
 
 Mr. Richard Warner, M. C., from Ohio, a few months a,go, 
 proved, by the reports, in a speech in congress, that about 2,200 
 national banks had made $1,848,930,000 and at the same time ha,d 
 carried on litigations to free themselves from state taxation. 
 These bajiks, then, were a mine of wealth. To strengthen them 
 by contracting other kinds of circulating medium, and leaving a 
 monopoly of business in the banks, was the "first duty" that con- 
 gress owed to the bankers. 
 
 Remember, at the close of the war, there was in actual cir- 
 culation different kinds of money, bajik notes and state bank 
 notes, to the amount of nearly $2,000,000,000, and the most active 
 
95 
 
 and prosperous business ever known on earth, was based on this 
 amount of currency. 
 
 The bankers were in hot haste to increase their power, so 
 the secretary began a systematic contraction and destruction of 
 the currency. Business began to stagger, but so firm were the 
 wise leaders that "we must get back to hardpan," and this policy 
 was pushed with such vigor, that within two years nearly 
 $1,300,000,000 had been withdrawn, and but about $700,000,000 left 
 to build up a wasted country and develop the new future. The 
 conquered South, which had none of our circulating medium, 
 needed much of this, and soon trade was paralyzed and all busi- 
 ness began to drag, except the national banks, and they increased 
 their circulation from $146,137,860, on July 1, 1865, to $298,625,397 
 on July 1, 1867. Times grew harder as the currency grew less, and 
 when the withering influence permeated the whole country, the 
 crash of 1873 came, and with such severity that even the "great 
 bankers" were forced to their knees and piteously appealed to 
 the government for help. The "accommodating" secretary came 
 to the rescue, with an "expansion" of $28,000,000, which had been 
 taken in and laid idle since 1868. 
 
 This destruction of currency was called "paying the public 
 debt," and by the parties or paid defenders of the policy, it was 
 hailed as the essence of wisdom. 
 
 With the contraction of the currency, business depression was 
 seen in the increased number of failures, disturbances and crimes. 
 
 The following table, the three first columns, taken from a, re- 
 port in the "Inter Ocean" newspaper, of July, 1878, the last two 
 from Dun and Barlow, N. Y., shows, beyond every question of 
 doubt, that business success or failure depends so unerringly on 
 the per capita circulation of money, that none can doubt the sig- 
 nificance of these figures: 
 
96 
 
 CIRCULATION. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Currency Am't. 
 
 Per Cap. 
 
 Failures 
 
 . Amount. 
 
 1865 
 
 $1,651,283,373 
 
 $47.72 
 
 530 
 
 $ 17,625,000 
 
 1866 
 
 1,803,702,726 
 
 56.76 
 
 632 
 
 47,333,000 
 
 1867 
 
 1,330,414,677 
 
 36.68 
 
 2,386 
 
 86,218,000 
 
 1868 
 
 417,199,773 
 
 22.08 
 
 6,606 
 
 63,774,000 
 
 1869 
 
 750,025,089 
 
 19.19 
 
 2,799 
 
 75,054,000 
 
 1870 
 
 740,039,179 
 
 19.10 
 
 3,551 
 
 88,242,000 
 
 1871 
 
 734,244,774 
 
 18.47 
 
 2,915 
 
 85,252,000 
 
 1872 
 
 736,348,912 
 
 17.97 
 
 4,069 
 
 121,056,000 
 
 1873 
 
 738,291,749 
 
 17.48 
 
 5,183 
 
 228,499,000 
 
 1874 
 
 779,031,589 
 
 17.89 
 
 5,830 
 
 115,239,000 
 
 1875 
 
 778,176,250 
 
 17.33 
 
 7,744 
 
 210,660,353 
 
 1876 
 
 735,358,832 
 
 15.89 
 
 9,092 
 
 191,117,788 
 
 1877 
 
 696,443,394 
 
 14.60 
 
 8,672 
 
 190,660,936 
 
 Never were more startling facts placed on paper. Examine 
 carefully, and note the precise correspondence; from 530 failures, 
 with $47.72 per capita, to 8,672, with $14.60 per capita. 
 
 In 1867 there was about $2,000,000,000 bonded debt, which had 
 cost the holders hardly more than $1,000,000,000. 
 
 These bonds were bought with greenbacks, depreciated, as 
 John Sherman said, for the very purpose of inducing holders to 
 buy bonds which drew gold interest, when these greenbacks were 
 "lawful money" and a "legaj tender" for all business, and for 
 the payment of all debts, public and private, except duties on im- 
 ports, and interest on the public debt; and were, in every prin- 
 ciple of justice, payable in the kind of money paid for them. To 
 this opinion there had never been a dissenting voice. But greed 
 grows more ravenous on what it feeds, and soon there were whis- 
 pered intimations about public faith, national honor, repudiation, 
 etc., and the paid journals opened out the question in long and 
 patriotic essays, lauding our people's pride and public virtue and 
 keeping pledges with those who "came to the rescue" when our 
 nation was imperiled, and much of such sickly sophistry. After 
 
the most animated debates and bitter intellectual contests, con- 
 gress, on March 18, 1869, passed a la,w, making these bonds paya- 
 ble in gold. If gigantic public crimes were not common in our 
 country, this declaring payable in gold, what was payable in 
 currency and bought with currency, depreciated 50%, would stand 
 out as the most stupendous larceny of the age. The debt was 
 doubled at a stroke, and the government compelled to purchase 
 gold of the holders of the bonds, to pay the bonds that were 
 legally payable in the paper money of the government. This bold 
 assault on the people's rights, fanned the discontent, and helped 
 to precipitate a panic which convulsed the whole country. 
 
 In 1870 a further privilege was granted to the rich, in a repeal 
 of the income tax and exempting over $2,000,000,000 worth of 
 wealth from its just burdens of taxation. 
 
 To strengthen their influence and add to the profits of their 
 banks, and depress prices, the currency had been contracted to 
 a,bout one-third its original volume; to enrich the few and further 
 burden the people, the public debt was doubled, by making bonds, 
 bought with paper, depreciated for the purpose, fifty cents on 
 the dollar, payable in gold; and after witnessing the results in 
 business stagnation, failures, lockouts, strikes, closed shops and 
 mines, idle men roaming over the country as tramps, the poor- 
 houses and prisons filling and honest industry starving, when the 
 great elevators were bursting from the weight of unsold grain, 
 the bankers, as if to exhibit their mastery over congress to the 
 world, and show their contempt for justice and mercy for a suf- 
 fering people, procured a law in 1873, demonetizing silver. This 
 is not the blackest page in American history, only because there 
 are others so da,rk and damnable as to defy the power of genius 
 to surpass. A portion of our bonds were held abroad, and this, 
 with a determination of several European nations to adopt the 
 single standard system, greatly interested foreigners in our af- 
 fairs. So deep becajne their interest, that operators furnished 
 Mr. Ernest Seyd, a gentleman of "large experience," polite man- 
 ners and winning address, with $500,000, and sent him to "study" 
 the situation. Europeans are not ignorant of how easily public 
 virtue sits upon the average congressman, but, judging from the 
 argument that Mr. Seyd carried in his valise, that gentleman had 
 greatly over-estimated the American politician's character. But 
 7 
 
98 
 
 the "great English economist" probably drafted the bill, that was 
 to be the last feather on the Yankee camel's back. 
 
 This wa,s one step too far, and the long-eared public raised 
 such a clamor that congress was compelled to repeal the act. 
 This was the first and only check ever thrown in the path of 
 monopoply, and even this but slightly stayed their course of con- 
 quest. With a plot so deeply laid, and every plan being carried 
 out so carefully in all its details, and the* effects leading so un- 
 erringly to the centralization of wealth and power, can one sensi- 
 ble man, free to have opinions, doubt, from the evidence, the 
 great conspiracy to subvert the fundamental principles of our 
 government, if not the name itself, and rear a moneyed despot- 
 ism in "free America." In no civilized country on ea,rth, dare a 
 king or emperor exercise such insolent powers over the national 
 finances. 
 
 But there is in "polite circles" in every part of the country, 
 an undisguised feeling that "royalty would better comport with 
 the wealth and dignity of America than this plain republicanism." 
 
 There can be no doubt but that shrewd men of our country 
 v.ere in constant communication with the wise, sagacious finan- 
 ciers of Europe in this plot, and, especially with those of England. 
 The famous or infamous Hazzard circular, sent to all of the 
 "great bankers" of America, sheds much light on this plot, 
 especially when we notice with what authority and confidence 
 it speaks, and observe how carefully its suggestions were carried 
 out. The "circular" was sent during our great struggle, and a 
 more fiendish plot never emanated from hell. The following is 
 a, verbatim extract: 
 
 "Slavery is likely to be abolished by war power, and chattel 
 slavery destroyed. This, I, and my European friends are in favor 
 of, for slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the 
 care for the laborer; while the European plan, led on by England, 
 is capital control of labor by controlling wages. This can be done 
 by controlling the money. The great debt, that capitalists will 
 see to it is made out of the war, must be used as a measure to 
 control the volume of money. To accomplish this, the bonds must 
 be used as a banking basis. We are now waiting to get the sec- 
 retary of the treasury to make this recommendation to congress. 
 It will not do to allow the greenback, as it is called, to circulate 
 
a,s money any length of time, for we cannot control them. But 
 we can control bonds, and through them the bank issues." 
 
 How wise he was, and how carefully his views were fol- 
 lowed. Notwithstanding the people preferred the legal tender 
 notes to any other kind of money, and gladly took them and 
 measured all values by them, with no reference to "price of gold," 
 t^ere has always been so large a class of "strict construction" 
 old fogies and "shoddy genteels," who take opinions ready-made 
 from "those who know," that every denunciation of the greenback, 
 its instability and insecurity, has found ready applause. Be- 
 cause that cla,ss of people always have a hearing, as speaking "by 
 the card" for the great "moneyed circles," many people, con- 
 trary to experience, believe that gold is and has been the true 
 standard 01 values, and that the good prices of war days were 
 not good prices at all, but were fluctuations in the abnormal space 
 separating a "deprecited paper dollar" from the "constitutional" 
 gold dollar of our ancestors. This is so plainly an error that no 
 time should be consumed in disproving it, yet many with re- 
 spectable intelligence are held to that opinion, by what to them, 
 seems the "weight of authority." 
 
 While I write, not in advocacy of any theory or policy, but 
 to prove a dangerous plot against true republicanism, it may not 
 be unprofitable to occasionally show how unfounded were the 
 claims of the bankers as to the virtue of the legal tender note as 
 a measure of values. Nothing could be more natural than that 
 the great demands of the war, with a fair supply of money in 
 circulation, would stiffen and finally raise prices, and increase the 
 activity in all branches of business and in all industries. Now 
 let us quote and show that prices in staple commodities ruled 
 even, with a steady advance with the growing demands of the 
 troublous times, regardless of the relative difference in the price 
 of gold and legal tender notes. 
 
 In 1861, before the issue of a greenback, flour was quoted in 
 the New York market at $5.50 per barrel. In 1862, after the first 
 issue, gold was quoted at $1.37, and flour at $5.47. In 1863, when 
 gold was $1.72V 2 , fl ou r was $5.87%. In 1864, gold was quoted at 
 $2.85, and flour at $6.30. But in 1865, gold had dropped to $1.46%, 
 while flour had advanced to $9.72 per barrel. Gold had prac- 
 tically ceased to be money, and had become itself a commodity, 
 
100 
 
 with the price established by a monopoly, while the legal tenders 
 were the strictly unerring measure of values. The claim tha.t 
 legal tender notes were "depreciated," or measured by the price 
 of gold, by reason of their redundancy, or their over-issue as com- 
 pared with the amount of gold, is another fallacy so easily ex- 
 ploded that it seems surprising tha,t it could deceive any one with 
 the least inquisitiveness. In 1865, there was $431,178,000 in legal 
 tenders in circulation, and gold was quoted at $2.85. The govern- 
 ment that year demanded immense sums of gold, as there was 
 $77,000,000 interest to meet and other necessities. The "great 
 bankers," who were to receive much of this gold interest, held 
 the gold which the government needed to pay them, and held a 
 "corner" on it. They established the price; for the next year 
 gold had dropped to $1.46%, though a very large amount had been 
 added to the legal tender circulation. 
 
 Now, let us see what the policy of the "great bankers" with 
 the assistance of British finesse, as set out in the Hazzard cir- 
 cular, cost the people, not counting the fabulous millions paid 
 in usury and bonuses to the banks, and the other hundreds of 
 millions lost by shrinkage of values, and "control of labor by 
 controlling wages," a.s set forth in the plot. 
 
 At the close of the war there was, according to the treas- 
 urer's report, an ascertained debt of $2,680,647,869.74, and there 
 were claims of different kinds to swell the debt to full $3,000,000,- 
 000. Now we have paid on that principal fully $1,400,000,000. We 
 have paid over $2,000,000,000 in interest and will pay $1,500,000,000 
 more in interest before the debt is paid. So we have already 
 paid $3,400,000,000 for the patriotic service of the "great bankers," 
 and, by the time the debt is paid, it will have cost the people 
 over $6,500,000,000, or over one-seventh of the entire wealth of 
 the nation. But, if we measure the burden of a, debt by the ability 
 of the debtor to pay; the debt, after paying this enormous sum 
 ot $3,400,000,OoO, is heavier than at the close of the war, for by 
 reason of low prices and depressed business, produced by these 
 same bankers to enhance the purchasing power of their com- 
 modity, it will take more of the products of la.bor to pay the re- 
 mainder at present prices, than it would to pay the whole, at 
 prices then prevailing. Surely, Roland Hazzard was right; the 
 capitalist did "see to it" that a "great debt" wa,s established, and 
 
101 
 
 have felt its power. From 1865 to 1867 inclusive, the 
 government, to aid the bankers in shrinking values, withdrew 
 over $l,30u,000,000 from circulation and destroyed it. Values 
 shrank almost in proportion as the volume of circulating money 
 shrank. 
 
 But the wise ones, who alone are capable of giving evidence 
 on financial affairs, the bankers and sepculators, have told our 
 people so repeatedly that to increase the amount of money only 
 "inflated" business and did not really strengthen it, that many 
 believe it, rather than take the trouble to think or investigate. 
 Now, if increasing the circulation does not relieve the pressure of 
 business, why did the government feel justified in issuing notes 
 to save the country from a ruinous depression, caused by a bank- 
 ing monopoly from 1833 to 1845? If increasing the circulating 
 medium does not revive business, why did the people demand it, 
 and the government issue $20,000,000 of paper in 1857, to sa,ve the 
 country from bankruptcy, and thousands from starvation? and," 
 later, why did the great bankers themselves when smothering 
 in their own grease implore the government to save them, as 
 well as the country, from panic a.nd ruin, in 1873? and why did 
 the $26,000,000 issued by Secretary McCullough, restore confidence 
 to the people and business to its normal condition? The follow- 
 ing is taken from the report of the Commissioner of Agriculture 
 for 1878: 
 
 "The average price obtained by the farmer has fallen off 
 two-thirds in fifteen years, being 99.7 cents per bushel in 1864 
 and 31.8 cents in 1878. The last named crop, though greater by 
 46,000,000 bushels than its predecessor, fell short of it $39,000,000 
 in aggregate value. The average value of each acre's yield has 
 fallen to the unprecedented low figure of $8.55 in 1878; in 1864 
 it amounted to $30.64. The last na.med year, however, was one 
 of extreme money inflation." 
 
 Now, the enormous debt, which, "American capitalists" were 
 to "see to it" was established, was based upon these prices. Think 
 how easily it might have been paid. But. the bankers did not 
 want it paid, so they first ha,d it made payable in gold, though 
 purchased in legal tenders worth fifty cents of gold per dollar. 
 This doubled the burdens of the people, even had prices remained 
 high; but, lest the people should still be able to pay it off they 
 
102 
 
 procured such a destruction and consequent contraction of cur- 
 rency as to squeeze down prices to the present average. The first 
 act, making the bonds payable in gold, doubled the burdens of the 
 people in that regard, and the second act, contracting the cur- 
 rency and squeezing down prices, doubled the burdens of the 
 whole debtor class, and thribbled that of the farmers, as the prices 
 of all products with which they paid were reduced to one-third 
 the value of the time when, at lea,st a portion, of the debt was 
 made. Does it seem possible that farmers will shut their eyes to 
 the evidence of this conspiracy, with the further fact that these 
 great speculators held some $2,000,000,000 of very productive 
 wealth, clear from all taxation, thus shirking all the burdens of 
 government, while grasping all the profits of a nation's toil? 
 
 No man should believe without evidence. No man should 
 write or speak without convictions. And no man with a reputa- 
 tion can afford to paint, even a truth, in colors that may mislead 
 or mistify the understanding. The man who would further de- 
 grade politics with a. falsehood, seek to arouse a feeling of dis- 
 content by misrepresenting men, measures and their results, or 
 debasing the literature of his country by sensational appeals to 
 passion, should be forever loathed by his fellows. The man who 
 writes or speaks without a feeling of responsibility does not de- 
 serve a hearing. Feeling the full weight of these responsibilities, 
 which cajmot fall too crushingly on the false author, I unhes- 
 itatingly assert, that the results of the financial policy inaugurated 
 during our struggle for national life, proves plainly, to my mind, 
 a thoroughly digested scheme, whose ramifications have touched 
 every locality, every person and every interest; ajid the practical 
 operations of which would absolutely control the circulating me- 
 dium, and through its legislation, courts, politics, commerce, 
 transportation, and the price of everything within the borders 
 of the national domain, from the land itself to the day's work of 
 the seamstress in the dingy garret in the crowded cities; thus 
 grasping the profits of every industry, and rearing a moneyed 
 aristocracy. 
 
 I assert, further, that the whole national debt was unneces- 
 sary and unjustifiable, and only served to strengthen capital's 
 hold on the people's toil; that the $3,400,000,000 was a bold, 
 audacious robbery, and the more than $3,000,000,000, which must 
 
yet be paid before the debt is discharged, is a robber's tribute, 
 levied on labor for the benefit of idleness, by a.n aristocratic 
 policy which deifies wealth and condemns industry. 
 
 Without making a single extraordinary demand, without ap- 
 propriating one cent of private individual's means, with every 
 consideration for vested rights, and moving every day on a cash 
 basis sounder and better than the one followed, the country should 
 have emerged from the war without one cent of debt unless you 
 choose to call the present legal tenders a debt. Whenever an en- 
 thusiast claims that the war should ha,ve been carried on by the 
 issue of legal tender notes, the country is convulsed with laugh- 
 ter, as the cunning claim that this would have necessitated such 
 fabulous sums of paper money that it would have been worth- 
 less, or sold for "seventy-five cents per cord." Laughter silences 
 argument, but it usually springs, most readily from those who are 
 as extravagant in the use of lungs as economical in the use of 
 brains. Now I assert, a,nd defy contradiction, that the books in 
 the Treasurer's office and the public reports by the Comptroller 
 show that not only could the war have been carried on without 
 the issue of a single bond, but that it could have been done with 
 several millions less money than was actually issued. 
 
 The Comptroller's report for 1867 sa,id: (Page 15, I think:) 
 
 "Probably not less than 33 1-3% of the indebtedness of the 
 United States is owing to the high prices paicM^r the govern- 
 ment while its disbursements were heavy. OF EVERY ONE HUN- 
 DRED DOLLARS IN LEGAL TENDERS PAID OUT, OVER 
 TWENTY-FIVE MILLION DOLLARS WERE PAID OUT FOR 
 DISCOUNT." (The capitals are mine.) 
 
 Now let us look at the Treasurer's reports, and see how much 
 money it would have required to meet the expenses of govern- 
 ment during those four trying years; and if we find the amount 
 of money issued during the war, exceeded the cost of the war, 
 have we not strengthened our case with admissible evidence? 
 
 For 1862, the entire expenditure was $475,000,000, but $77,000,- 
 000 was for interest and discount, leaving actual necessary ex- 
 pense $398,000,000, and as there was $57,000,000 income from taxes, 
 there would have been but $341,000,000 of money needed. 
 
 In 1963, total expenditures, $715,000,000, with $198,000,000 for 
 interest and discount, leaving $517,000,000 as legitimate expense; 
 
104 
 
 but $112,000,000 in taxes, so that it would have required by $405,- 
 000,000 of money. 
 
 For 1864, total expenditure $865,000,000, with interest and dis- 
 count $583,000,000, leaving as legitimate expense, $282,000,000; 
 but $264,000,000 taxes, furnished the needed amount, minus $18,- 
 000,000. 
 
 For 1865, total expenditure, $1,297,000,000, of which $468,- 
 000,000 were for interest and discount, leaving $829,000,000 as nec- 
 essary expenses, which were partially met by $338,000,000 of taxes 
 and would have required but $492,000,000 to supply the needs of 
 the time. 
 
 The following table will ma.ke the statement more plain, and 
 I ask a careful study of these numbers, which are, from their 
 magnitude, almost incomprehensible. A careful study of these 
 almost fabulous figures will tax the mind, but they tell the story 
 of a nation's misfortune, if not the nation's shame: 
 
 H^ 
 
 a 
 P 
 
 H 
 
 Total 
 Expenditure 
 
 Interest and 
 Discount 
 
 Income 
 from Taxes 
 
 Am't needed in 
 excess of taxa- 
 tion to meet ex- 
 pense of Gov't 
 
 1862 
 1863 
 1864 
 1865 
 
 $ 475,000,000 
 715,000,000 
 865,000,000 
 1,297,000^0 
 
 $ 77.000,000 
 198,000,000 
 583,000,000 
 468,000,000 
 
 $ 57,000,000 
 112,000,000 
 264,000,000 
 338,000,000 
 
 $ 341,000,000 
 405.000,000 
 18,000,000 
 493,000,000 
 
 $3,352,000,000 
 1,326,000,000 
 
 $1,326,000,000 
 
 $771,000,000 
 
 $1,257.000,000 
 
 
 $2,026,000,000 
 
 Now remember, tha.t had there been no banks, there would 
 have been no second column in this table, as there would have 
 been no interest and no discounts; so we find by taking- unnec- 
 essary interest and discount from the total expenditure, it would 
 leave the entire cost of the four years, as above sho\vn, $2,026,000- 
 000. But to meet this, there was, as above shown, $771,000,000 in 
 ta,xes, to be applied, which deducted from the total expenditure 
 without interest and discount would leave a total sum, as shown 
 in fourth column, of 1,257,000,000, as the grand total expense of 
 the four year's war, over the taxes. 
 
 Now to clinch my proposition, that the debt was wholly un- 
 
105 
 
 necessary and unjustifiable, a,nd should not have been made, let 
 us consider the significance of the above table. You will see by 
 column four that to meet the whole expenses of the government 
 and war, after applying the taxes, would have required an issue 
 of paper money as follows: $341,000,000 in 1862; $405,000,000 in 
 1863; $18,000,000 in 1864, and $493,000,000 in 1865; total issue, 
 $1,257,000,000. Would such an issue have ''flooded the country" 
 with "worthless paper money" and dangerously "inflated" busi- 
 ness? Let us see. 
 
 The Treasurer's report for April, 1865, shows that $1,996,000,- 
 000 in currency had been put in circulation, aside from any species 
 of bonds. Now subtract the $1,257,000,000, which was the entire 
 cost of the four years' war over ajid above the $771,000,000 re- 
 ceived from revenue tax from the circulation of $1,996,000,000 in 
 1865, and we find there was actually issued in different kinds of 
 money $739,000,000 more than the entire demand of that period. 
 Think of it. The government not only did issue enough paper 
 money to have paid the entire expense for the whole period, but 
 a,n excess of $739,000,000, or nearly as much as there is now in 
 circulation; and still we emerged from the war with a debt that, 
 including what has been paid, and what must be paid, will amount 
 to $6,000,000,000, or more than one-seventh of the wealth of the 
 nation. There was reported by the Comptroller to be $1,803,702,- 
 620 of currency in actual circulation in 1866, or $546,702,720 more 
 than was needed to be issued to meet the entire expense of the 
 four years' war, over and above the taxes. Why was there more 
 money issued than enough to meet the current expenses of the 
 government, and who got it? If the money was issued, as the 
 books show, why the necessity of issuing any bonds, and where 
 did the money go for which they were sold? The fact is patent, 
 ajid none can dispute who will examine, that the whole scheme, 
 the bonded debt, the surplus of currency over te $1,257,000,000 
 needed to carry on the country and all the advantages gained 
 from the national banks and discount to syndicates, were a part 
 of the most gigantic conspiracy ever concocted for the subversion 
 of a, great and free government, and no plot in the history of the 
 world was ever so successfully consummated. 
 
 Jefferson's opinions were prophetic, when he said: 
 "I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dan- 
 gerous to liberty than standing armies." 
 
106 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 MONOPOLY OF TRADE. 
 
 iA.VING formulated in detail the plot for the acquisi- 
 tion and control of the land and circulating medium, 
 the next in order was to mature a plan to monopolize 
 the trade or commerce; that with the money monopoly 
 would hasten the accomplishment of the first ;>nd 
 most important, the mastery of the soil. Commerce 
 being the civilizer and motive power of progress, the 
 control of trade moulds the sentiment, the policy and 
 industry of a country and prescribes the path for its 
 social, political and industrial development. 
 
 The nation, as before observed, had but one 
 thought, and that, to save the flag from disgrace and the coun- 
 try from dismemberment. To accomplish this grand result, ac- 
 commodating congressmen served the monopolists in the secret 
 conference, in the close committee, a,nd in the decisive vote, and 
 wrung shouts from the populace by filling the air and the con- 
 gressional records with eloquent appeals for the laborer and pro- 
 ducer. The attention of the "other party" having been di- 
 verted, the aristocracy began the game with the cards "stocked." 
 Then these plotters sajd to congress: "Great stores of supplies 
 are demanded that we may push this war to a speedy and suc- 
 cessful issue. Wages are high, as labor has been called to arms, 
 to save our glorious country; and if you will 'protect' us from the 
 competition of those 'foreigners' we will erect great factories, 
 develop the country and furnish the needed supplies." But, said 
 a "western member," who had not felt the weight of this patri- 
 otic "argument:" "My people in the West will protest, as it will 
 be a great hardship on them by putting a grievous tax on their 
 necessities." 
 
 "But," said the other, "our great enterprises" will give em- 
 ployment to many thousands of laborers and that will furnish a 
 "home market" for the products of the West; "besides," he said, 
 
feJUC 
 
 :: 
 
 107 
 
 "our industries once developed, domestic competition will reduce 
 prices below even what importers could make them." At a pleas- 
 ant meeting at the "Arlington," the enterprising gentleman of- 
 fered such overpowering "argument" that a new tariff bill, with 
 an average tax of 44% was agreed to, as a "war necessity." 
 
 So confidently did these gentlemen rely upon their power to 
 control congress and deceive the people, that little pains were 
 taken to hide their inconsistencies. They confessed the purpose of 
 increasing the price of domestic goods as well as foreign, as the 
 only means of increasing the price of domestic goods was to in- 
 crease the price of foreign goods or prohibit*them yet they con- 
 fidently hoped to be able to convince the "intelligent" people that 
 it was not only patriotic to pay high prices, but mysteriously 
 profitable; and that, for every cent that a class tax took from 
 them, they would be able by some "hocus-pocus" trick, to take 
 m some other credulous victim. 
 
 The monopolists were a little unfortunate in the necessity 
 make concessions to such a variety of interests, but as the 
 scheme wa,s to establish a class rule, and class wealth, these diffi- 
 culties were plastic and finally manageable. The variety of in- 
 terests represented gave rise to many of the seeming inconsis- 
 tencies, and the necessity to defend the self-contradictory policy 
 makes the argument of its champions so lame and halting, that 
 faith must be fed by appeals to nationality, prejudices and party 
 fealty. In connection with appeals to the farmer, the laborer, 
 and the great body of people who are engaged in gainful pursuits, 
 the tariff schedule seems a "comedy of errors" which, to be seen 
 without prejudice, would be despised. 
 
 Throughout the whole list the tax is highest on the common 
 necessaries, so that the masses carry the burden a,nd the classes 
 are largely exempt from it. This is only a seeming inconsistency, 
 for as the tax was really planned only as a means of enriching 
 the few at the expense of the ma,ny, why should it not drive 
 square to the mark. A tax levied on the rich would not only 
 not benefit the rich, but would be a burden to the extent of col- 
 lection, so without apology or excuse, every necessary for the 
 comfort of the home of the common people was taxed higher than 
 the luxuries, consumed only by the affluent, discriminating how- 
 ver, in favor of goods not produced in our country- By this 
 
 tl 
 
108 
 
 method a family or person pays for the support of the govern- 
 ment in proportion a^s he consumes and not in proportion to his 
 wealth. 
 
 Should a millionaire with $1,000,000 annual income live eco- 
 nomically, as do "common" people, on, say, $1,000 per year, he 
 would pay no more toward the support of the government than 
 the clerk or mechanic who earned $1,000 per annum and spent 
 the whole for living. This is a. discrimination in favor of the 
 classes, and contrary to a sense of justice and political wisdom, 
 that would have every person contribute to the expense of the 
 government in proportion to his means and in proportion as he 
 needs the force of the law to protect him and his interests. 
 
 Thus in every feature and every practice this "protection 
 policy" displays its class preference, and in no place have its ad- 
 vocates, even by mistake, blundered into the inconsistency of 
 showing an honest purpose. They deny that this tariff is added 
 to the price of domestic goods; and. deny that protection is so 
 great a benefit. They why da they want it? Without any special 
 pleading, there is an invariable rule by which any observer may 
 know whether the full tariff tax is added to the price of a. do- 
 mestic commodity. Of course, there are abnormal conditions and 
 special cases that might conceal the prevailing rule. 
 
 It is probably conceded that owing to greater cost of raw 
 material high by reason of tariff there is an average differ- 
 ence in the cosi of producing several leading staple necessaries, 
 of 10% between England and the United States in favor of the 
 former country. Then it would seem that a tariff of 10% would be 
 sufficient protection against England, if our domestic traders 
 were satisfied with the same profits. Let us take an article of 
 common use as an illustration and we will see that 
 
 THE WHOLE ARE ROBBED FOR THE PEW. 
 
 Take the market for wool, and the general statistics of that 
 industry and you will see that the entire cost of a finished, good, 
 soft, all-wool blanket is, in the United States, $3. In England 
 that same class of blanket, the cost is $2.70. Now allowing the 
 same per cent profit, the English maker would have 10% advant- 
 age, minus the long haul of freight; and the American being com- 
 pelled, in order to compete, to sell at 10% loss, would abandon 
 
109 
 
 the field. We would buy English blankets at the price she sells 
 blankets to the world. Now let congress come to the rescue, and 
 put on a 10% tariff to protect our home makers to the full extent 
 of the difference in cost, and we could then mark ours up 10% 
 a,nd enter into equal competition with the foreigner, with the ad- 
 vantage of freight. Then the market would be full of both for- 
 eign and domestic blankets at 10% advance, and we could buy 
 on the merits of the goods. 
 
 But now let us use a, fact, and argue from the existing con- 
 ditions. Congress put a "protective" tariff, not of ten, to cover 
 the difference of cost of production, but of 80% on the foreign 
 blanket. Now should the domestic manufacturer use his full 
 power, and put on the 80% or $2.10 per pair as on the foreign 
 goods, by raising the price of his to $5.10, it is plain- that the for- 
 eigner could pay the full tariff $2.10 which would make the cost 
 of his, $2.10 tariff, plus $2.70 original cost, equal $4.80, and sell 
 at the American price, $5.10 a,t a profit of thirty cents per pair. 
 H is plain that if we found full stocks of English blankets in the 
 market, none need tell you that the home makers invited this 
 competition by using the full powers of the law. But we see no 
 foreign blankets in the American market. Why? Simply be- 
 cause the American maker ha,s not put the full tariff on his goods. 
 In 1882 our people used $20,000,000 worth of blankets and the rev- 
 enue amounted to but a few hundred dollars. 
 
 But what have the domestic makers done? They have sumply 
 kept the prices inside the cost of English blankets, plus the tariff. 
 I have shown you tha.t the English blanket of given quality 
 costs, to make, $2.70, and that the tariff at present is 80%, mak- 
 ing the cost in American markets $4.80. 
 
 American makers instead of establishing a price of $5.10, the 
 cost and the full ajnount of the tariff, and let in competition, drop 
 the ten cents and sell at $5. The actual cost of English blankets 
 in our market, would be as shown, $4.80 plus freight, commission, 
 etc., and as no trade could live by such profits, the foreigner 
 abandons the field. So you see that this tariff law does not en- 
 able the domestic bla.nket maker to raise his prices to the full 
 extent of the tariff, unless he divides the field wfth competition, 
 but it does allow him as any man can see who will ask the price 
 of blankets to put on 66%and hold the whole field a real mo- 
 
110 
 
 nopoly. Many writers are in error in denning a prohibitive tariff, 
 for no tariff, however high, will prohibit importation, or even 
 check it, when the prices of domestic fabrics are raised to the 
 full extent of the tariff. It is not the tariff that prohibits but 
 the tariff beneficiaries who keep just inside of the tariff. Given 
 a tariff of 60%, and 15% difference in the cost of production be- 
 tween the countries concerned, and 50% raise in price on domestic 
 goods will prohibit importation, as the foreigner would be losing 
 5%, plus freights, commission, etc. This I think is a,n infallible 
 test. 
 
 Following out this line or argument it is easy to determine 
 approximately the power of the current that is carrying all profits 
 toward the great moneyed centers and leaving the millions 
 empty-handed. In 1880 we had become the greatest manufactur- 
 ing nation on earth; the value of manufactured goods gas ex- 
 cepted aggregating $5,369,667,706. With such gigantic industries 
 it is not surprising that the old song about protecting "infant in- 
 dustries" is being abandoned for the more "taking" one of "pro- 
 tection to American labor." Of this fabulous amount of domestic 
 goods, our people consumed over $5,000,000,000 worth, a^s our to- 
 tal exports were but $824,000,000 worth, full 75% of which were 
 products of the farm, pastures, etc. Now as the dutiable list 
 covers about four thousand articles, the manufacturers not "pro- 
 tected" must be few indeed. There are exceptions, however, and 
 we can afford to give the monopolists the benefit of many doubts, 
 as we ha.ve been so generous toward them in many ways. The 
 products of the dairy, the flouring-mills, and a few others, rather 
 extensively exported, are among this class on which the price to 
 the domestic consumer is not increased. Now let us make a lib- 
 eral allowance and grant tha,t "protection" has answered the pur- 
 pose, for which it was passed to raise prices claiming, however, 
 that it has increased the selling price on but one-half the man- 
 ufactured goods consumed in the country. We have consumed, 
 According to the books, over $5,000,000,000 worth annually for the 
 last few years, and if half of that has cost a greater price owing 
 to tariff, then we have paid this greater price for $2,500,000,000 
 worth of goods per annum. As the average imports for the last 
 ten yea,rs have been nearly $500,000,000 annually, we have an in- 
 fallible proof that the home manufactures availed themselves of 
 
Ill 
 
 the luii average benefit of the tariff. Now, of this $500,000,000 
 imported goods, there was an average tariff of over 42%, or near 
 $200,000,000, which of course the people pa,id in buying the goods. 
 But there were five times $500,000,000, or $2,500,000,000 worth of 
 domestic goods, bought at the same augmented price. The $200,- 
 000,000 which tariff added to the cost of these foreign goods went 
 into the United States treasury to pay the government expenses, 
 but the five times two hundred millions, or one billion dollars, 
 which the tariff added to the domestic goods used, went into the 
 coffers of great combinations. To grasp the magnitude of this 
 va.st tribute, and realize the irresistible current which is carry- 
 ing all profits and all property to the great central power, we may 
 but remember that this $1,000,000,000 which tariff wrings from pro- 
 duction every year, equals 10% of all the actual tangible prop- 
 erty of the nation, a.side from land values. Added to the enormous 
 government, state, county and municipal tax, always and neces- 
 sarily heavy in a growing country, this tribute of 10% on all 
 property is demanded that a few may be enriched. 
 
 What a stupendous scheme and how remorselessly it has 
 done its work. If my property vanishes and I grow poor, the 
 world may doubt the merits of my poverty; but, if my property 
 is taken, and I find it in the possession of another, the question 
 is plain; I have been robbed, a.nd if I have no remedy, the robber 
 is enriched at my expense. We see millions of people sinking 
 into poverty; industry starving; homes destitute; the middle 
 class being cramped; agriculture crushed; farm products dis- 
 couragingly low; mortgages plastered two and three deep all over 
 the West; the farmer in despair and ripe for revolt; and the whole 
 social organization in hopeless despondency. What is the trouble? 
 
 Look along the line, and you will see, reared in the few years 
 of this "protective" policy, the most gigantic fortunes ever known 
 on earth. The people have been robbed, and these gentlemen at 
 the "great money centers" have "the goods." The government, as 
 a silent partner of monopoly, has bound the people with laws 
 as unyielding as iron bands, and enabled the cunning few to ap- 
 propriate the products of their toil. But this is a digression. 
 
 Because necessity forced upon the country a wiser financia.1 
 policy than ever known before, money became plenty, wages good, 
 business active, and farm, garden, pasture, mine and forest pro- 
 
112 
 
 ducts bore good prices, the burden of taxation was little felt dur- 
 ing, a,nd for a brief period after the war. As the government had 
 practically gone into partnership with the few, by compelling the 
 whole people to purchase of their wares at advanced prices, and 
 driving competitors away, great shops, mills and factories sprang 
 up on a, thousand barren hills and streams. The promise of 
 profit was so great that vast schemes were organized to "develop 
 the country," and adventurers with no capital but cunning, and 
 no experience but as caucus workers, hurried into some venture 
 that promised a rich reward. Worthless stocks a.nd reckless finan- 
 cial ventures were floating everywhere, and hordes of hungry cor- 
 morants were besieging congress for more power to bleed the 
 people. 
 
 Owing to an impetus given by this government license, this 
 exclusive privilege, this monopoly of the nation's trade, by 1870 
 the great mills, shops and factories had so multiplied that a. six 
 months' run would supply the year's demand. Then twice the 
 needed capital was locked up in the factories. For six months 
 the costly machinery was idle and rusting. For six months the 
 goods must wait a buyer; for six months the "dignified" lajboring- 
 man, who was to "have high wages and steady employment," 
 roamed over the land as a tramp and a vagabond. 
 
 With this enforced idleness came lock-outs, strikes, riots, and 
 importations of cheap labor to supplant the disaffected. Then 
 came the most ruinous and despotic combinations to raise prices, 
 poolings to raise freights and discriminations and more class laws 
 and decisions to prop these evil schemes. Sorrow seemed to brood 
 over the whole land. Had not the government stood a silent part- 
 ner behind these classes, such poolings, combinations and mo- 
 nopolies would have been impossible, for in every dema,nd of our 
 complex society the traders of the world would have saved our 
 people from the despotism of our friends. 
 
 CRUSHING THE FARMER. 
 
 The most eloquent appeals have been made to the fartner to 
 stand by this spoliation scheme, and to reconcile him, he has been 
 pointed to the poverty and misery of the Old World where the 
 pressure of a, dense population has taxed the best energies of the 
 
113 
 
 country, and where the people have been oppressed and overcome 
 through centuries of the same class laws and landlord rule which 
 they are called upon to defend here and blandly asked how he 
 likes it? To clothe their demands with a seeming virtue, they 
 point to our "unparalleled" national prosperity, and attribute it 
 to the protective policy. They would have us forget the grand, 
 "unparalleled" opportunities, that God and nature gave us in all 
 the substantial resources that lay at the base of ajl propsperity. 
 
 Their reasoning is like the Sabbath school teacher, who ex- 
 tolled the wisdom of God. in placing the great rivers, lakes and 
 finest harbors nea.r the great cities; or the "learned" gentleman 
 in expounding the evolution theory, and arguing that in the 
 utilitarian development, the thumb nail grew strong that man 
 might more easily open his "jack-knife." 
 
 Were not the farmers blinded by the stupidity of party servi- 
 tude, how plainly they could see that they must carry the chief 
 burden of this whole cla,ss policy. The farmers have been taught 
 that this policy would give them a "home market," better prices, 
 cheaper goods, and keep labor employed. We will examine the 
 "labor" topic further on, but on the other three points; let us see. 
 
 At the outside there are not to exceed one million people em- 
 ployed in the "protective" industries. Then, if the population 
 was but fifty millions, these "protected" laborers would consume 
 but 2% of the farmer's wheat or other products. But the books 
 show -that in 1880 the farmers exported 40% of their wheat, thus 
 they are compelled to depend upon those, against whom we dis- 
 criminate, for a market for twenty bushels of wheat where we get 
 a "home market" from the protectionists for one bushel; and for 
 the valuable privilege of selling these protectionists this one 
 bushel, when we sell twenty bushels abroad, we submit to a, 42% 
 tariff on the great necessaries of life. Then, too, notwithstanding 
 this effort to procure a home market, our exports of farm pro- 
 ducts have increased very materially during the whole high tariff 
 epoch. 
 
 An ex-governor of a great sta,te, now congressman-elect, in 
 making a strong protection speech and defending the system, con- 
 fessed according to his published speech in the "Burlington, 
 (la.) Gazette" that the protective policy cost the people $1.40 
 per month, per capita, which would be $16.80 per annum, an ag- 
 
114 
 
 gregate of $800,000,000 per annum. This ajmost equalled Amer- 
 ica's entire exports for 1880, and we are asked to pay this sys- 
 tem, this monstrous sum, for the privilege of selling the protec- 
 tionists 2% of our farm products, which in 1880 would amount to 
 $44,108,031, or in effect, paying over $16.00 for the privilege of 
 selling every one dollar's worth, which protectionists buy. How 
 long will farmers be deceived and hoodwinked in this manner? 
 
 We are taught that the prices are better under the protective 
 system, than under the old law, and protected articles cheaper; 
 a.nd the farmers, being too indolent to investigate and too loyal 
 to doubt, shout, "great is protection." In early days, distant mar- 
 kets and high transportation, of course, made the market on the 
 western farm a low one, but from 1850 to 1860 with low tariff, the 
 price of farm staples averaged considerable higher than the same 
 products from 1870 to 1880, and the chief protected articles for 
 the use of the farmers have been higher under the latter prac- 
 tice. 
 
 Now let us see how it has cheapened them and given us a 
 better price, and dispel the error that clouds the granger's eyes. 
 
 From the American Almanac of 1884, we take these figures 
 showing the average price of a few products for ten years under 
 low and high tariff. 
 
 CORN. CORN. 
 
 Low Tariff. High Tariff. 
 
 Lowest. Highest. Lowest. Highest. 
 
 1851 $ .53 $ .68 1871 $ .65 $ .90 
 
 1852 .62 .78 1871 .61 .80 
 
 1853 .64 .82 1873 .50 .77 
 
 1854 .76 .98 1874 .53 .84 
 
 1855 .93 1.15 1875 .49 .76 
 
 1856 .48 .94 1876 .38 .49 
 
 1857 .71 .98 1877 .41 .58 
 
 1858 .58 1.03 1878 .45 .60 
 
 1859 .76 1.05 1879 .44 64 
 
 1860 .64 .95 1880 .48^ .61 
 
 Average, .80 Average, .59 
 
115 
 
 Then do we find a very material difference in this one of the 
 farmer's products, but it is aji advantage of the "free trade" de- 
 cade of over twenty cents per bushel. 
 
 WHEAT. 
 Low Tariff. 
 Lowest. Highest. 
 
 1851 
 
 $ .93 
 
 $1.22 
 
 1852 
 
 1.03 
 
 .55 
 
 1853 
 
 1.22 
 
 1.80 
 
 1854 
 
 1.75 
 
 2.50 
 
 1855 
 
 1.96 
 
 2.80 
 
 1856 
 
 1.30 
 
 2.17 
 
 1857 
 
 1.25 
 
 1.95 
 
 1858 
 
 1.20 
 
 1.50 
 
 1859 
 
 1.30 
 
 1.65 
 
 1860 
 
 1.35 
 
 1.70 
 
 Average, 1.608 
 
 WHEAT. 
 High Tariff. 
 
 Lowest. Highest. 
 
 1871 $1.45 $2.00 
 
 1872 1.65 2.10 
 
 1873 1.55 2.25 
 
 1874 .93 1.35 
 
 1875 .92 1.37 
 
 1876 .84 1.27 
 
 1877 1.06 1.85 
 
 1878 .83 1.31 
 
 1879 1.10 1.56 
 
 1880 1.03 1.59 
 
 Average, 1.40 
 
 A difference again of twenty cents per bushel in favor of low 
 tariff. 
 
 Pork was also higher from 1850 to 1860 than from 1870 to 
 1880. 
 
 Now let us see how the monopolists have kept their promise 
 to reduce prices. Iron is the most valuable mineral on earth. It 
 has done more to help on man's development than a thousand 
 times all the gold and silver and precious stones. Without it, 
 real civilization could not have arisen. Cheap iron and iron im- 
 plements are of the greatest importance to any people. We have 
 the most abundant, pure and accessible mines on earth. Our coal 
 and stone for its manufacture are of superior quality and con- 
 venient to the ore beds. Bar iron is in the most common use, 
 and the innocent granger is called to the following table of 
 figures: 
 
116 
 
 BAR IRON. BAR IRON. 
 
 Low Tariff. High Tariff. 
 
 Lowest. Highest. Lowest .Highest. 
 
 1851 $33.50 $41.00 1871 $70.00 $95.00 
 
 1852 34.00 55.00 1872 85.00 120.00 
 
 1853 55.00 75.00 1873 75.00 110.00 
 
 1854 62.50 72.50 1874 55.00 80.00 
 
 1855 55.00 65.00 1875 50.00 62.50 
 
 1856 50.00 65.00 1876 40.00 54.00 
 
 1857 52.00 62.50 1877 44.80 48.72 
 
 1858 44.00 55.00 1878 42.50 45.00 
 
 1859 42.50 50.00 1879 45.00 78.50 
 
 1860 41.00 44.00 1880 50.00 85.00 
 
 Average, $57.75 Average, $66.80 
 
 A difference of $9.05 per ton but in favor of the "free trade" 
 decade. 
 
 Here is plainly to be seen the beauties of that promise that 
 goods should be reduced in price by force of "home competition." 
 Bar iron has been "protected" 60% since the passage of the 
 Morrill tariff law, and to enable us to pay $9.05 per ton more for 
 it than in "free trade," or low tariff times, we have sold our 
 wheat and corn for twenty cents per bushel less. 
 
 In free trade low tariff times from 1850 to 1860, seventy- 
 three bushels of corn or thirty-seven bushels of wheat, would 
 have bought a ton of bar iron, while with the "high prices" (?) 
 of "home market" or protection times, from 1870 to 1880, it would 
 take one hundred and thirteen bushels of corn, or forty-eight 
 bushels of wheat, to buy one ton of iron. Yet, the loyal farmers 
 shout, "great is prpotection." 
 
 The monopolists appeal to the farmers to save themselves 
 from competition with "paupers of Europe." The farmer does 
 compete with such "paupers," yet he is petted with the belief that 
 he is the especial ward of the law, and that the whole policy is 
 moulded for his advancement. Save the unprotected railroad, the 
 farmer pays higher wages than any cla.ss of employers; he pro- 
 duces the most bulky commodity, one which takes more of its 
 
117 
 
 own value to transport it than any other product; then ships it 
 over a railroad made artificially high, by a. tax on all the material; 
 then dumps it into a foreign ship because we have none has 
 it carried at least 3,000 miles across the waters, then hurls it into 
 the great bins a,nd sells it in competition with grain produced by 
 the cheapest labor on earth. 
 
 The grain of the West sells in competition with the same 
 class of grain produced by riot and fellah labor of India and 
 Egypt, which receives from five to seven cents per day; yet the 
 farmers are rea,dy to tax themselves 42% on necessaries, rather 
 than open their eyes to these patent facts. Then, too, suppose a 
 British merchant to have $142,000 to buy Illionis or Iowa corn. 
 He does not buy with cash but goods for no nation ever had at 
 one time cash enough to buy half a year's supply and proceeds 
 to make arrangements for the voyage. Ought he not have the 
 right to bring his $142,000 worth and buy that much corn? Cer- 
 tainly, but for the monopoly given American traders. Now he 
 can buy but $100,000 worth of goods and must keep the other! 
 $42,000 to pay duties, or a,s a fine for coming to buy, and so the 
 Illionis or Iowa farmer can sell but $100,000 worth instead of 
 $142,000 worth, while he pays the additional price on the goods 
 after they come, or like price to his monopolistic masters. Corn, 
 wheat and pork are low. Why? The farmer who is 'wedded to 
 his idol says it is because of a, change in the administration, but 
 as the great leaders cling to the same barbarous protective laws, 
 passed by the monopolists, it is not easy to see how simply chang- 
 ing parties could affect prices. 
 
 But let us see. Nations, like individuals, must buy, with the 
 products of domestic industry. A policy then, tha,t says, "we will 
 not buy," as plainly says, "you cannot sell." We erect a barrier 
 against our customers, by demanding a tribute of 42% on all the 
 various articles brought from all the nations and climes of earth, 
 to contribute to the wants and needs of civilized life, and still ex- 
 pect to sell our surplus abroad. 
 
 But a short time ago Germany and France consumed 70,000,- 
 000 pounds of American pork annually. There was a market for 
 a large surplus and it helped to keep markets "stiff." But while 
 we desired and needed to sell to Germany, and needed many 
 articles of her production, we refused to admit her as a customer 
 
118 
 
 without tue 42% tribute. American pork was fast becoming a 
 staple article of German diet, and soon the market would have 
 quadrupled, but the German states protested against our selfish 
 policy by themselves practiced toward others and concluded 
 American pork was not healthy, and in a rage the great premier 
 swore that no American hog could stick its nose in German af- 
 fairs. A market for this surplus is gone; the customers are driven 
 away, and the farmers told by the monopoly blowers, that pork 
 is low because there is a president labeled "Democrat," instead of 
 "Republican." Can the farmers see in this expulsion of their cus- 
 tomers a cause for low-priced pork? France was one of the best 
 customers for our wheat. These refined people desired the fine, 
 white bread from American wheat fields. But the hats, gloves, 
 cloths, and fine silks and dress goods that delight American wives 
 and daughters, were rigidiy excluded, except on the customary 
 conditions of tribute. With our high civilization we needed vast 
 quantities of her fine finished goods. But to keep ourselves from 
 doing what we desired to do, to prevent ourselves from buying 
 her fine goods at prices that would have robed the wife and 
 daughter of a common farmer or business man as beautifully as 
 the present banker's doll, we refused to deal, preferring to pay 
 twice the price for less desirable goods of home make. But our 
 misfortune does not stop here, for France not being able to sell 
 to us, could not buy, and with a wisdom applauded in America, 
 she placed, a few weeks ago, a tax of twenty cents per bushel on 
 American wheat. Can the farmers see any reason for low-priced 
 wheat, when the leading nations of the world are driven to boy- 
 cott the American farmers? England bought as much of us as 
 all the rest of the world. But a jealous hatred toward our best 
 customer, one that desired to buy what we needed to sell, and 
 was anxious to furnish what we sorely needed, we refused to deal 
 with, and with a broad statesmanship, unknown to other na- 
 tions, she opens up great fields in other countries, and leaves us 
 with our full bins and unsold crops, want and selfishness. 
 
 Hug your chains, mutter your eloquent complaints, honest 
 grangers, for your customers have gone and have gone to stay; 
 your low prices will keep you company in your dreary mood, and 
 you maj- ponder upon the beauties of "home markets" for the 
 monopolists. 
 
f 
 
 : 
 
 
 119 
 
 In the meantime, you can continue to pay 60% extra for your 
 iron, 70% for your blankets, 90% for your woolen shirts, and 
 press the soft hand of the fellow who so kindly guarded over 
 your patriotism on election day. Yes, protection is a grand 
 thing for the rich. 
 
 During the last campaign in Pennsylvania, a western gen- 
 tleman was talking with a prominent iron maker, and the con- 
 versation turning on the congressional contest; and the western 
 man expressing his surprise at the choico of a Democrat by his 
 friend, who was, a, Republican, he said: "We don't care much 
 for a man's party, but his politics must be protection. We man- 
 age to have 'protectionists' nominated by both parties, and elect 
 the strongest one. If a doubtful man is nominated, we take the 
 protectionist, and if it takes five, or thirty thousand dollars, we 
 ect him all the same" to benefit labor. 
 
 In the meantime, at present prices, when will the mortgage 
 e redeemed and the people enjoy their own earnings? This 
 policy has cheapened the farmer's products, by keeping away his 
 customers, and raised the price of his necessities, by keeping out 
 those who desired to sell to him cheap. 
 
 THE COMMERCIAL MARINE. 
 
 One of the saddest pictures presented by this protective policy, 
 is the utter annihilation of our commercial marine. No nation in 
 the history of the world ever developed a grand civilization with- 
 out a commercial marine that explored the seas, discovered foreign 
 countries ajid exchanged products with the nations of the earth. 
 God made the world on a free trade plan, giving every spot of 
 soil, and every variety of climate, and every condition of tem- 
 perature a peculiar adaptability for certain classes of products, 
 a,nd He made His children in conformity with the plan, giving 
 them a varied taste for all products, and a desire to explore all 
 regions and enjoy the fruits of all climes, and possess them by a 
 system of exchanging for all others, those things which nature 
 designed for the locality in which the lot of each was placed. 
 This innate desire, this insatiable appetite, this sleepless eager- 
 ness to inquire, to know and explore, developed the ship from 
 the dug-out, and the merchant from the barbarian. Tyre and 
 
120 
 
 Sidon and Carthage and Greece and all the nations in whose foot- 
 steps we so closely follow, that we are little more than imitators, 
 won ail tneir glory and made all their progress, through the civ- 
 ilizing power of their commercial enterprise, furnishing the re- 
 lentless spirits that explored and new-fashioned the tastes, habits 
 ajnd sentiments of the then known world. As a maratime people, 
 our early career was a glorious one; the achievements of our 
 mariners being among the most romantic and brilliant in mod- 
 ern history. The active temperament of the typical American, 
 with his proud, daring spirit, fits him as the mariner par ex- 
 cellence. 
 
 In 1859, the finest ship-building industry in the world was 
 ours. It was next to agriculture in importance. In the various 
 industries directly connected with it, there were about three hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand men employed. We sold maritime Eng- 
 land her best ships. Piracy vanished from the seas before our 
 fast-running clippers. We carried one-third of the world's ton- 
 nage, and three-fourths of our own products. The American 
 sailor, the American ship, and the American trader were at home 
 in every port on earth, and the grand old flag danced gaily on 
 the crest of every wa,ve. What a glorious career was marked out 
 for "maritime America." 
 
 But protection came, and commerce, ashamed to keep such 
 company, bowed a long farewell. As the jiew system bade us 
 buy and sell at home, there was little need of ships. The glory 
 of maritime America" has departed. The restless spirit of the 
 American is caged, and has become an accountant for some local 
 magnate. The American ship has gone down before this with- 
 ering policy. The flag is driven from the sea,s, and our carrying 
 trade the greatest on earth is handed over to enterprising, ra- 
 pacious England. Our bulky products, our commerce and our- 
 selves when we venture to "take water" are protected by a for- 
 eign flag. Today, we carry less than 15% of our own products 
 and less of the world's tonnage than thirty years ago. 
 
 "BRITISH GOLD." 
 
 The shrewd, suppliant pleaders for class favor deny their 
 ability to compete with other nations in our market, and to 
 
121 
 
 strengthen their ca,use they teach the people that those who op- 
 pose this system are but emissaries of intriguing foreigners, who 
 desire to remove our tariff laws, that they may "flood" our coun- 
 try with "cheap goods." It is hard to conceive how a person 
 could be alarmed at the threat of good bargains. Of course, they 
 who sell desire to buy, and when a, person or a people offer to 
 sell goods cheap, it means that the person or people want some- 
 thing which the other party has, and the intensity of the desire 
 must correspond with the degree of cheapness suggested. Buy- 
 ing cheap, then, is in effect, selling dear; that is, it means the 
 getting of a fair supply of another's goods for wha,t we spare. 
 When a person dares assume to have a right to spend his earn- 
 ings where he can buy at the best advantage, and of whom he 
 pleases, without congressional interference, the supplicant for 
 favors becomes insolent, and the ta,unt of being bribed by "British 
 gold" is expected to silence him, or, at least, to turn to scorn his 
 arguments among men. It would hardly seem necessary with 
 sensible men to wait to be bribed to defend their right to buy 
 all they could with their money and deal with whom they chose. 
 To believe that British merchants would pay Americans LO agi- 
 tate a tariff reform in this country, shows a degree of mental 
 plasticity that is truly remarkable for a people with so much 
 egotism. 
 
 The effects of our tariff la,ws have a most wonderful benefi- 
 cial influence on English commerce. A law which says, ''them 
 shalt not buy of the nations round about," says just as truly, 
 "you cannot sell to the nations round about." The tariff isolates 
 a nation to a, degree exactly in harmony with the pe*- mu of 
 tax. This, in the ci>se under consideration, leaves the world for 
 England to "wrestle with.' Our tariff laws have greatly increase-] 
 the cost of production in all luarufacturing enterprises, by levy- 
 ing a tariff on so many articles that are raw, or partially ra,w 
 material; and if there is a grain of truth in the oft-repeated dec- 
 lara,tion that our home makers cannot compete with foreigners 
 in our own markets, it must be impossible for us to compete with 
 them in foreign markets, especially as those with whom we must 
 compete, have a "corner" on our carrying trade, and can charge 
 us such freights as they choose. 
 
 We are the greatest manufacturing people on earth, yet our 
 
122 
 
 manufacturers are so narrow and selfish that they are cramped 
 to one market, a monopoly of the trade of one nation, to fifty 
 million people. But while this short-sighted policy gives our 
 home makers the monopoly of the tra,de of fifty millions it en- 
 tirely exclude them from over eleven times fifty millions; and 
 among all these people, England has a virtual supremacy, al- 
 most monopoly. 
 
 I have visited every manufacturing center in the British 
 Isles, and most of those in Europe, besides all of those in the 
 United States, a,nd the contrast is most surprising. The shops 
 of England have none of the nervous, anxious activity, that you 
 find in America, evidencing a haste to get rich today, so as to 
 retire tomorrow, but a steady, reliable, substantial appearance, 
 like the flowing of a great river. Then in England there are no 
 vast stores of fabrics waiting a market. There are thousands 
 of boxes, bajes and packages, and marked in all languages, for 
 all nations, all people and all climes. There is no waste, as there 
 is a demand for wares made from every particle, kind and class 
 of material. The shrewd traders know just about the demand 
 of all nations, and just the class of goods wanted and with what 
 the people must pay. A hundred ships, with the queerest peo- 
 ples on earth, American, Russian, Turk, Asiatic, Spanish, Mexi- 
 can, etc., daily turn their strong prows to every wind and carry 
 Britain's flag, Britain's goods and Britain's language to all hu- 
 manity. Great, rich, proud, active, energetic, ingenious, indus- 
 trious, egotistical America, is out of the race, and avarice puts 
 a finger of silence on the polluted lips of ignorance, that none 
 may be allowed to protest against this humiliation. 
 
 I have been at the great manufacturing centers of our coun- 
 try, and looked with astonished wonder at the stores of goods 
 waiting for the one customer the American people to buy. 
 There is bustle and activity, but there is a sameness in kinds, 
 classes, varieties and qualities of articles, a,s compared with the 
 English system, as is tiresome to the mind, and the "bustle and 
 activity" lasts hardly more than half the year. 
 
 I never saw an intelligent merchant or manufacturer in Eng- 
 land or Scotland who was not anxious for the perpetuation of 
 a system that transferred to them, without a struggle, the carry- 
 ing trade and the commerce of the world. None knew better than 
 
WHY WE CAN COMPETE. 
 
 123 
 
 the British merchant, than that, with our better wages, more in- 
 telligent, active, ingenious, industrious labor, and better soil, 
 richer mines, grander forests and most fabulous and accessible 
 ra,w material, America could drive English traders from every 
 market, her ships from every s'ea, and win with easy contest the 
 commercial supremacy of the world. If there is any trait in 
 American character for which the business Johnny Bull has a 
 happy contempt, it is our refined selfishness of exclusion, that 
 surrenders the beauties a^nd profits of the gay and enchanting 
 world, that keeps us loitering under our own fig tree, singing 
 the praise of our own achievements. 
 
 We are pre-eminently a people earnestly engaged in the pur- 
 suits of peace. We have no army, no martial spirit and only a 
 memory of war, yet we boa,st that we could ''whip" the world; 
 though all the nations of Europe are armed to the teeth, well 
 drilled, disciplined, and ready to march on an hour's notice. 
 What melancholy folly to boast of our strength in that of which 
 we know nothing, and shrink tremblingly away from a, contest 
 in the arts of peace, in which we lead the world. Were it not 
 so unblushing a falsehood, what a humiliating confession it would 
 be. Because grander opportunities have developed a grander 
 manhood; we, as a nation, possess more strength, more endur- 
 ance, more activity, more brain and more genius. Because of 
 greater promise of reward, invention has given us better meth- 
 ods; and longer hours and better opportunities have given us 
 better profits. The average coal mine in England, or the Brit- 
 ish Isles, is fourteen hundred feet deep; and a,ll are wet mines, 
 and operated at great expense. Think of the coal mines of 
 Pennsylvania or Virginia, with veins ten feet thick and almost 
 level with the surface, needing protection from the competition 
 of such mines, in the American market. The iron mines of Eng- 
 land have a,n average depth of four hundred feet and are all 
 "wet mines" and worked at great expense. Compare these mines 
 with ours that stand up in mountains kissing the very clouas, 
 and ask how much protection we need in competing with Eng- 
 land in our own country. Then, too, her timber, her wool, her 
 
124 
 
 bread and meat, her almost everything, she brings from hajf 
 way around the world, and while we have the cheapest and most 
 abundant raw material bordering on our bread fields and beef 
 pastures, we call in aid the la.w to enable us to compete with 
 England. Notwithstanding her cursed landlord system drives 
 many of her people to seek work in her great shops and fac- 
 tories, she pays as much wages in proportion to the productive 
 capacity of her laboring men as do the Americans, and yet we 
 shrink from a fair competition with her in our own markets. 
 What an insult to American genius. 
 
 The American mine owner is "protected" seventy-five cents 
 per ton, a,nd pays fifty cents per ton for his mining. How gen- 
 erous! How wise for a great government to give a few men a 
 monopoly of the mines, and then give them a greater advant- 
 age still by driving away competitors, that they may demand 
 a greater price for all that warms and cheers the humblest fire- 
 sides of cold America. 
 
 To push the great centralizing scheme and build up the 
 gigantic fortunes that spread the beaunteous mori&a fe e on the 
 western farm, these favored classes are "so protected" that if 
 combinations stand a,nd pools exert their full power, their min- 
 ing costs twenty-five cents per ton less than nothing; as they 
 are protected seventy-five cents and pay but fifty. Recent in- 
 vestigations develop the fact that the labor cost of a ton of pig 
 iron is sixty cents greater in America than in England. But the 
 American maker is protected six dollars per ton. If protection 
 helps labor I grant the laboring man the sixty cents per ton, 
 but who, in God's name, gets the other five dollars and forty 
 cents? This goes into the manufacturer's palace; into the fund 
 that persuades the dignified laboring man to vote for the per- 
 petuation of the policy; tha,t buys legislatures and courts; fur- 
 nishes "convincing arguments" to congressmen, and sends the 
 wives and daughters of the manufacturers and political bosses 
 to Paris, and the families of the dignified laboring man to the 
 poor-house. If the homes of our laboring people are more com- 
 fortable and happy by reason of these class laws; which assume 
 to promote their welfare, what would they have been without this 
 generous interference? If protective laws will give better prices 
 for farm products a,nd lift the mortgage; will give better wages 
 
125 
 
 to labor; clothe the ragged; feed the hungry; drive pa,le want 
 from the abode of poverty; let the people shout, the horns blow, 
 the cannons boom until the great American congress raises the 
 tariff 1,000%, or until every idle workman returns to his employ- 
 ment, every farmer breaks the shackles of debt a,nd every lean 
 starvling laughs with joy. 
 
 But what folly! The centralizing scheme was meant to reduce 
 the millions to dependence and send the "laugh of glee" to the 
 palace; and well may the cunning la,ugh to see the folly of their 
 victims. Every thinking man with unprejudiced mind, who will 
 take the pains to think, knows that with our newer country, with 
 out better soil, richer mines, grander forests, more abundant, 
 more accessible and cheaper raw material of every kind; with 
 the greater activity, industry and intelligence of our working 
 people; with better wages, better methods, and a more fertile 
 genius; that with unrestricted commerce, America could beat the 
 world in any market or in any country. The boastful American 
 who would shrink from such honorable rivalry with so great an 
 advantage, merits the contempt of his countrymen and should 
 hide his head in shame. 
 
 But monopoly has furnished the public opinion, and such 
 sentiments are unpopular. Oh, but I love men! Men who dare 
 have opinions and dare express them, though the heavens frown. 
 If a man knowing he is right, sees the world turn its back, he 
 mid say to the world, go to! 
 'God give us men! a time like this demands 
 
 Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands; 
 
 Men whom the lust of office does not kill, 
 
 Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy, 
 
 Men who possess opinions and a will, 
 
 Men who have honor, men who will not lie, 
 
 Men who can stand before a demagogue 
 
 And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking, 
 
 Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog, 
 
 In public duty and in private thinking; 
 
 For, while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds, 
 
 Their large professions and their little deeds, 
 
 Mingle in selfish strife, lo! freedom weeps, 
 
 Wrong rules the land and waiting justice sleeps." 
 
126 
 
 CHAPTER XIIL 
 
 LABOR AND ITS MASTER. 
 
 HE most casual observer must confess that American 
 society is rapidly differentiating a ruling and a 
 ruled class. Speaking of the "ruling class," I do not 
 mean the office-holding class, for usually the latter 
 are but putty in the hands of stronger and much more 
 sagacious men, who are willing that vanity should 
 reap the applause, if they can gather the substantial 
 benefits of power. Few real kings ever sat upon a 
 throne. The man with the crown, and scepter and 
 long robes of childish beauty, is usually but a puppet 
 in the hands of some strong, frowning despot behind 
 the scenes, who with small grimaces hauls his master's chest- 
 nuts from the fire of hate a,nd contention. But the "governed" 
 class in America can vote and as "all powers are derived from 
 the consent of the governed," this has caused a world of worry 
 and annoyance to the governing class. To procure that "con- 
 sent" to measures which oppressed the consenting party, required 
 a vast deal of cunning, so much so that in the evolution of thought 
 the statesman has retired and the politician plays his fantastic 
 tricks in the mask of the builders of the empire. Labor, being 
 decorated with this badge of liberty a, vote has exercised the 
 prerogative of a freeman, in choosing the custodians of its earn- 
 ings. 
 
 The laboring class is always a very numerous class in an 
 enlightened state, usually a, very busy class, and a very honest 
 class. Honesty is easily deceived by pretended friends, and as 
 the policy of the nation must be moulded by popular consent, 
 every measure must bear the device, "for the public good." 
 Every despot who ever sat upon a throne; every butcher who 
 ever led his duped mob to slaughter, and every barbarous 
 
127 
 
 who ever bled the back of his crouching slave, ruled for the 
 good of the subject. So every scheme that has bribed the law, 
 and every law that has clutched a penny from the hard hand of 
 toil a,nd placed it in the fat purse of opulence, by soft, seductive 
 falsehood and "tender regards" for public good, has bought the 
 sanction of the victim. Because labor held a ballot, cunning has 
 always entertained a deep solicitude for its interest. Money was 
 contracted tha,t business might find a firm basis, so that "when 
 a poor laboring man lays down his tools for the evening, he 
 knows what he has earned" and he does. The great railroad 
 enterprises that now own land enough to give homes to thirty 
 million people were conceived by the advancement of industrial 
 interest. To busy our laborers and give homes to our homeless. 
 And tariff, the most seductive fraud that ever sceptered the hand 
 of idleness, was fed into giant proportions as the especial cham- 
 pion of the laboring man. 
 
 For a, quarter of a century an average of forty millions of 
 people have been outrageously taxed "for the benefit of the labor- 
 ing man," and what are the substantial fruits of this reign, his- 
 toric for its stirring events? There are more princely employers 
 and more suffering employes than ever known in the history of 
 the country; more millionaires and more paupers; more rascals 
 in robes and more honest men in rags; more opulence and more 
 squalor. How strange! The poor are the laborers for whom 
 these laws were passed; for whose benefit the people have been 
 taxed near a billion dollars a year. How strange! The rich are 
 the ones who paid untold thousands to procure the passage of 
 laws for the benefit of labor in fact, which was to compel these 
 "philanthropic" (?) gentlemen to pay employes better wages. 
 How can this be? La,bor produces all. If labor has not been' 
 profitable, from whence came the great accumulations that give 
 us the proud title the richest nation on earth and how came 
 the idlers, millionaires? If labor has been profitable, why sits 
 hunger a,nd want at the door of patient industry? Let us think. 
 To procure the passage of these laws that were to tax the whole 
 people that labor might be steadily and profitably employed, the 
 philanthropist wept, politician howled, and the congressman pock- 
 eted his fee and cast his vote; but wha,t are the practical results? 
 Carroll D. Wright confesses that there are one million laborers 
 
128 
 
 at least, idle. If idle, they are in want. If idle and in want, those 
 employed are necessarily from the force of competition work- 
 ing at very low wages. Our country is yet new, our va,st re- 
 sources not one-tenth explored; yet a million men, who should 
 be earning a million dollars per day, by transmitting raw material 
 into the needs of humanity, are in idleness, in want, and consum- 
 ing daily from the stored wealth of other times. This is a waste 
 of three hundred million dollars per year. This idleness of one 
 million men, throwing one million of families, or five million of 
 people, upon the reserve fund for subsistence, is enough to cre- 
 ate the most dangerous business prostration if not dangerous 
 discontent. To support the five million people who are in want, 
 because of this enforced idleness of a million laborers, is a hravy 
 tax on the seventeen million wealth producers, who are greatly 
 crippled by this cause from purchasing, and that in its turn em- 
 barasses all trades and all industries. 
 
 Commissioner Wright says also, that labor in this country 
 has the help of machinery, to the ajnount of "twenty-one million 
 man-power," yet with this great triumph of genius, and the most 
 fabulous and accessible raw material on earth, labor groans and 
 dies of want; a,nd while it "organizes" and resolves and com- 
 plains and strikes, and unnerves the weak with its mutterings, 
 it holds in its pallid ha.nd a ballot which it dares not cast for 
 its own deliverance. 
 
 Capital, hearing rumors of discontent, steps out on its gothic 
 veranda, in front of its marble palace and commiserates labor on 
 its misfortune, and exculpates all but the fates for the sad con- 
 dition. Though the people have paid capital over a billion dol- 
 lars to keep labor employed, capital says to the idle, starving 
 multitudes: "There is an over-production, and business is dull. 
 There is no market for goods, and your labor, like other mer- 
 chantable commodities, being regulated by the law of supply and 
 demand, ha no market, and as we are a civilized people, we 
 should keep quiet and starve like Christians." What infamy! 
 "Over-production," and millions in want! No demand for goods, 
 and millions desiring to buy, offering in exchange that which 
 has produced all wealth. Labor produced ajl this fabulous wealth 
 of the nation; cunning appropriated it, and the power of its 
 possession has grasped the entire stock of raw material, the whole 
 
129 
 
 earth, the mines, minerals, forests, and soil, a,nd the machinery, 
 the fruits of genius, and now, having little use for the "lower 
 millions," with supreme impudence tells them that there is noth- 
 ing for them to do; no demand for their commodity, and that 
 labor, being "regulated by the law of supply and demand," they 
 cannot justly find fault. Wha,t infamy; and yet these starving, 
 idle men have loyally voted for this policy, until made so depend- 
 ent that they must vote for its perpetuation. What infamy, for 
 cunning to monopolize the earth, shut the doors of the world, 
 lock the treasure-house of nature from which all must live, 
 against the honest millions, and while la,bor sees the vast vacant 
 tracts of fertile soil on which a foot never trod; the most fab- 
 ulous mines and all the boundless stores of material wasting for 
 use, it must retire and die patiently and content, because a few 
 own the world, a,nd therefore there is no "demand for labor." 
 Monopoly makes merchandise of men, slaves of women, beggars 
 of children and outcasts of all, and then holds itself in power by 
 bribery or fraud practiced on a class who are helpless. These 
 polite capitalists are so schooled in dexterous "cussedness" that 
 they spurn truth as unworthy the attention of Christian gentle- 
 men and their nonchalance in the feat of appropriating would 
 shame a Captain Kidd or a, western land agent. Cunning tells 
 labor that capital is its best and only friend, and were it not 
 for capital labor would starve. True, capital is labor's best 
 friend, for it is the child of labor, but there is a vast difference 
 in capital and the average capitalist. Cajpital is the fruit of 
 labor, while the modern "capitalist" is the soft-hancied gentle- 
 man who appropriates the profits of labor, by a system of cla,ss 
 laws which practically licenses larceny. These rulers say that 
 all wages come from capital. It is untrue. All capita.1 has come 
 from wages, as the surplus of earnings over consumption. There 
 was no capital until sagacious labor earned a dollar more than 
 it consumed, and there were no capitalists, of the modern type, 
 until idleness gathered these surplus dollars and marshalled them 
 into Active force. Wages do not come from capital, but from 
 the product being created by the joint enterprise of labor and 
 capital; the laborer receiving, usually in advance of marketing 
 the product, such a share as is mutually agreed upon. If wages 
 came only from capital, there could be no capital, as there was 
 
130 
 
 no such thing until the work of earning began. This false no- 
 tion arid false teaching has so mystified labor that it has sub- 
 mitted to an unequal distribution of earnings, and thus many 
 of the present difficulties. If capital has been generous with 
 labor, and wages ha,ve come down from capital, how has the one 
 grown so enormously great, and the other so wretchedly poor? 
 Writers with a high regard for reputation, claim to have ex- 
 humed from the cumbrous reports the fact that of the eight bill- 
 ion dollars' worth of property in 1850, five billions belonged to 
 the producers and three billions to capitalists, those who produced 
 it owning five-eighths of their earnings. Of the sixteen billions 
 in 1860, the producers owned seven billions, and the capitalists 
 nine billions. Then, the producers owned but seven-sixteenths, 
 or less than half. Of the thirty billions in 1870, the producers 
 owned but eleven billions and the capitalists nineteen billions; 
 the producers, at this date, owning but a fraction over one-third 
 of their earnings. Since that time the profits of toil haVe been 
 moving still more rapidly into the coffers of the millionaire. 
 
 When labor was strong, it was hoodwinked into a political 
 partnership with monopoly, because told that the whole people 
 should be taxed for its benefit; but now when it sees the spoils 
 which it hoped to win appropriated by the idle, it finds itself 
 helpless, and under the strong influence of political bosses, who 
 endeavor to control its vote by bribery and intimidation, while 
 mocking its wants. 
 
 But 20% of the cost in the average American manufacture 
 is labor, yet in the name of the laboring man, a tax of 42% was 
 levied on all who dared come to sell us the products which we 
 needed, on the assumption that it would rob labor of its employ- 
 ment. La,bor gets 20%. Who gets the other 22%? Look along 
 the line and you will see who has it, and you will also see that 
 these great centers of "protection" are the centers of great wealth 
 among the idlers and great poverty and destitution among the 
 toilers, and the seats of a, dangerous discontent which threatens 
 the safety of the republic. 
 
 A Pennsylvania paper issued October, 1886, during the heat 
 of a political campaign, said: 
 
 "There were six hundred and forty Bulgarians just from Eu- 
 rope, by the way of Ca,stle Garden, marched to the mouth of a 
 
l 
 
 : 
 
 
 131 
 
 coal shaft at Johnstown yesterday and halted at the entrance 
 like soldiers. On the opposite side of a close board fence six hun- 
 dred and forty of the old miners marched out and were discharged. 
 The new men, great burly, blajik-faced fellows, then marched 
 into the dark hole and took up the task laid down by the malcon- 
 tents. We doubt if one of the 'new arrivals' knew a word of 
 English or how much they were to receive for their labor. What 
 grand opportunities these animals will have to study the beauties 
 f our institutions." 
 
 Another journal, in speajking of a political meeting, held the 
 me date a few miles from Johnstown, said: 
 
 "Hon. James G. Elaine met with a grand ovation yesterday. 
 His speech was chiefly in support of the policy of protection to 
 American labor." * 
 
 And a Philadelphia paper about the same date, said: 
 
 "Hon. Samuel J. Randall expounded the true doctrine of pro- 
 tection to American labor to a good audience last evening." 
 
 What a mockery of the toiler's wrongs! What an insult to 
 American intelligence! Starve, oppress and drive honest men 
 from their employment, and then add insult to injury by elo- 
 quently calling them to vote to perpetuate this system of tyranny. 
 When the gentlemen who had procured the passage of a pro- 
 tective law that enabled them to pool and raise the price of coal 
 fifty cents per ton, met to consider the propriety of bringing 
 these six hundred and forty Bulgarians to displace the six hun- 
 dred and forty Americans, the meeting was called "business," 
 but when the six hundred and forty men displaced, just at the 
 beginning of a long winter, with no means for the support of 
 families, met in a cold room to devise means by which to live, and 
 ask an investigation as to cause of discharge, the meeting was 
 called "conspiracy," and if there had been as much noise and 
 glee as at the other meeting, the militia would have been sum- 
 moned. Go to the great red-mouthed furnaces and see the "dig- 
 nified" laborers work. Go to the slums and tenement houses, in 
 the "smoky hollow" and steep mountain sides and see the future 
 of America, as the fruits of the system; then go back of the city, 
 on the sunny hill, and explore the princely palace of the million- 
 aire, the manager, the political and business boss. Here live the 
 same gentlemen who lobbied in Washington and applauded the 
 
 same gen 
 
132 
 
 gracious tears shed by Mr. Randall over the sorrows of those 
 who work in the mines, and the blazing furnaces, and who live 
 in the huts at the base of the hill, or pack their families, like 
 pickled salmon, in the tenement houses. They are the same gen- 
 tlemen who bribe the law, own courts, subsidize the press, cor- 
 ner iron, coal and all goods used by the people; that raise or 
 lower freights, and loan their surplus cash on the western farm, 
 that the mortgagees may draw the land into one central chan- 
 nel. They own the politicians, pay for the "supplements," and 
 protection literature, and fill the land with small-bored ward 
 workers, who laud the party virtue on election dav. These are 
 the men who lay the dark schemes, organize the "workers," and 
 hire the deluded fools to paint their own badges of party fealty, 
 and they are the same patriotic parties, who, after procuring an 
 increase of the tariff on iron by a vote of the member elected 
 by their oppressed employes cut down wages upon their return 
 from the capitol, and on the first murmur of discontent from the 
 laborers, hurry an agent to interior Europe, to hire under con- 
 tract a few thousand paupers and bring them tariff free to 
 take the place of those "insolent laboring men" who were foolish 
 enough to quarrel with their dinners. 
 
 While the monopolists are saved from a competition with the 
 traders of other countries, in the sale of their commodities, the 
 laboring man must sell his commodity labor in competition 
 with the cheapest labor from Europe, imported tariff free for 
 the very purpose of degrading the wages of those for whom the 
 protective laws were ostensibly passed. The products of cheap 
 labor must not come to bless our people with cheap goods, as it 
 would lessen the tribute money of the rich; but the cheap laborer 
 himself, is induced by the most flattering promises to come to 
 our country, and bid for the tasks being performed by the "pro- 
 tected" American laboring man. 
 
 As before remarked, the labor cost of pig iron is sixty cents 
 per ton more in America than in England, and the protective 
 tariff six dollars per ton. While, though the people paid from 
 60% to 100% more for all the iron used, and the manufacturer 
 got five dollars and forty cents, yet the iron workers in the 
 United States received no more wages in proportion to the pro- 
 ductive capacity of their labor than the same class in England. 
 
: 
 
 133- 
 
 The very low wages received by the American iron workers, 
 proves the falsehood of all such promises for their betterment. 
 
 The Philadelphia Record, of a recent date, says: 
 
 "Iron ore is protected by a tariff, and yet the iron ore work- 
 ers of Pennsylvania earned an average of four dollars a week 
 during the year 1885, as shown by the returns of their employers 
 the state bureau of industrial statistics. 
 
 "Soft coal is protected by a tariff of seventy-five cents per 
 n, yet the bituminous coal workers of Pennsylvania only earned 
 an average of six dollars and twenty cents a week during the 
 year 1885, as shown by the result of their employers." 
 
 What magnificent salaries! Now, who gets the benefit of 
 these statesmenlike laws? Can it be the laboring man? If so, 
 how pitiable his condition, without the generous interference 
 of congress. Yet, we have the word of very respectable authori- 
 ties that it is for the benefit of the "laboring man." Oh, yes, 1 
 see! It is for the gentlemen who "labor" with congress, with 
 courts, and with legislatures. We have no statistics as to their 
 "wages." Yet, compare their raiment, their apartments, and 
 their style of living with the condition of the great 
 muscular fellows, with calloused hands and smutty noses, and 
 you can see who gets the sixty cents and who the five dollars 
 and forty cents. Yes, it is for the "laboring man," but the man 
 who labors with his mouth and with his purse, and whose cal- 
 louses are on his cheek and on his heart. Think of a "protected" 
 iron worker supporting a family of five on four dollars a week, 
 or fifty-nine cents a day, or eleven cents per day per capita. What 
 opulent palaces! What luxuriant tables and what raiment! Oh, 
 Mother Eve, bring back your fig leaves. 
 
 The apologist attributes the destitute condition of these la- 
 boring men to their improvidence and shiftlessness. Give a proud, 
 intelligent working man four dollars per week for hard, phys- 
 ical toil, and refine his sorrows with the care of a family and 
 about how big would a five dollar gold piece look on the morning 
 of election day. But men are beginning to open their eyes, and 
 the oracles become mute, and miracles cease with the banish- 
 ment of ignorance and superstition, and the veil it rent, wh^n 
 the priests are caught wearing the robes which their dupes ga,ve 
 or the deities. 
 
 for tin 
 
134 
 
 I grant that protection does affect, and in a marked degree, 
 the wages of a people, but inversely from the popular teachings. 
 Other conditions, system of government, soil, climate, population, 
 age a,nd degree of civilization being equal, the rate of wages may 
 be known by the tariff on imports, as wages sink with the de- 
 gree of a nation's exclusiveness, and rise just in proportion as 
 she approaches commercial freedom. 
 
 The following table based upon consular reports, shows the 
 wages of the three leading nations of Europe: England, Ger- 
 many and Austria,. England has the disadvantage of a more 
 dense population; having four hundred and forty-six to the 
 square mile, against two hundred and one for Germany, and one 
 hundred and fifty-six for Austria. England is practically free 
 trade, while Germany is "blessed" or cursed with a protective 
 law, little better than ours, while Austria has one even more 
 barbarous. Here it is, giving the weekly wa,ges paid in the* 
 countries under consideration: 
 
 England 
 and 
 Wales. Germany. Austria. 
 
 Bricklayers $7.56 $4.21 $3.55 
 
 Hodcarriers 4.94 2.29 2.08 
 
 Masons 7.68 4.07 3.73 
 
 Carpenters 7.66 4.11 5.10 
 
 Brickmakers 7.00 7.00 6.20 
 
 Butchers 5.50 3.32 3.50 
 
 Coopers 7.50 3.97 3.64 
 
 Street railways 6.00 3.44 3.68 
 
 Printers 7.17 5.10 4.85 
 
 Laborers 4.70 3.11 3.00 
 
 It will -be seen that the lowest average wages are in the 
 country having the highest tariff, and the highest wages in the 
 free trade country. 
 
 This is just as any thinker would expect to find it, and for 
 reasons that are very obvious. Where na.tions say we will not 
 buy, the arbitrary law of trade says, ''you cannot sell." Then 
 to the exact extent of the exclusiveness of a people, who, be- 
 ing reared under like conditions of government, climate, re- 
 
135 
 
 ligion, tastes, etc., and being of a uniform type, they have small 
 wants except in variety. In an industrial field so narrow that 
 a comparatively small number of workers will supply the lim- 
 ited home demand, there arises a sharp competition among 
 laboring men which greatly reduces the wages. The workers 
 of a protective country run the shops and mills of a community 
 only, which busies but a portion of the laborers, and when such 
 community is supplied, there comes a "shut-down" and a rest. 
 Tariff and wages are but links in the iron chain of industrial 
 progress. Free trade is the magician's wand, that whitens the 
 seas with commerce and binds the world in a common brother- 
 hood. It calls for "more goods" and more people to make them, 
 then for more to feed the workers, and this raises wages. These 
 higher wages awaken genius, that toil may find rest. It startles 
 ambition by its dazzling promise; warms the heart with love; 
 lightens the home of industry with a smile of joy; transmutes 
 the cold hovel into a painted cottage where the intelligent worker 
 repairs at evening, to pluck a rose from his own garden; to 
 dandle a dimpled babe upon his knee, and talk affairs of state 
 to the happy matron as she prepares a meal an ancient king 
 might covet. And upon this domestic happiness rests the per- 
 petuity and safety of the republic. 
 
 Can any sensible man believe that these laws were passed 
 for any purpose but to enrich the few, by a tax on the many? 
 to reduce labor to dependence, that all the profits of toil could 
 be controlled by the sharp competition for bread; and that the 
 laboring man might be used as a political force to perpetuate 
 this policy, until the times were ripe for another change? 
 
 Have labor societies purchased politicians, bribed legisla- 
 tures, bought votes at the ward caucuses, or wined the marketa- 
 ble members in the senate restaurants? If the benefits of these 
 especial measures accrued to the laboring man, would the aris- 
 tocrat spend millions to secure their passage? If protective laws 
 gave labor more wages, or more independence, would the em- 
 ployers wrestle with congress to procure the passage of meas- 
 ures that would compel them to raise the cost of their products 
 and make them more dependent upon their employes? With 
 the increasing population, the gradual sinking of the middle class, 
 id the rapidly increasing power of monopoly, labor in America is 
 
136 
 
 in a sad and almost hopeless condition, unless the whole indus- 
 trial policy is changed. Labor is capital, and with our improved 
 methods, the benefit of our experience and the unknown powers 
 of genius to push us forward, and, with our matchless resources, 
 if labor were given unchained opportunities, the present wealth 
 of the nation would double in ten years. It is not capital, but 
 avarice and greed, the desire of "capitalists" to rule, that is la- 
 bor's enemy, and that enemy must down or the masses of 
 America will sink to the level of the "common herds" of th^ 
 Old World. 
 
 While labor has become restive and uneasy, with a multitude 
 of councils, laboring men are at a loss for a remedy and a, rea- 
 son which will account for its conditions. Many "leading jour- 
 nals," under pay of monopoly, pity, flatter and scold labor for 
 its impatience. It is told it must "economize" more, and tha,t 
 it is very naughty to strike or complain, as capital is its "best 
 friend" and does the best it can to "take care of it," but the 
 "law of supply and demand" is so inexorable, tha,t it asserts its 
 power over all alike. 
 
 A hundred thousand politicians, also paid by monopoly, are 
 tickling the long ears of labor by demanding in its behalf a, 
 right to organize, to "resolve," and demand shorter hours of the 
 law-makers; and fifty thousand ministers, with nasal melody, 
 are promising these despairing millions an "extra ration" of 
 "milk and honey" in the "land of the hereafter," if they will be 
 good and patient, submit to "those who rule over them," be 
 "content," in the sphere in which it "pleased God" to place them, 
 and pay their pew rent or go to the mission church, instead of 
 spending their evenings in the seditious "assembly." Who writes 
 or speaks for cash or fajne, must join this throng and lick the 
 hand that strikes down human brotherhood; who writes or 
 speaks for the people, is ridiculed or hissed as a crank or dis- 
 turber, by the "shoddy genteel," while the stall-fed minions of 
 monopoly, brand him as a "demagogue" or Socialist; and too 
 often the degraded and oppressed, deceived by the gloved hand 
 that caressed for a vote, join in the chorus, and point a finger" at 
 their champions, shouting, "demagogue." It has always been so. 
 The man who braved the frowns of Christian Europe and de- 
 manded "liberty of thought," wa,s denounced as a "demagogue" 
 
137 
 
 id called dangerous. The man who, in the darkest days of 
 English history would curtail the kingly prerogative, was de- 
 nounced as a "demagogue" and called dangerous. Until our own 
 generation, the man who protested against the right of one man 
 to put his brother man upon the auction block and sell him from 
 parents, wife or babes, wa,s mobbed, and pronounced a "dema- 
 gogue," and dangerous; and now, the man who dares defy the 
 tyranny of greed and demands justice for all, is denounced as a 
 "demagogue," and dangerous. But the rulers are shrewd and 
 wise in their denunciations, for all these champions of human 
 rights have been "dangerous" to the oppressors. 
 
 The scheme to reduce labor to dependence has succeeded ad- 
 mirably; and as long as laboring men a,re so obliging as to con- 
 fine their energies to discontent, and to "organizing," "resolv- 
 ing," "demanding shorter hours" and "finer screens," monopoly 
 will be happy; but if labor and agriculture should demand a re- 
 versal of the whole industrial system, the "moneyed circles" 
 would be greatly outraged; but legitimate capital would light 
 every home with joy, and the thinking mass would accept the 
 situation and gradually fall into the ranks and ma,rch with the 
 great army of progress. 
 
138 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 LABOR CONTINUED NECESSITY OP HIGH WAGES. 
 
 JEW realize the great importance of well-paid labor, 
 or high wages, to the development of a people, a,nd 
 for the establishing of a high civilization. England, 
 by reason of the power given her by her well-paid 
 and efficient labor, has become mistress of the seas, 
 and holds the commercial supremacy of the world. 
 Given a country with wise la,ws, a fair soil, a 
 summer sufficiently long to permit the raising of 
 heavy cereals, and a winter sufficiently severe to 
 necessitate a close fireside, and the progress of such 
 nation exactly corresponds with the rate of wages 
 of the workingmen, or the purchasing power of labor. No low 
 wage people ever developed a, grand civilization. No cheap labor- 
 ing nation ever elevated the masses. Where physical effort is 
 degraded, genius sleeps. China has not advanced an inch for 
 three thousand years. Her people have patterned after the dead 
 ages and become a race of imitators. In Europe, all the modern 
 Christian nations have advanced in the ulita,rian pursuits, lit- 
 erature and commerce, just in proportion to the wages paid their 
 toilers. England leads the world in wages, as well as in the 
 arts of peace ajad war. Those following her most closely are 
 those paying most closely her rate of wages, other things being 
 equal. Neco needed no steam shovel, as long as a handful of 
 dates and a lash drove twenty thousand people into his grea,t 
 canal. Egypt needs no steam plow as long as a drove of pigs 
 tramp in the crop of wheat in the soft mud of the receding Nile. 
 India needs no "self-binders" in her fields as long as the patient 
 riot will toil in the harvest a long day for seven pence. The 
 South made no advance under her cheap, or slave labor sys- 
 tem. The people were called idle, vicious and barbarous. The 
 
139 
 
 fa.ult was that men were cheap; their efforts not valued. What 
 brain would wrestle with the dark, hidden forces of nature, to 
 bring to light the powers that have slept through all the world's 
 progressive changes, to save the sweat of a slave? Where toil 
 is valuable, 'tis well paid and honorable. Then, 'tis praiseworthy 
 to save its cares, to protect its health and prevent its too rapid 
 waste. Whitney, who invented the cotton gin, and crowned cot- 
 ton king, belonged to a colder, higher wage country. Hargreaves, 
 who invented the spinning-jenny, put the scepter in King Cot- 
 ton's ha,nd and uniformed the world in new attire, inhabited a 
 colder, higher wage country. 
 
 When the fetters were snatched from the galled limbs of 
 southern toil, when cash was substituted for the lash, and the 
 dark sons of many sorrows walked forth to compete in the world's 
 battle for place and honor, the South leaped forward a, hundred 
 years at a single bound. These are things worth thinking about. 
 Because our country was entirely new; because there was a whole 
 continent of raw material; because there was more fertile soil, 
 richer mines, greater forests and greater natural resources than 
 in any country on earth; because the population was sparse and 
 workers needed to convert the raw material that God had given 
 us so abundantly, into the necessaries for our civilization, wages 
 were high; and because wages were high, and men valuable, 
 brain ca,me to the rescue of over-worked muscle. Then came the 
 steamboat, the railroad, the great looms and iron machines, that, 
 with their tireless sinews and great beating hearts, proclaimed 
 tha,t the grandest mission of human genius was to lighten the 
 burdens of God's toiling children. 
 
 When the farm was made on the broad prairie, with no' 
 stumps or stones to hinder, the physical man grew weary, as 
 he trudged over the broad fields, and as his labor was valuable 
 high bra,in came to his rescue, and the modern plows, ditchers, 
 mowers, reapers, and the thousand other machines, came in 
 obedience to the call of necessity and gave him time for thought. 
 These are things worth thinking about, and I protest against any 
 and every measure, policy or influence, tha,t will lower the wages 
 of the laboring people, for just to the extent of such influence, 
 rill progress be checked, society degraded, and pride, iove, mor- 
 
 will progres 
 
140 
 
 ality and conscious worth rot out, and even liberty itself will 
 die. 
 
 The true grandeur of a nation consists, not in gilded palaces, 
 gorgeous capitols, great cathedrals, and banks where moneyed 
 princes traffic in the gold filched from the brown hand of toil; 
 not in the lordly mansion, the golden chariot, the uniformed at- 
 tendant, or the broad lands tilled by the groaning serfs, who 
 crouch at a master's frown; but in strong, noble, honest men, 
 pure, free and hajppy women, sweet, romping babes, on whose 
 cheek the rose of health dances in the sunlight of hope; in short, 
 in the intelligence, purity, industry and happiness of the peas- 
 antry. 
 
 By a judicious investment of the fortunes given to monopo- 
 lists, they own the lands, the great factories ancr the transport 
 lines, so that labor and men of sma.ll means, have no power or 
 liberty to reject the terms offered by these special wards of th-3 
 law passed by the power of their own cash. Though a com- 
 paratively few, by reason of government partnership, have pro- 
 cured a monopoly in all the chief industries, a,nd have used their 
 fabulous power to overwhelm American labor by a flood of the 
 cheap laborers from the decaying old dynasties of Central Eu- 
 rope, wages are rather better in America than in other coun- 
 tries, especially in those pursuits which are far removed from 
 the withering blight of "protectionism." 
 
 It has been to the interest of the cunning so far to give labor 
 and genius some scope. The "busy bee," in whose little form 
 instinct almost invades the realm of intelligence, never stings 
 the drone to death until the drone has done his work. The genius 
 and the toil of the present and the past have been reared the 
 palace of the Aristocracy of the future. As the work reaches 
 completion, the web is being woven around the unconscious 
 toiler, that he may be harmless when no longer needed. But 
 other influences have contributed so lavishly to the independence 
 and value of labor in America, that in spite of the growing power 
 of monopoly, the toiler has thus far received a reasonable share 
 of respect and pay for his efforts; and to these influences is labor 
 indebted for all of its apparent liberty and good wages. 
 
 But a few years ago our ancestors took this broa,d conti- 
 nent, fresh from the hands of God. There was not a track in 
 
141 
 
 the valley or a stump in the forests. The belts of fertile soil 
 were the most extensive, the mines the richest, the forests the 
 grandest, and all the needs and necessaries for a new age, were 
 scattered over the land with the most lavish hand, and with a 
 wealth and extent unknown to the ages tha,t sleep. None pos- 
 sessed, and smiling nature invited man to his best efforts. Men 
 are like their surroundings. Grand opportunities a,nd grand 
 hopes develop a grand manhood. We hasten to accept pleasing 
 invitations, and here all being flattered into the enjoyment of 
 new desires, pushed resolutely ahead to reap the rewards of in- 
 dustry. The grea,t mines were to be opened, the forests felled, 
 the billowy prairies to be fashioned into green gardens and golden 
 fields. Cottages, towns, cities and roads were to be built, for all 
 was raw material. This made a demand for labor. The hordes 
 from a,ll the lands of Europe came, but came to be provided with 
 homes, clothing and food. This, too, made a demand for labor. 
 There were mountains to be tunneled, canals to be dug and new 
 homes to be made toward the setting sun, and this drew strong, 
 active, courageous men away from the la,bor centers, from the 
 cities and towns, and left room for others; and this kept up the 
 demand for labor, and kept wages high. The boundless West, 
 with its fertile soil and sloping hills, was the dream of every 
 man of spirit of the more crowded Bast, and if times were dull, 
 or opportunities slack, the best blood moved toward the setting 
 sun, leaving room for those who might come after them. This 
 kept wages high. 
 
 If there was a strike, or lockout, a competition for work, the 
 labor market was soon unloaded of its surplus by a movement 
 to the West. Like a gla,cier that creeps down the valley, the 
 hordes of the East have over-run the West, as opportunities were 
 so inviting that few would submit to hardship or even to a dull- 
 ness of times, when such luring promises were held out in other 
 portions of our common land. In a single year thirty-two thousand 
 new homes have been made on the prairies of one territory. This 
 emptied the more densely populated country of its redundant 
 population, and left room for others to earn a livelihood in their 
 places. But this was not the whole extent of the influence. This 
 new community needed thirty-two thousand new houses, as many 
 plows, wagons, harrows and other utensils of agircultural pur- 
 
142 
 
 suits, and roads over which to haul the products. Think of the 
 activity needed to supply this new demand, and every one who 
 became busied by this movement left a place for another. This 
 has made a demand for labor and kept wages high. It is claimed 
 that nearly one hundred thousand new houses have been built 
 in a single year, in the last few years in this country. Think 
 of the number of men employed in this expansion. Our unoc- 
 cupied land, our undeveloped mines, our growing population, have 
 demanded an expansion, a creation of the new; and all this cre- 
 ation or expansion has withdrawn men from the labor centers, 
 or kept them from seeking employment there, and this ha^s kept 
 wages high, by keeping up the demand. Europe is grown, is 
 ripe, is finished, and only labors to supply daily wants and keep 
 up repairs; a few own the lands, the shops and the raw material. 
 The commonalty is down, with no opportunities but a contest 
 with those having the start. Wages must be low. In our country 
 we were expanding, creating the new, with a sparse population, 
 and a place for every man of energy to build for himself a fu- 
 ture, and up to quite recently, great mines and broad lands where 
 industry might clutch a fortune and vie with the world in luxury. 
 These conditions and opportunities made, or kept wages high, 
 by these new demands keeping pace with the labor supply. There 
 could be little distress, as long as there was no pressure of pop- 
 ulation, and little depression of wages until there was a sharp 
 competition for a privilege to toil. Until recently, a cross word 
 from the "boss," an unjust order from the "president," a tem- 
 porary lockout or suspension, or attempt at reduction, would im- 
 mediately empty the shop, mine or factory, because other fields 
 invited the independent toiler. 
 
 Now, let us stop this expansion, this creation of the new, 
 this preparing for the future, as effectually as it is checked in 
 Europe, and what would be the result? Roll back this grand 
 army of sappers and miners, these builders, these explorers, and 
 throw them into competition with the toilers in the older and 
 matured industries, and six months would find wages lower m 
 America than in any country of Europe, and an actual war for 
 bread. 
 
 The industrial development of a state depends upon the sup- 
 ply and accessibility of natural resources, the supply and intelli- 
 

 gence of labor and the demand or salability of the products. With 
 unlimited markets and intelligent labor, wages will depend upon 
 the material and its accessibility. With a very large class of 
 workers and no raw material, labor would starve. With little 
 raw material, difficult of access, requiring great capital, wages 
 must be low, as the competition among the toilers will be sharp. 
 If the material bears about a proper relation to labor, wages will 
 be fairly high and all the workers supplied. Now, with an un- 
 limited or developing market, with abundant and accessible raw 
 material, with a given umount of labor, wages will be high, and 
 thoughtful men will study and strive, and work the brain to in- 
 vent some means of saving the toil of these valuable men and 
 gathering a greater profit from these industries. Wages, then, 
 depends upon natural resources and market. In our country the 
 resources and raw material are most abundant; we have had ac- 
 cess to a limitless market and consequently, until recently, wages 
 have been good. Notwithstanding every possible influence has 
 contributed to increase the supply of labor; the cheap soil, newly 
 discovered mines, boundless forests and fabulous amounts of all 
 raw material, have kept busied all hands, a,t fair wages, and yet 
 our natural health is not half known. 
 
 But a change has come! and, though our exhaustless raw 
 material would busy the present population of the globe for a 
 thousand years, it is made inaccessible by reason of monopoly, 
 and labor starves, and liberty itself lives only in the happy mem- 
 ories of the past, or in blissful ignorance of the chains that it 
 so gracefully wears. 
 
 Not only is it true tha,t high wages are necessary for a coun- 
 try's advancement, but the social system is so sensitive tha,t the 
 evil effects of low or declining wages are immediately percepti- 
 ble wherever these conditions exist. Of course, high and low 
 wages are relative terms. Whatever the "wages" in dollars and 
 cents may be, wages may be said to be high when they bear such 
 a relation to the price of commodities, that an industrious and 
 economical laboring man may save from the fruits of his toil, 
 sufficient to provide a comfortable home, suitable food, clothing, 
 education, etc., for a family, with a sufficient surplus to insure 
 the necessities and comforts of age, to provide against the dan- 
 gers of sickness or other misfortune, and give such opportuni- 
 
 tl^A VSJ- O 
 
144 
 
 ties for moral and mental culture as the good of the state re- 
 quires that its citizens possess. And they are low whenever, or 
 wherever, this accumulative power of earnings is wanting. Mor- 
 ality and good citizenship rests upon the happiness of home, and 
 such happiness cannot exist where poverty sits so close to the 
 door that a few days of enforced idleness, sickness or misfor- 
 tune, brings the ghost of misery, and drives away every smile, 
 with a sigh of dread for the future. 
 
 Wages ha,ve been gradually sinking for fifteen years in the 
 United States. What are the results? The crimes that follow 
 in the wake of poverty, or fear of poverty, are alarming. Crime 
 is a disease, not of the individual, as many writers claim, .but of 
 society, a^nd these outbreaks are symptoms which show a pre- 
 vailing danger. A majority of the people must always toil, and 
 when they act from the desire to possess a home, and to make 
 that home happy, they are safe from the contaminating Allure- 
 ments of vice, as long as they see those desires being realized. 
 When the conditions promise these desired results, the evidence 
 of public prosperity and individual happiness is witnessed on 
 every hand. Then we see social purity, enterprise, happiness, 
 private virtue, morality and patriotism. But when men work 
 under the lash of necessity, with no means but muscle and in- 
 dustry, and see only health warding off the humiliating miseries 
 of poverty that stands not three days from the door, what must 
 be the results? A cloud hangs over every home of the poor, who 
 are always in the majority. Poverty breeds ignorance, and the 
 fear of poverty is the mother of the most lamentable vices and 
 shocking crimes, so frightfully prevalent today. Suicide, in- 
 fanticide, insanity, intemperance and prostitution are the symp- 
 toms by which the health of society may be judged. We may 
 place a school house at every cross-road, erect a church in every 
 community, inundate the country with temperance reformers, 
 endow homes for fallen women; but as long as the fear of pov- 
 erty checks marriage, and want and misery and fear of darker 
 evils, dwarf, torture and deform the mental faculties of the great 
 army of the poor, and those depending only upon physical or 
 mental effort for a livelihood, will the crimes and vices that break 
 out on the surfa.ce of society, mar our country with their fright- 
 ful ravages. The fear of want drives the mother to unspeakable 
 
145 
 
 crimes, the father to insanity or suicide, the daughter -to shame, 
 and the child to beggary or theft. It is safe to assert that we have 
 more ajarming evidences of social decadence than is shown in 
 any other Christian country. It may be said that these vices are 
 not confined to the poor. Granted. Vice is contagious; we are 
 moulded by our surroundings; try as we may, we cannot sever 
 the ties that bind us to our kind. The sacred cord touches all 
 hearts, a,nd the crime of one man or the fall of one woman shocks 
 the whole ocean of humanity. A few may remain pure amid 
 scenes of vice, but the man who can be happy amid scenes of 
 misery, has been imbruted by their influence. I want no heaven 
 with a consciousness that one soul is in hell. 
 
 For fifteen yea,rs wages have been lowering, and at every 
 downward turn we see tlfe maniac's glare, the ghastly suicide, the 
 prison gates opening; because at every downward turn the clouds 
 of despair hang more darkly, and gloom and discontent and mel- 
 ancholy feeds the bra,in with fiendish phantoms and drives mis- 
 ery to despair and crime. Notwithstanding our fabulous re- 
 sources, crimes and vices incident to idleness, and consequent 
 discontent and poverty, are startling the careful observer with 
 their frequency. Why? Because poverty and the fear of far 
 greater evils drive thousands to insane rashness. This train of 
 evils comes hand in hand with low wages, and shows a corrupt 
 and sickly social organization. I mean by wages, the part which 
 any producer of tangible wealth, with its relation to cost of liv- 
 ing, receives for the expenditure of his energies. 
 
 We are told that as wages are higher in the United States 
 an in other countries, our social difficulties must be attributed 
 to other causes. I answer that our wages a,re declining, while in 
 other countries they are rising. The conditions of others are im- 
 proving; ours are getting worse. Hope cheers the heart, and 
 leads men from idleness to industry; while despair drives them 
 to madness. The business man who sees by his ledger that his busi- 
 ness is improving, be it ever so slowly, carries a light hea,rt and 
 answers every wish of loved ones with an encouraging promise; 
 but if the ledger tells the tale of steady, constant loss and in- 
 evitable failure, his days are sad, his nights sleepless, and when 
 home calls for comforts, the rea.1 sorrows of his life begin. It 
 signifies nothing that labor in free, great America, with her 
 10- 
 
146 
 
 boundless resources, gets better pay than the depressed serfs of 
 decaying old Europe, where church, noble and aristocrat have 
 been robbing industry for two thousand years. Where labor has 
 produced such grand results, what a shame that it should be 
 sinking to the level of the proletariat of the Old World. Labor 
 is the mud-sill, the basis of society; and if the foundation is cor- 
 rupted or shattered, where is the safety for the fabric? A policy 
 that elevates the lowest man, elevates every man; and a policy 
 that destroys the pride, independence or manhood of one, poisons 
 the whole social system. Our complex civilization is ba,sed upon 
 mutual interdependence, and there is a co-relation of social forces 
 which always indicate the true condition of a people. 
 
 We occasionally see a gay, ha,ughty, wealthy and licentious 
 class, charming the world with its dazzling show, beneath which 
 boils, groans and clamors a despairing mass of almost helpless 
 humanity; but time fires the volcano and the palaces are shat- 
 tered, the wealthy suffer loss and the noble is brought to hiai 
 knees. The producer asks no charity, but demands justice; he 
 asks no favors, but demands equal opportunities; he asks no di- 
 vision of other's wealth, but demands free access to the natural 
 resources, which God ga t ve for the use of all. 
 
 The lowering of wages, the cheapening of men in America, 
 besides endangering liberty and our institutions, brings us face 
 to face with the greatest dangers that ever fed on tbfe vitals of 
 society, and the crimes and vices incident to decadence, are de- 
 stroying honesty, purity, virtue, home, ajid all that ennobles man- 
 hood. Enforced idleness, or the cheapening of men, it not the 
 SIGN of decadence, it IS decadence. Vanity never felt more se- 
 cure, and wealthy insolence was never more boastful, than in 
 Rome, when millions prowled the streets in idleness, and the hun- 
 gry mob was fed from the public purse; but the pride was soon 
 humbled a,nd the insolence curbed. It is praiseworthy to make 
 money, but it is damnable to unmake MEN, in making money. 
 If society is not directly to blame for the crimes, corruption and 
 suffering of today, there is such a failure of the social arrange- 
 ment as to demand a change. The profits of la,bor must be in- 
 creased or the social fabric falls. 
 
 Our soil is less than one-twentieth cultivated, our mines un- 
 explored, our native forces unutilized, and the most visionary 
 
147 
 
 er has never seen the tithe of our wonderful resources; 
 yet monopoly shadows the la,nd, and the law, having given the 
 keys of nature's treasure house to the cunning few, stands sen- 
 nel and drives industry to a compromise with soft-handed idle- 
 ess for permission to exist. This is the closing scene of the 
 rst act in the great drama, put upon the stage, when the skies 
 ere crimson from burning homes and the hills shook with the 
 a.nnon's boom and with dying groans. The bounties given 
 so la,vishly by a merciful God to His children, to cheer them for- 
 ward to a grander civilization than ever before existed, were 
 wrenched from the people, and given to the cunning, idle few, 
 by a government boasting of liberty. 
 
 The brain grows dull when muscle is cheap. Genius sleeps 
 when man toils under the lash of necessity. When man becomes 
 a suppliant, pride and manhood and patriotism and honor take 
 wings. Social progress is impossible, unless the builder of so- 
 ciety is respected, and he cannot be respected unless he is "valua- 
 le." Cheapening men, turns back the wheel of progress, de- 
 hrones brain, and inaugurates a rule of money and brute force, 
 o unma,n manhood, to stifle independence, and put the lower 
 millions on their knees, was the purpose of the conspirators; 
 and to cheapen toil by monopolizing all upon which the world 
 subsists, was the means adopted to carry out the plans. The reck- 
 less hand of the new American aristocracy, aided by the ruthless 
 hand of the la,w, has thus torn from, the honest brow of toil the 
 badge of progress. Look over the country, and behold the re- 
 tilts. Who lowers wages, lowers morals, patriotism, intelligence, 
 ublic and private virtue, puts the brakes upon the wheels of 
 rogress, and bran'ds the nation with shame. 
 
148 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 TRANSPORTATION. 
 
 [NOTHER feature of the progressive forces of develop- 
 ment has been wrested from its true province and is 
 being ma,de to contribute almost as much to the 
 building up of this moneyed despotism as any other 
 element in modern society; and that is the trans- 
 portation lines. With our advanced civilization, the 
 greater complexity of society and with increased de- 
 sires, produced by refined tastes, greater knowledge 
 of the world's luxuries and greater financial pros- 
 perity, the importance of transportation becomes 
 more stupendous. A rude people, wearing for cloth- 
 ing the skins of beasts, and using roots, plants and flesh for food, 
 satisfied with the products of their own community, would need 
 no railroads or steamships, and people who would follow the 
 teachings of some modern political philosophers, and "buy at 
 home and sell at home," would hardly need a skiff or ferry boat. 
 For four thousand years, no people have ever built a civilization 
 without the benefits of commerce, and no people ever wrote a 
 pa,ge of history, a poem or a drama, whose best genius was not 
 taxed in exploring the world of traffic. 
 
 The Phoenicians, Tyrians, Sidonians, Carthagenians, Greeks 
 and all ancient, as well as modern civilized people, who snatched 
 the sombre veil from dark old Asia a,nd barbarous Europe, hunt- 
 ed the metals, climbed the mountains, traversed the burning des- 
 erts, explored the seas and opened by force of argument or the 
 sword, a trade with the known world. A genius, awakened by 
 this spirit and experience gave us nearly ajl we know and more 
 has been lost than preserved of architecture, sculpture, poetry, 
 literature and oratory, and many of the most valuable discqv- 
 eries in science. This fiery genius, born of commerce, throws so 
 
149 
 
 azzling a picture on the history of the world a^ to almost ob- 
 ure all the past, and as it sank again under the iron heel of 
 
 ppression another cloud settled over the face of the land almost 
 obscuring the intellectual powers of man for more than a thou- 
 sand years longer; until a re-awakening of the commercial spirit 
 e at the call of the giant crusades. 
 We boast of the progress of our age, but we have flown on 
 
 he wings of trade, and modern commerce was born of necessity, 
 save the waste of newly discovered forces. Without the bulky 
 
 roducts of America, Europe would yet be struggling in her an- 
 cient garb. There would have been no railroads, no steam-ships, 
 no telegraphs or telephones; the population would have been 30% 
 
 ess than now; her cities would be dingy, her streets unpaved, 
 
 er people unfed and poorly clad, and to suppress a dangerous 
 discontent, her armies would have been cutting each other's 
 throats. It was not the torch of the Goddess of Liberty that 
 
 othed this misery, fed this hunger, a,nd dispelled the intellectual 
 darkness, but the bulky products of America, to whose thunder- 
 ing voice commerce awoke into new life and action. The mental, 
 physical and moral well-being of every people correspond ex- 
 actly with the degree of commerce of such nation. An exclusive 
 people, who "buy and sell at home," tolerate a. despotic govern- 
 ment; industry starves and obeys, while idleness lives in luxury 
 and rules; the "middle class" has disappeared; the "common 
 herd" are machines that are run for the benefit of the few; wages 
 are low, and the millions starve with a loyal economy, incon- 
 ceivable in the more active nations. Such nations have no out- 
 let a,s a rule for surplus population, no field for ambition, and 
 no hope for betterment. The taste must be narrowed down to 
 the limited products of the soil and climate of the locality; the 
 desires narrowed down to the tastes, and the manhood cramped 
 to the cruel conditions, from which there is no escape. On no one 
 spot of earth is there a, sufficient variety of soil, climate, products 
 
 nd animals to lift a people t6 a fair degree of civilization. That 
 why God banished our first parents from Eden, that necessity 
 might drive them to burst open the treasure-house of nature, 
 forge weapons from hard necessity, ajnd fight down the obstacles 
 of life, that the luxuries of other gardens might be enjoyed with 
 a keener relish. The first shrill blast from the stinging North, 
 
150 
 
 drove an idea through their plastic brains, and from that day 
 there has been an unconquerable longing in the human soul, to 
 know and see the world, and traffic with its inhabitants. As fear, 
 folly, despotism or monopoly has curbed this spirit, choked and 
 dwarfed this natural desire, has maji been chained to the hard 
 conditions of our first parents, in the narrow walls of ignorance, 
 slavery and superstition. 
 
 In the Europe of today, people are progressing or non-pro- 
 gressing, in the exact ratio with their external, or foreign tra,de. 
 Those who will not buy, cannot sell, and owing to sameness of 
 soil and climate in a limited territory, there is necessarily a small 
 variety of products and manhood develops a, physical and mental 
 type in harmony with its cramped and forced environment, and 
 gradually assumes a crystallized non-progressiveness. The bold 
 spirit of English commerce, which, with a single hand clutches 
 the Arctic seal a,nd the southern cocoa, the teas of China and the 
 coffees of Brazil, the shawls of Cashmere and the furs of Kam- 
 chatka; upon whose ports the sun never sets; upon whose flag 
 the shadow never falls; whose pulse never sinks, whose eye never 
 dims, and whose hopes never fade; is unifying the world, firing 
 the soul of humanity with her zeal, feeding hunger, clothing 
 wretchedness, striking the sha,ckles from slavery, and in another 
 century will give her language to the Christian world. In a pro- 
 gressive age or country and progression only means a reign of 
 uie old spirit of inquiry, the desire to see, explore and know the 
 world, to exchange sameness for variety and give the longing 
 heart the broadest scope permitted by the limits of our meagre 
 planet where the world is a competitor, commerce can only be 
 developed and extended by perfecting and cheapening the system 
 of transportation. 
 
 To the consumer, transportation is a part of the cost of pro- 
 duction. The original cost of finished articles, or articles so far 
 finished as to be ready for shipment and sale, being equal, the 
 ability of the producer to sell in the open market against all com- 
 petitors depends entirely on the cost of transportation. Rated 
 on an ad valorem basis, England has a cheaper system of tra,ns- 
 portation than any rival country if indeed, her cheap transporta- 
 tion and free trade ha,s not placed her beyond rivalry and she 
 utilizes her full capacity. She sends out finished goods to every 
 
CO 
 
 E 
 
 : 
 
 w 
 
 country and nation, whose freight per ton would be but a small 
 valorem cost; and as ballast, and returns cargoes, she loads 
 ith hea,vy coals, metals or coarse raw material for her ponder- 
 us mills. Then her system is as simply as it is cheap and profita- 
 le; giving the people the best, quickest, safest and cheapest 
 transit known to any nation or age. Other nations of Europe 
 carry both ways, on somewhat the same principle, and the freights 
 e but a small ad valorem tax on the goods shipped. 
 
 But to the point of our argument. The United States pro- 
 uced more of the coarse, cheap, hea,vy, bulky commodities than 
 y country. Our products, being cheap and cumbrous, 
 e per cent of their value or selling price which it costs to get 
 hem to market, is of the greatest importance, in fact, upon that 
 ne point rests our ability to compete with other countries for 
 ur proper share of the world's trade. Pull 95% in bulk and 
 eight, of all our domestic and export trade, consists in these 
 p, heavy products, on which a very few cents per ton freights 
 uld give us the first rank among nations, or drive us from the 
 eld of competitors. A careful consideration of these facts must 
 nvince the most obtuse of the overwhelming necessity, which 
 emands a system superior in every respect, to that of other peo- 
 les. Now, have we a, transportation system commensurate with 
 e demands of our times and necessities? The first enough t 
 prompted by this inquiry, is one of pride, as we immediately re- 
 ember that we have over one hundred and thirty-five thousand 
 iles of railroad, or more than half the railway mileage of the 
 orld; with the best roa,d-beds, best coaches, engines, shops, 
 depots, and general equipments in existence. They reach out 
 from all great centers to all parts of our common country, car- 
 rying the most fabulous amounts of freight. A casual observer 
 would declare that the spirit of progress had breathed a, burn- 
 ing enthusiasm into every soul of our nation and that American 
 commerce must eclipse the world in its magnitude. Yes, in spite 
 of obstacles and discouragements, the innate desire, the strong 
 necessity and natural propensity to trade and exchange, has 
 pushed these enterprises to a grandeur never dreamed of by any 
 preceding generation. As if commerce was a withering curse and 
 communication contaminating, the paid pleaders of monopoly 
 have never tired of denouncing the spirit of enterprise that ig- 
 
152 
 
 nores geographical lines, and have applauded the policy of isola- 
 tion that keeps our business in the one great family, or nation. 
 So persistent have these manifest follies been dinned into the 
 ears of the public, and so successful ha,ve been these teachers, 
 in binding their chariots to the cars of church and political par- 
 ties, that many people have yielded to the sophistry, whose rea- 
 son and interests revolted, and whose practices expose their in- 
 consistency. If the buy and sell at home policy was correct, the 
 persons who built a railroad should be blown to the moon and 
 the sailor should be sunk with his ship. But it is not correct, and 
 our people have practically renounced a policy, so at variance 
 with the spirit of the times; for in every part of the country, 
 while you will see hearted political campaigns carried on, with 
 the doctrine of "protection to American industry" as an issue, 
 you will see the most earnest supporters of this exclusive policy, 
 voting heavy subsidies for the building of a new railroad for some 
 eastern syndicate, as it promises him a means of breaking over 
 the walls which his political creed would rea,r, and give him an 
 outlet for his products. There has been a war of these social en- 
 ergies. Progress claimed the new field of America for her own, 
 but old centralism denied the validity of the title. Progress has 
 proven the stronger and clothed the land with a network of her 
 handiwork; but cunning guarded the cajnp, held the papers, gath- 
 ered the profits of the enterprise, and by intrigues, pools and com- 
 binations, have turned these grand instrumentalities of good into 
 instrumentalities of oppression. To strengthen these powers of 
 monopoly, our commercial marine was annihilated, and our whole 
 carrying tra.de turned over to rapacious England, as before re- 
 marked, and a grievous tax put upon all material entering in any 
 way into the construction of transport lines. 
 
 This heavy tribute levied on the iron, steel and other ma- 
 terials entering so largely into the construction of railroads and 
 their vast machinery, has been a stumbling block in the path of 
 many who were- willing to see the truth. They argue that, if pro- 
 tective laws were not for the benefit of the poor, or were the re- 
 sult of the influence of the wealthy, the railroad corporations 
 would defeat such legislation, a,s they are mostly affected by such 
 a policy. This view is altogether too narrow. It is easy to organ- 
 ize and maintain an understanding with a few. Combinations 
 
153 
 
 and pools can easily be arranged, when there are not too many 
 interested parties. It has proved a difficult task to oragnize 
 farmers, and laboring men only learned the lesson from neces- 
 sity. Now, if it requires great capital to build and equip rail- 
 roads, there will be fewer of them, thus less difficulty in effect- 
 ing pools and combinations, and stronger justification for asking 
 aid from government a,nd communities. Then, th greater cap- 
 ital needed for such enterprises, the more secure the monopoly, 
 and more profitable the business. No person, court, or legisla- 
 ture would ask a schedule of freights which would not yield a 
 fair profit on investment, so where capital was abundant, or 
 people ready to ma,ke it so by extravagant donations, the greater 
 the cost of the railroads, the more profitable the investments. 
 Great capital, too, would stand more "water" without exposing 
 its fluidity. 
 
 Expensive roa,ds, too, confined the giant powers of these cor- 
 porations to the small, aristocratic class, and what mattered it 
 what the transport lines cost, if congress would cede an empire 
 on which to build them, and take from the people's purse money 
 to pay the projectors to build themselves these grea,t lines on the 
 land so granted. To secure and perpetuate a monopoly, the build- 
 ing of railroads were made expensive, and a glamour thrown over 
 these enterprises that screened from public view the principles 
 upon which the plans a,nd works were carried out. Ignoring the 
 doctrine of "home markets," the public good demanded great 
 transportation lines, and the organized few of the upper class, 
 clutching most of the needed means from the public purse, have 
 erected for themselves the finest railroad system in the world. 
 The railroad system of our country, as an industri'al institution, 
 with its thundering trains, its levithan locomotives, its brilliant 
 equipages and wonderful capacity for good, must excite the 
 pride of every American, and the wonder and admiration of the 
 world. But these corporations ha,ve become masters, and people 
 no longer kneel to a despot because of his gorgeous uniform. 
 
 Granted, that we have an incomparable railroad system, 
 should we ask whether this magnificent system of the aristo- 
 cra,tic class which formed the great conspiracy for the subversion 
 of industrial liberty and imagination could not have pictured 
 grander results than have been, and are being realized. They 
 
154 
 
 have wonderfully assisted in the national development; but they 
 have shaped and controlled every force which they have fostered, 
 robbed every industry born of their enterprise, and appropriated 
 the profits of all the energies which they have awakened. Tha,t 
 their encroachments might find sanction in the law, they have 
 divided the spoils with congressmen, corrupted courts, bought 
 legislatures, given place to fawning politicians, carried elections 
 by fraud, bribery and intimidation, and cast public opinion in 
 golden dies. They have seduced the "people's servants" with 
 the cash wrenched from the people's toil. They stand at the head 
 of the small class, which annihilated the commercial marine, ex- 
 pelled the people's foreign customers, contrived the bonded debt, 
 grabbed the public lands, built up great factories, by the aid of 
 a tribute levied on the consumer, and loaned the surplus wealth, 
 taken from the people's earnings, to the western farmer, and cov- 
 ered the country with mortgages and tears. 
 
 Then our grand system of railroads in America, instead of 
 serving loyally, the best interests of the country, by giving cheap, 
 safe and impartial and equitable transportation, and helping 
 solve the problem of popular government, have become the most 
 formidable instrumentalities of oppression. By unjust rates they 
 impair our ability to compete in the world's markets; by discrim- 
 inating freights they build up a few men or places, at the expense 
 of many men and many places, destroying all stability in business, 
 subverting that equality ajnong all men, without which, democ- 
 racy is a farce, and corrupting public sentiment, thus undermin- 
 ing the fundamental strength of popular government. 
 
 Where is the substantial public virtue, which is the mainstay 
 of free government, when the community can read without a 
 shock, a,nd a storm of indignation, that, "Mr. Huntington con- 
 fesses that one item of expense in his railroad, amounting to 
 $2,000,000, was used in the lobby of congress?" When gigantic 
 crimes are crowned with the majesty of public applause, where 
 is the public sense of honor? Without a public conscience, where 
 is patriotism? With patriotism gone, who guards liberty? 
 
 There can be nothing more dangerous to politica.1 equality, 
 more destructive to the poor, more corrupting to the young, who 
 are often beguiled into splendid villainy, or more demoralizing, 
 degrading, or ruinous to that political party, which a "free bal- 
 
lot" was designed to protect and refine, than the meddling of 
 these moneyed corporations in loca,l, state and national politics. 
 There are near four hundred and fifty thousand persons employed 
 by railroad transport lines in this country. As a rule, they are 
 alert, active, intelligent, reliable, enthusiastic and obedient ser- 
 va,nts. They love the exciting life, and soon become wedded to 
 the general interest. No industry in America can furnish such 
 an army of intelligent workers, whose earnest energy would give 
 them such power. They mingle with the people, at depots, on 
 trains and in general business. They know the public senti- 
 ment, as they feel the public pulse. They are scattered over a 
 continent, in every locality, town, city, county a,nd state, thou- 
 sands of miles apart, yet are able to communicate as easily as 
 if face to face. These four hundred and fifty thousand people, 
 are the best pa,id laboring and business men in America, and are 
 trained to a devotion to corporate interest. They are honest and 
 true, and are encouraged into a feeling that each is a part of the 
 most useful and gra,nd industrial system on earth. These em- 
 ployes are expected, not only to perform well all the various busi- 
 ness duties assigned, but their influence, their sympathies, 
 their every effort, belongs to the corporation which they serve. 
 With the click of a battery, every agent, conductr, baggage-mas- 
 ter, brakema,n and shoveler is assigned to an additional duty, and 
 thousands or ten thousands are acting a,s one man, and building 
 the bridge on which a favorite of the corporation may cross from 
 obscurity to the "bench," to the legislature or to congress. 
 Through such a, faithful and alert agency, the corporation knows 
 every hope and fear, and personal measure for relief, and every 
 feeling of dicontent, and its depth and degree. 
 
 As "corporations have no souls," neither have they politics, 
 further than that all persons elected must be susceptible to the 
 force of "argument." In every election, especially legislative, 
 judiicial or congressional, you may see the work of a cunning 
 hand along all of the "great lines" of the country. It is "very 
 importani that county officers, and especially sheriffs, should be 
 in sympathy with the railroads and they usually are. The lead- 
 ing lawyers of all parties are in the constant employ of the cor- 
 porations. Reliable clickers are kept under pay or under obliga- 
 tions for seductive favors, in every county seat, who aje to know 
 
156 
 
 the feelings and sympathies of all men who are likely to be in- 
 duced to loiter around the court house when a railroad case is 
 coming on, that a jury, "good and true," may be found. The 
 little judge, who gravely scans the jury, was recently taken from 
 a small practice in a country town by a political caucus, with the 
 "station agent" as chief factor, and has in his pocket as elastic 
 as his conscience a "retainer" from every transportation cor- 
 poration in the state. He was elected by the people to deal out 
 impartial justice, without fear or "favor," and before he ta.kes 
 his seat he closes his conscience, opens his hand and take's a 
 "favor" from a party upon whose case he knows he will be eajled 
 to decide. 
 
 Unless driven to beggary, no honest man will accept a 
 "favor" which he ca,nnot, or does not expect to return. The pass 
 to the judge is meant as a bribe, as the giver has learned the 
 price of the man. Did the obscure lawyer, before he donned the 
 title which Story bore, when he was powerless to help or hurt 
 the corporations, wear passes in his pockets? The judge who 
 will accept a favor from a, party to a case on which he is to de- 
 cide, merits the contempt of all honest men, yet a vast majority 
 of the bench" carry these "favors," from parties, sure to come 
 "before them," parties, too, whose desires are diametrically an- 
 tagonistic to the interests of the people who ma,de a powerful 
 judge of a powerless lawyer. The law-making department is 
 fully as "handsomely" owned, and is as likely to "stay bought." 
 The corporation influence is felt in every convention, if not in 
 every "primary," and efforts made to secure the nomination of 
 men who will be "useful" to monopoly. In districts which are 
 close, a letter from a prominent personage, holding high rank in 
 railroad circles, to each candidate, expressing sentiments of 
 "esteem" and earnest hopes for success, is usually a very proper 
 thing, and a small contribution "quietly" made to each side is 
 a shrewd investment. Our political contests are bitter, the peo- 
 ple exhausting all means for the election of a favorite who is ex- 
 pected to sta.nd bravely by his duty and work for their interest, 
 and before the "condensed wisdom" of the state meets for the 
 "winter's entertainment," every "public servant" who goes to 
 "protect the interest" of the people in general, and his constitu- 
 ents in particular, has accepted a "favor," a value for which he 
 
157 
 
 has rendered no equivalent, and acknowledges obligations to the 
 great corporations, whose desires are enemies to the public good. 
 You say it is a custom and no wrong. I say it is the more mon- 
 strous ana dangerous because a custom. Where crime becomes 
 so common that it is excused or approved, we are certainly on 
 dangerous grounds, for despotism has always been the most suc- 
 cessful, when clad in kid gloves and a grin. 
 
 Riding recently on a western train, I saw sitting but a few 
 seats in front of me, a rustic looking gentleman, whose every 
 appearance showed him to be a man of small culture and little 
 experience. He wore a suit of *heavy, substantial clothes, and 
 "cowhide" boots. His long, leathery upper lip was clean shaven, 
 his face was rough and ruddy, his long hair was thick, strong 
 and crooked. His nose was an elongated pug, with a slightly 
 "partisan" tint and he wore a standing collar that disputed with 
 his long ears for position nearest the rim of an antique slouch 
 hat. He had boarded the train a,t a very small country town, and 
 had assumed an ease that would have betrayed the identity of 
 the road's president. 
 
 Soon the conductor entered the front door and reached for 
 "tickets." The rural gentleman hesitated, evidently waiting to 
 be passed by recognition, but failing to "impress," fumbled rather 
 savagely in his pockets and produced a "pass." "There," said 
 he, "will that answer?" The polite conductor tipped his hat with 
 an easy smile a^nd passed along. Coming to me, he turned toward 
 the "noted gentleman" and said: "Holy Moses! that fellow is 
 a law-maker. He was never on the train before, but being elect- 
 ed by the farmers to protect their interests, he became 'worth 
 looking after,' and he feels now as though he owned the roa,d. 
 There is," said he, "no question about his fighting monopolies. 
 Oh, no!" Now why do the railroads make haste to "compliment" 
 these political "accidents?" Did the same gentleman ever receive 
 such "marked attention" before? Corporations aje not run for 
 charitable purposes. They expect a good return for every dollar 
 invested, and rarely make a mistake. These gentlemen get pay 
 for their time and mileage for the distance traveled. The people 
 pay it, and where is the necessity for taking a fee from a system 
 of corporations that are bleeding every industry in the West, 
 
158 
 
 especially agriculture, and do it through the use of the "people's 
 servants?" 
 
 With charity for huma>n frailty, I confess an opinion that 
 most of these gentlemen are honest, but having accepted a favor, 
 are they free? If they will render no service for favors shown, 
 how can they afford to give their "railroad friends" the encour- 
 agement by accepting their "compliments?" Should one of these 
 law-makers Accept a hundred dollars from a corporation, the 
 evening before a "bill to regulate state commerce" was to be 
 called up, the whole state would howl with rage; but the fact 
 being known that nearly every member has accepted from ten 
 to a hundred dollars "worth of ride," or "compliments," there 
 is only a, secret feeling of passive contempt. 
 
 These same influences are used, and in much stronger de- 
 gree with congress, and in congressional elections. Monopoly has 
 no politics but success; and "money is no object," if it will se- 
 cure the election of a pliant tool for monopoly interest. In the 
 congressional elections of 1886 there was so little effort made to 
 conceal the lavish use of money that the managers of that branch 
 of the campaign service were almost insolent in the confidence 
 of victory often vaguely intimating the basis of their calcula- 
 tions. In several western states, and notably in Iowa,, it is well 
 known who gave and took corporation cash for political corrup- 
 tion, when, where, and how much was used and just for whalj 
 purpose . Party cut no figure. The politics, the religion and mor- 
 ality of monopoly is success. 
 
 Both houses of congress a,re full of monopoly representatives, 
 whose duties are specialized, and the shrewd millionaire in the 
 lobby is standing guard, to see that his property stays bought. As 
 it has never been definitely ascertained just what degree of out- 
 rage the people would submit to, if perpetrated under forms of 
 law, congress has been patiently experimenting, and time may 
 prove that their precaution has kept a great many dollars from 
 the monopolists. 
 
 If it were a fiction, how strange it would sound to say that 
 in a great western state, which ha,d been fleeced throtfgh subsi- 
 dies, poolings, discriminations and a vicious system of rebates 
 and favoritisms, a gentleman who had accumulated a great for- 
 tune through these corporation agencies, who had been a "promi- 
 
159 
 
 nent factor" in the politics of his state, now proposed to mount 
 his million and by the majesty of its mystic power ride into the 
 United States senate, as "representative" of a people whom he 
 had helped to rob. Hearing such a story, I asked the relator 4 
 what were the qualifications of the aspiring gentleman, and why 
 he desired to go to the senate. "Qualifications!" said he in sur- 
 prise, "why, he is worth a cool million, and what is more potent 
 in politics than a million dollars?" Alas, I know not, unless it 
 be several million! Think of the seats of Clay a,nd Webster and 
 Benton and Calhoun "knocked down" to the highest bidder. The 
 Pretorian guard sold the "purple" of Rome, but how long would 
 Caesar have lived in history, had he bought his laurel crown from 
 a flower girl, instead of winning it in a thousand battles? Can 
 the hand of avarice, that clutches, by Devious means, a million, 
 coin its gains into wings and fly to honor's throne? If the rail- 
 road shoveler, driven to want, from four week's enforced idle- 
 ness, steals a, loaf of bread to keep the glassy eyes of want from 
 haunting him, the "strong hand of the law" grasps him by the 
 collar and drags him to a dismal jail; but if the railroad president, 
 carried to opportunities by ten years' pala,ce car junketing, robs 
 the people who entertain him, of a million, a, strong party will 
 lay hold of the happy occasion, and send him to the United 
 States senate. There is said to be fifty millionaires in the sen- 
 ate. How did they get there? How ma,ny great men are there? 
 How many are there who do not owe their elevation to wealth, 
 to the efficacy of "boodle?" 
 
 The constitution contemplated that the senate represent the 
 sovereign states; but it has become to represent the "sovereign" 
 corporations. The first inquiry, on learning of tKe election of 
 a new senator, is, how he made his "millions?" If we a,re in- 
 formed that he is not worth a million, we sneer at a state for 
 electing so cheap a legislator. 
 
 We see a great senator, whose loyalty to class interests ha,d 
 never been questioned by the most suspicious corporation agent, 
 and the appreciation of whose services to his wealthy clients is 
 proven by his swollen purse, champion for three months in the 
 six years' term, the cause of his "constituents," that he may be 
 "returned" to ma,ke merchandise of their interest an*d bask in 
 
 smiles of Washington's fair society. We see him enriched 
 
160 
 
 by corporations which, by his aid, had robbed his slate. We see 
 him take sides on a great question in which the demands of the 
 corporations a,re opposed to the public good, and making a 
 ''school house campaign" in the interests, not of his constituents, 
 but of his clients the corporations. We see the people reject his 
 superfluous advice, condemn at the ballot box his teachings, and 
 stamp his political course with a seal of condemnation. 
 
 But with a charming ajacrity and & willingness to "sacrifice" 
 another six years in the "service of the people," he grasps the 
 anti-monopoly colors and swears that the opposition to corpora- 
 tion abuses had always been a cardinajl principle in his political 
 laith. Then we see him return to the capital, arise majectically 
 from his seat, and, by "unanimous consent," proceed to excoriate 
 the monopolists for their cruel and unjustifiable "extortions," 
 practiced on his people. How the fiends of hell must have burst 
 with glee and shook the throne of hades with boisterous ap- 
 plause, to behold the great railroad lobbyists looking down from 
 the gorgeous senate galleries and see them chuckle over the 
 "crocodile tears," which drenched the "manly cheeks" of the 
 grea,t senator, as with a Mehodistic voice he exhibited true pic- 
 tures of corporate oppression, prepared for him at a previous 
 "conference." What a brilliant scene for the western granger, 
 crushed by heavy freights, could he have stood behind the cur- 
 tains and witnessed the ceremonies of that "conference," between 
 the courtiers of the American aristocracy a,nd the sworn repre- 
 sentative of his state. How his heart would glow with honest 
 patriotism, to see from his hiding place the king of the lobby, 
 gracefully waving a wine glass in his left hand, approach hit be- 
 loved senator, and eloquently address him thus: "Mr Senator, 
 something must be done or you are going to be beaten. Your 
 people out there on the prairies are getting sharp. We have pre- 
 pared a bill which you must offer tomorrow, prefacing it with a 
 bitter speech against us. You must shame Niobe with your tears 
 and lago in dissembling. We will a.11 be in the gallery, and you 
 must give us h 1. It is the only thing that will save you." How 
 the granger's heart would warm with love for "representative 
 government." How he would bow adorations to the champions 
 of right. Leaving Washington with deep disgust, imagine his 
 surprise on reaching his western home, to see all of his pa,rty 
 
161 
 
 papers, "big and little," good, bad and indifferent, parading the 
 great speech and lauding the great senator, as the bold champion 
 of the people's rights and urging his re-election in the interest 
 of reform. Wha,t a solemn mockery, and yet how indifferent 
 seem the people to these shocking inconsistencies. It seems im- 
 possible that intelligent men could view without alarm these ten- 
 dencies, fraught with such dangers to liberty. Must we believe 
 in matters of so great moment that: 
 
 'Vice is a monster of so dreadful mien 
 As to be hated, needs but to be seen; 
 But seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
 We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 
 
 What sa,dder thought than that political vices have become 
 so common as to excite no criticism and no aversion, but rather 
 to charm by the magnitude of their audacity. 
 
 In what country or age but ours, could the following dispatch 
 received, without exciting a feeling of surprise and indigna- 
 
 
 New York, Jan. 7. A Washington special to the News says: 
 "It is hinted that the names of the congressmen holding 'calls' on 
 Union Pacific will soon be published, and there is much alarm 
 in certain circles. It is rumored that over $2,000,000 can bel 
 traced to members as having been paid by the railroad to secure 
 the passage of the funding bill. One congressman is said to have 
 received $250,000. The lobbyist, Sherrill, paid out over $500,000 
 the week before he died." 
 
 Beyond the hope of a few, that friends have not lost an "op- 
 portunity" or been ca,ught, the dispatch excites no comment, cre- 
 ates no surprise, and is less a subject of remark, than a hammer- 
 ing match between two bullies, or the leap of a dunce from 
 Brooklyn bridge. In the better days of the republic such a re- 
 port would have shocked the whole country, and aroused the very 
 children with a, feeling of hatred and contempt. Shall we say 
 that the people are indifferent, or that the public morals have be- 
 come harmonized with elevated modern social and political prac- 
 tices? 
 
 What could more rapidly drive sensible men into disgust and 
 
162 
 
 contempt for politics, and finally to a lack of confidence in popu- 
 lar government and respect for institutions, than tlie recent 
 shameful squabbles in the legislatures of Ohio, New Jersey, In- 
 diana, Nebraska and other states, over the election of United 
 States senators? The fact is patent to all, that if there was no 
 money in these games there would be no such scramble. None 
 doubt that corporation cash is the basis of these disgusting 
 scenes. The monopoly agents are determined to drive honest 
 men out of politics, to degrade the voter to a political chattel a,nd 
 gratify the aspirations, only of the very wealthy, or those who 
 will serve them. Think of a man representing the "interest of a 
 sta,te," whose seat was bought with the cash wrenched by corpor- 
 ate greed from his constituents. And yet, so corrupt have become 
 the times, so indifferent has become the public, that a senator 
 wears the stamp of pribery, as the laurels of a "political victory," 
 and as gracefully a a preacher wears his robes. 
 
 The United States senate, the "House of Millionaires," h^s 
 become the stay and prop, the very spine of the great corpora- 
 tions, and as the transportation corporations are the most 
 wealthy a,nd best organized, they have gained a wonderful hold 
 on the country by controlling this branch of the national leg-* 
 islature. Richelieu was never more skilled in intrigue and finesse 
 than these haughty patricians. The people are patient and credu- 
 lous, but intolerable avarice and insolence have aroused the public 
 inquiry, and obedience to politicl teachers is no longer lauded 
 as a saving virtue. The leaders have sought to conciliate the 
 masses and soothe their discontents by appeals to pride of na,- 
 tional progress. But the wrongs have become so gigantic, and 
 lamentable effects are so easily traced to their manifest causes, 
 that a, spirit of inquiry has arisen, demanding a reversal of the 
 policy as a remedy for existing evils. For years the public mind 
 has been fed on the pride of national expansion, a prejudice of 
 the commercial spirit of other countries, and a hatred of the South 
 tnat begged for mercy and returned to its allegiance more than 
 twenty years ago. But the songs are old, the yoke heavy, and 
 the people have discovered that the music was but the lullaby of 
 a deceiver, and the burden, a tyrant's scourge. 
 
 But the ma.sk has been rent, and the people begin to see that 
 they have been hoodwinked by a horde of designing sycophants, 
 
163- 
 
 who had quieted their apprehension by appeals to pride or preju- 
 dice, that they might safely rob them. But the workers in every 
 section are arousing. 
 
 The clans are being marshalled against a common foe. The 
 cry of the "paupers" of Europe, or the payment of the rebel debt, 
 or the pensioning of rebel soldiers, or the re-enslavement of the 
 blacks, or the dangers from "rebel brigadiers," no longer fright- 
 ens the people, and the awakening of the great masses, ha,s 
 thoroughly alarmed the "house of millionaires," who see the cause 
 of their clients endangered. Investigation means ruin, and the 
 attention of these "meddlesome masses" must be diverted. This 
 dangerous current of public opinion must be changed. Wha,t can 
 be done? 
 
 The usurping Henry, who had climbed to the throne upon the 
 backs of ambitious nobles, whom he afterwards killed, in warning 
 the younger Harry, who was about to assume the burdens of 
 rule, said of the dangerous influences he had found, and the ma^n- 
 ner in which he had disposed of them: 
 
 "By whose fell working I was first advanced, 
 And by whose powers I might well lodge a fear 
 To be again displaced; which to avoid, 
 I cut them off; and had a, purpose now 
 To lead out many to the Holy Land; 
 Lest rest, and lying still, might make them look 
 Too near into my state. Therefore, my Harry, 
 Be it thy course to busy giddy minds 
 With foreign quarrels; that action hence born out, 
 May waste the memories of the former days." 
 
 Ah, haj>py thought. Thanks, immortal Shakespeare. How 
 to "busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels," to divert public 
 attention from domestic wrongs, lest "rest and lying still" would 
 allow the people to demand justice from this oppressive system, 
 this small squad of railroad attorneys, in the United States sen- 
 ate, have determined to arouse a public feeling agajnst Canada. 
 What an audacious insult to the American people, when demand- 
 ing redress for the most grievous wrongs, to have the bosses ot 
 the masses and the tools of monopoly point to Canada,, and try 
 
164 
 
 to "sic" on the American people as they would hiss a cur on a 
 rat. When other interests intervene, and these sophists demand 
 a war and the annexation of Canada, how readily they threw 
 overboard the hypocrisy about "free trade," with that country 
 ruining American industry. But the people want peace, and to 
 be secured in the suits of their industries, and not war with the 
 waste a,nd destruction of the products of industry. The whole 
 clamor about probable war with Canada, has no other purpose 
 than to divert public attention from domestic oppression, and 
 every man who encourages such a controversy, is a traitor to 
 his country's best interests. 
 
 But these demagogues incorrectly estimate the earnestness 
 of the people. The poor man, the laboring man, the farmers 
 a,nd the producers must always furnish the corpses, the graves, 
 the widows and orphans, the cripples and prisoners of every war, 
 and they are not going to leave their war against corporation 
 oppression, and "fall in" at the bugle call of the oppressor, to 
 shoot, and kill, a,nd rob and impoverish their brethren, who are 
 struggling against the same class oppression, on account of a 
 misunderstanding about a little fish bait. 
 
 The present effort to start a game of cut-throat between the 
 producers of the United States ajid Canada, for the amusement 
 and profit of corporate greed, will fail; for there is Mexico, Cuba 
 and the Southern canal to quarrel about, and Cana'da will remain 
 handy for occasions that others might not give. The people 
 must stand on guard. When monopoly smiles, feel for your purse; 
 when the -house of "lords" talks about "national honor," na- 
 tional manhood is going to be robbed. 
 
 Let us not be deceived. We will hear many rumors of pros- 
 pective wars; but the buzzards will starve if they wait for the 
 carcasses of the gentlemen who prate so eloquently of a national 
 honor. It would be a rich man's war, but a poor man's fight. 
 But let us not be deceived; monopoly would take a father from 
 every home, a son from every family and drench every field with 
 blood rather than have the public look too closely into its tyr- 
 annous rule. 
 
 Why should the young men, who are full of hope for the 
 future, and the poor, whose best efforts are needed at home, want 
 to go and butcher, murder, and destroy the same class of their 
 
165 
 
 brethren in Canada? How disgustingly idiotic such a proposition 
 is. The people feel the weight of a, terrible oppression, and when 
 they demand a remedy, the oppressor points to Canada, and says, 
 "Yes, things are in a bad shape; go and whip Canada" which 
 only mea,ns, "Go, you grumblers, and be shot." 
 
 Tear down the barbarous custom houses and let the peo- 
 ple trade like Christians or intelligent Pagans and this whole 
 fish controversy will be settled and Canada will be one of the 
 United States in less than five yea,rs. 
 
 Because these vast corporations reach the people more di- 
 rectly and affect their interests more immediately, and because 
 of an augmented power given by the recognized necessity of their 
 existence, they have been and a,re used as the most powerful in- 
 strumentalities for centralizing purposes; not only in gathering 
 to one common center the profits of industry, but in moulding 
 public opinion to the new purposes of the avaricious. "Eternal 
 vigilance is the price of liberty," and every patriot should be on 
 guard. 
 
166 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 TRANSPORTATION CONTINUED HOW THE SYSTEM IS 
 SHAPING CIVILIZATION. 
 
 fo EDUCATED foreigners, our country is one of mar- 
 velous beauty, full of the most charming and inex- 
 plicable contradictions and inconsistencies. They are 
 captivated with the dazzling splendor of Washington; 
 pay knee homage to the money kings of Wall street; 
 are astonished at the world's modern marvel, Chi- 
 cago; gaze admiringly on the mammoth factories, 
 shops, railroads, stupendous public a,nd private enter- 
 prises, which are the wonders of all the ages; and 
 with a hesitating perplexity they conclude that genius 
 was new crowned in America, with the mightiest 
 achievements of the human brain. Reared in a la,nd of slow 
 growing certainties, they examine history, phenomena, men and 
 conditions, from a practical and elevated standpoint. However 
 much they have rea,d they are astonished at our boundless re- 
 sources and the rapidity with which we have utilized the great 
 forces of nature. To them, we are a curious people, our conduct 
 is a riddle, sealed from solving, but tempting in its seeming sim- 
 plicity. In Europe they see great fortunes, but they are the 
 growth of generations, and their possessors, having worn their 
 ease so long a.nd gracefully, have become dignified, retiring, con- 
 servative gentlemen. In America they see more stupendous for- 
 tunes than ever blessed or cursed a European monarchy, spring 
 into existence in a single age. They see a ragged boy, whipped 
 into a devious path by biting necessity, grasp a kingly fortune 
 and kingly power, before gray hairs admonish him that the love 
 which fortune bribes is the honor which virtue abhors. They 
 are surprised that cunning has such power, where education and 
 shrewdness are the rule, and that idleness gathers so much ofl 
 

 167 
 
 the weaun where intelligent industry struggles without reward. 
 
 There is nothing, however, so puzzles the stranger, as the 
 seeming tendency of our people to gather or Accumulate in the 
 great cities. In other lands the wealthy enjoy the quiet rural 
 homes, and notwithstanding the despotic landlord system, the 
 country does not lose its inhabitants faster than they are driven 
 from the soil, that the lord's pasture, farm or pa,rk may be en- 
 larged. 
 
 In the United States, the rural districts, in all directions and 
 in all the states, are being drained of their best blood, most 
 promising talent, and the great central cities are being swelled 
 to marvelous proportions, and with a rapidity which may justly 
 excite our wonder if not our alarm. 
 
 Less than one hundred years ago, but three and a hajf of 
 every hundred of the population in the United States lived in 
 cities; while now about twenty-four, or nearly one-fourth, live 
 in the cities, making a change from one-thirtieth to one-fourth 
 in less than a century. The modern man seems to prefer the as- 
 socia,tion of his fellows to a communion with God and nature. 
 Notwithstanding until recently our abundant and cheap vacant 
 land, the cities are increasing out of all proportion to the rural 
 districts, and the few great centers are gathering from both coun- 
 try a,nd town. Though the population is rapidly increasing and 
 there are new and strained demands for homes, farms and prop- 
 erty in small towns, even in the growing West, are largely de- 
 preciating in value. The few great cities which are the recep- 
 tacles of the shifting, moving hordes, present a strange specta.de. 
 There are found the most fabulous fortunes and the most abject 
 poverty; with mad activity and stupid indolence, jostling each 
 other in the busy streets. There is rich idleness and starving 
 industry, the haughty millionaire and the paje beggar. There are 
 swarms of fortune-seekers, adventurers, thieves and cut-throats. 
 The nervous, ambitions, discontented men of real ability, driven 
 into bankruptcy in other localities, and who seek for some hoped- 
 for, but long deferred, opportunity to regain a fortune in a 
 single deaj, form a prominent feature in this motley mass. The 
 idle and the vicious, to hide from the world, or the officers of the 
 law, congregate in these pools, where vice and impurity so closely 
 blend that publicity is the greatest secrecy, and mingling with 
 
168 
 
 the mob the best safety from detection. All who seek labor or a 
 means to escape from it; those who court care and activity, or to 
 drown one and shun the other, float to the city. The "unlucky" 
 grain or stock dealer of the country, having nabbed the luring 
 bait on "option," loses all and rushes to the great city to retrieve 
 a fortune where he lost it. The country merchant, having for a 
 time prospered, sees a rival make a, "pile" by games of chance, 
 stakes his means, loses, and being "broken," rushes to the great 
 city, where all play and few win. The bright, active young man 
 of the farm, seeing his calling unprofitable and dishonored, leaves 
 the "old folks" and casts his fortunes in the busy, bustling, wicked 
 city. 
 
 Not only are the rural districts rotting by this frightful ex- 
 odus, but thousands of smaller towns are shabby, retrograding 
 and decaying. They see strikes, and riots, a^id seditious plots in 
 these seething centers, as deep and dangerous as disturb the 
 thrones of the Old World, and hear ominous whisperings 
 among the lowly, struggling, laboring and idle, vicious and vir- 
 tuous millions, against the oppression of moneyed despotism. 
 They are greatly puzzled that people congregate in the dangerous 
 centers from so beautiful and sparsely settled a country where 
 there appears to be such promising opportunities. In the Ameri- 
 can nature there is a seeming paradox. While we surrender '-he 
 seas and the daring enterprises of the world's commerce ana in- 
 dustriously cultivate the arts of peace, our critics are forced to 
 the belief that our people are ambitious, discontented, brilliant 
 adventurers, who "make or break" in a week, consume a century 
 in forty years, and prefer to live one night in brilliant despair 
 to a year in quiet peace and plenty. They conclude that we are, 
 as a race, in a transitionary state, that we have not assumed a 
 national type a,nd, therefore, there is no stability or harmony in 
 our traits or sentiments; they conclude, too, that a national type 
 must evolve from an amalgamation of all the European charac- 
 teristics, tha,t from the heterogeneous must come the homogen- 
 eous; that nature in hurrying that process has developed these 
 peculiar phrases in our society. They claim that the natural ten- 
 dency to desert the rural districts and the small towns, and con- 
 gregate in the great cities, is so strong a^s to almost become a 
 universal desire; and reasoning from such a standpoint, they are 
 
169 
 
 3ry doubtful about the stability of our government. They see 
 in these turbulent centers, conspiracies and riots, assassinations, 
 seditions and bomb-shells; and return to monarchy with greater 
 loyalty and a deeper feeling of security. Now our reviewers are 
 correct, except in the causes to which they assign this strange con- 
 dition. They see us as we are today, but have not examined the 
 causes which led to present results. 
 
 I assert, tha,t the quiet, insinuating influence which is mould- 
 ing taste, interest, desire and sentiment; changing our civiliza- 
 tion in every form and feature, eradicating our traditionary love 
 for the domestic hearth and the rural home; drawing people from 
 the happy village and thriving town, is the all-powerful, isse- 
 sistible transportation lines. Type and character assume an ex- 
 act harmony with the pursuits of a people. Transportation is a 
 part of the cost of production, and in so extensive a, country as 
 ours, with products so cheap and cumbrous, and distance of ship- 
 ment so great, it becomes a very important part of such cost. If 
 pursuits develop type and character, the peculiar phases of any 
 pursuit of greatest complexity will leave the strongest impress 
 upon the society being operated upon. Then, too, the influence 
 of the active, the organized, the busy, is more immediately felt 
 than that of the slow, or more conservative. The agriculturist 
 and the villager, mingling less with the world, with little union 
 of feeling or action, constitute the conservative masses; while 
 the active, traveling, trading transporters, etc., give a tone to the 
 whole of society corresponding to the importance of the pursuits 
 and the numbers, wealth, activity, and intelligence of the op- 
 erators. The whole power of such organization can be thrown 
 in one or any direction, and the whole social force utilized. 
 
 If the subject of transportation is not on the minds of more 
 people, than other questions, it is more intense on the fewer! 
 minds, and its influence more active and aggressive. In the evo- 
 lution of thought, then, these active forces leave an impress in 
 proportion to their energies. Thus the subject uppermost in the 
 common mind, of course, has a bearing at every fireside, so that 
 railroad, transportation, corporation, etc., are familiar topics 
 among all classes, and have become a part of the public thought 
 and action. 
 
 Our railroad system has been built largely by grants, gifts, 
 
170 
 
 private donations and subsidies, from corporations and munici- 
 palities. Their powers are co-extensive with the necessities of 
 society which patronize them. They have used that power as 
 monarchs do for self-aggrandizement. In politics, they have ex- 
 erted an influence, proportioned to their cunning and their cap- 
 ital. They have owned the powers behind congress the lobby 
 they ha,ve suborned courts, bribed politicians, and purchased or 
 forced voters to support parties whose leaders they own. They 
 have opened all channels of trade to a few great cities, in which 
 stockholders or officers are interested; they have crushed small 
 towns by unjust and unjustifiable discriminations; they have 
 fa,vored cities of their own building and forced their growth by 
 a course of vicious rebates. They have given special favors to a 
 few places at long intervals, that a great trade on long hauls 
 might be enjoyed, and to enrich the investors of such cities who 
 ha,ve aided in these schemes. By a system of poolings in earn- 
 ings, they could ruin or build a city wherever they saw fit. In 
 this manner they have crushed smaller midway towns, driven 
 active business men to larger cities or bankruptcy, while the in- 
 dustries along the route have been changed or paralyzed. 
 
 By special favors, in the interest of heavy shippers, thou- 
 sands of small dealers have been pushed from business, giving 
 the rich, or extensive operators a greater advantage, and the 
 people a smaller number of buyers for their products. These dis- 
 appointed, or failing business men, have gone to the great centers, 
 almost in despair, and cast their lots in the great ocean of strife 
 and contention. Mines a,nd factories, too, that use but a few 
 cars, can rarely get them, even at greater prices, so that these in- 
 dustries are closed, men thrown out of employment to seek for 
 a livelihood in greater centers, giving the great operators a 
 stronger monopoly, and forcing men into a fiercer competition, 
 widening the gaj) between the rich and the poor. With no ex- 
 cuse but selfish greed, these transport lines have levied so heavy 
 a freight charge on the products of the West, reducing the profits 
 to so small a margin that the young, active and ambitious farmer 
 hastens to join the great a,rmy of homeless adventurers who "take 
 the road" or rush to the great centers to watch a chance for sud- 
 den fortune. There is no compromise on a division of profits, on 
 production, but the monopolists leave just sufficient to keep the 
 
m 
 
 ! 
 
 171 
 
 ork of production going. While the farms, mines and other 
 industries strive to live, the export lines that could not exist a 
 moment without them, heap up the millions and declare high divi- 
 
 ;3nds on 100% of "watered stock." The class who keep the lines 
 inning are gradually succumbing to overwhelming hardships, 
 ith cheap furniture, shabby clothes, wives and children poorly 
 ^rovided for; and while the very lives of all old enough to work 
 are being coined into cash, for ta,x and interest, the great railroad 
 kings and their opulent companions speed through the blighted 
 land at fifty miles an hour, in princely palace cars, and as they 
 sip their wine from their elegant diner, they look through the 
 pane and behold their patient slaves toiling for their good. These 
 sights of luxurious idleness, fan the discontent of the spiriteu 
 young man who tills the fields; it makes his lot seem dull, profit- 
 less and dreary, and as he watches the vanishing train, he breaks 
 the chain that ha,s bound him to the soil, and resolves to cast 
 his fortune with the great herd of adventurers in a different field 
 f strife. The fabulous fortunes so rapidly acquired, the honor 
 hat riches bring, the haughty airs of moneyed insolence, all con- 
 spire to fire the soul with a passion of ruinous discontent. This 
 restless feeling, this longing to try a ga,me in the bustling world, 
 tins insane love for the dazzling splendor of higher life, permeates 
 and fashions every grade and circle of society, from the palace 
 to the hovel. As all the little boys ape the clown and tell his 
 jokes, so thousands of older boys would sacrifice love, virtue ajid 
 manhood to ape Gould or Vanderbilt. For every man who ever 
 made a million by craft, ten thousand have perished in misery, 
 because lured into an attempt to imitate the example. The influ- 
 ence of these princely transport monopolies is more dangerous to 
 public morals and private contentment, than any other, because 
 they pass every man's door and bring to his mind the contract 
 between crafty idleness and honest industry. 
 
 Of all devices entering into the schemes of the cunning to 
 centralize all power and wealth, to wipe out the great middle 
 class, to monopolize the land and trade, to reduce the farmers to 
 a condition of tenantry and finally to abolish constitutional lim- 
 itations, subvert liberty and erect on the ruins of the republic, an 
 aristocracy or monarchy, none have been more potent than the 
 
172 
 
 despotic exercise of the powers which wealth and organization 
 give these great transportation corporations. 
 
 It is this influence which is changing the face of our civiliza- 
 tion, blighting the ruraj districts, debauching the public morals 
 and building great festering, discontented and seditious cities, 
 where hate and treason will find so rich a soil, that bombs and 
 bayonets will grow in every basement and dingy tenement house, 
 and despair will arouse and rend the nation, or lazily sink into 
 helpless obedience and ask a "stronger government," that mis- 
 erable life may be more secure. 
 
173 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE DEMANDS OF THE HOUR. 
 
 HAVE briefly outlined the paths by which monopoly 
 has traveled and established the limits of its domin- 
 ion, which are co-equa,l with the limits of the gn.at 
 republic, and from this point in our meanderings, let 
 us calmly contemplate the present and the future, ard 
 see how much of liberty of action and opportunity 
 for life is left for this and the coming generations. 
 We are confronted by the gravest questions that ever 
 demanded solution by any a,ge. Our generation has 
 surrendered more of its inherent rights, more of the 
 advantages of progress, more tha,t sustains pride of 
 race and national character, than was ever wrenched from any 
 people by the strong ha,nd of armed power; and if he would 
 rescue a portion of wha,t has been lost, or save a portion that 
 remains, brave, prompt and energetic action is required. We 
 have reached a crisis in the progressive development of the world, 
 and apathy means ruin. The successful development of America, 
 las given Europe her present civilization. Commerce, navigation 
 and statecraft have changed and Advanced. Population and in- 
 telligence among the masses, has leaped forward a thousand years 
 in less tha,n a century. The bold, ambitious, adventurous spirits 
 have aroused the effete monarchies of the Old World. From the 
 palace to the hovel the people of Christendom have better clothes 
 and better food. A great stimulus has been given to industry, to 
 thought, to genius. But for the bulky products of the American 
 farm, there would yet have been no great railroad or steamship 
 lines; a,nd other improvements that today are necessities, would 
 have slept in the secret closet of nature for ages to come. Great 
 room, great opportunities and great profits drew from all Europe 
 her industry, patience, energy, muscle and brain, and leaving 
 
174- 
 
 places to be filled, awoke a,n activity in these far-off lands, never 
 felt since the breaking up of the empire of Charlemagne. 
 
 Higher wages fired the soul of genius, and the whole power 
 of the human intellect has been exerted in advancing the ulitarian 
 age. Labor-saving machinery has revolutionized the industry of 
 the world. Cheaper and better food and clothing have greatly 
 lengthened the average life and increased the number of births, 
 thus giving a new impetus to increase of population. Millions 
 of hardy a,s well as poor and worthless have come to America, 
 and cheapening the food and bread supply of the Old World have 
 accelerated the population of those countries that more might 
 follow. American influence, through her products, is unifying 
 the human race, and soon it may truly be said that a,ll men are 
 cf one kindred and one blood. We send cheap bread to Europe, 
 accelerate population, so that a new pressure empties the surplus 
 on our own shores, the fruit of our own peculiar sowing. Then 
 America, that has been over-run by Europeans, has vastly in- 
 creased the procreative powers of Europe, and we have given 
 room for the offspring of these complex forces. 
 
 There is an iron chain of destiny, stronger than kings or/ 
 congresses, that moulds and shapes the thoughts and actions Ot 
 the world; binding race with race, nation with nation, the past 
 with the future and cause with event, so intimately that every 
 smile of joy or groan of misery leaves forever its impress upon 
 the face of civilization. 
 
 Prom every land and clime have come the bold, fierce, sturdy, 
 adventurous spirits, who were strong enough to turn their backs 
 on home a,nd fatherland, to seek fortunes in a strange land, and 
 here with this frightful heterogeneous mass must the battle of 
 the future be fought. This is the last refuge; we cannot, if we 
 would, escape the conflict. Five thousand years ago our rude 
 ancestors, being pressed by population, by discontent, or an in- 
 quisitive desire for betterment or adventure, started on their 
 great journey West. When pasture for herds becajne scarce, or 
 more powerful clans invaded the domain, there was plenty of 
 room toward the setting sun. The great burning god of the an- 
 cients, slowly creeping down among the beautiful western slopes, 
 throwing lengthened shadows back toward their primitive homes, 
 seemed to invite them to a further knowledge of the unseen West. 
 
175 
 
 Slowly as the generations came was the land of the West over- 
 run and held. Persia, Asia Minor, the Golden Horn, Greece and 
 Rome and Europe ajid Britannia, and finally, with a little mod- 
 ern pressure, our forefathers cast themselves into' frail barques, 
 and turning their cold prows to 3,000 miles of waves, left a gulf 
 between wild liberty and old monarchy and despotism. But the 
 journey West was not completed. Fertile spots and better game 
 were sought by the new comer, and the mountain chains, the deep 
 forests, the broad valleys and great rivers were tunneled, sub- 
 dued, crossed and bridged; the desert traversed, the western jour- 
 ney pursued, until the pale-faced, bearded Europe- American gazed 
 across the bosom of the placid Pacific, toward the cradle of his 
 earlier civilization. Then at the "Golden Gate" he met the little 
 diamond-eyed Mongols, from whom his Aryan ancestors separ- 
 ated on the plains of Asia, thousands of years ago the time, the 
 changes and the trials, leaving their impress on his magnified 
 form, features and character. 
 
 Humanity spa,ns the globe. There is no more West; no more 
 "new country;" no more worlds to over-run and conquer; so we 
 must face all the difficulties from which every other "generation 
 sought refuge in flight. There was a grave argument among the 
 adventurous Greeks, in the army of Themistocles, as to whether 
 it would not be safer, better and wiser to Abandon Athens and 
 sail to another land and inhabit it, than to undertake the defense 
 of their country against the force of barbarous Persia. So it has 
 been in a,ll the progressive development of the world. But for 
 us, there is no escape. 
 
 The question demanding solution is, whether God's footstool 
 is sufficient for His children, and if so, whether all men have 
 rights to grapple with the difficulties of nature, to procure a live- 
 lihood, or whether the God of heaven has crowned a few of His 
 idle sons, despots of the world, by giving them the keys of na- 
 ture's treasure-house, and thus a monopoly of His exhaustless 
 bounties. The contest may be long and bitter. The armies of 
 progress are marshaled. We are on the outputs, and must open 
 the battle. It has opened as a wa,r of ideas an intelleetaul con- 
 test. If brain is stronger than selfishness, patriotism than greed, 
 and humanity finds a responsive chord in the bosom of the ruling 
 the campaign will close in the realm of reason and the 
 
 class, the c; 
 
176 
 
 higher law of right prevail. But if overbearing greed and selfish- 
 ness is stronger, if haughty pride claims uncompromising su- 
 premacy, then the savage, which still lurks in civilization, will 
 shake off its Christian meekness and use the only force known 
 to its nature. 
 
 By the year 1900 there will be one hundred million people 
 in the United States, and many boast that in fifty years there will 
 be two hundred millions. Strange boast, for could one but see 
 the truth, none but a fiend could rejoice at the spectacle. But it 
 is claimed tha,t our country can support a population of two hun- 
 dred and fifty or three hundred millions. How cheerfully we 
 grant that it is capable of sustaining more than twice or thrice 
 that number; and but a few years more will see the arable 
 portions of America, excluding the desert a,nd mountain waste, as 
 densely populated as any portion of Europe; but God pity them, 
 for seven-eighths will be slaves, unless our policy is changed. 
 With America's fertile soil, inexhaustible mines, forests and all 
 natural wealth, it has almost infinite capacity for the support of 
 people; but consider, the land, the mines, the natural wealth 
 and most of the artificial is in the hands of but few. A small 
 number monopolize the opportunities, and a,ll who come must live 
 by the grace of a moneyed or landed aristocracy. The more that 
 come, the sharper the competition, and the more powerful will 
 be those who own the raw material. z 
 
 A family groaning in a hovel would starve just as quietly 
 and modestly, if shadowed by a great warehouse, filled with bread 
 material, as under the branches of an oak, if excluded from the 
 right a,nd power to purchase a portion, with something they had 
 to spare. The land and the wealth is "owned" by a few, and those 
 who come now, come to a "world already occupied," to a "feast 
 with no vacant seat;" and their coming only a,dds misery to the 
 "early arrivals" and great power to the monopolists. It is not a 
 question as to the capacity of a country to sustain the population, 
 but as to the power of the population to avail themselves of the 
 supply. There is no question but that Scully's forty thousand 
 acre farm would support ten thousand people in comfort and a.f- 
 fluence, but if these ten thousand are compelled to accept the 
 terms of this autocrat, slavery would be a happier condition. 
 These are the dangers that darken the hopes of America. 
 
177 
 
 falthus is dead. His works are unread and his "philosophy" has 
 been exploded hy the best writers of the nineteenth century, but 
 his doctrines prevail today. We are Malthusian in our national 
 practice. Practically, there is no shadow of difference between a 
 scarcity of means of subsistence and a monopoly of the means of 
 subsistence, and when people suffer from either cause, the doc- 
 trine of Malthus is enforced. America groans under tn~e~ loads 
 of plenty, yet millions stand, pale-faced and starving, while gat- 
 ing on the sumptuous feast and gorgeous splendor of the idle de- 
 bauchees, and hearing the blare of bands and choruses of trained 
 throats tha,t sing praise to the princely host mingled with the 
 groans of expiring loved ones. 
 
 Already we see the choking influence against increase of pop- 
 ulation, as suggested by Malthus, being exerted. Homes are hard 
 to get, the means for procuring clothing, food and comforts 
 not to say luxuries demanded by this fastidious age, is most 
 precarious, and marriages are postponed or deferred altogether. 
 The home and family is the natural condition of civilized beings, 
 yet what an army of homeless, marriageable men a,nd women 
 there are in this country today. How degrading, how demoraliz- 
 ing, is this unnatural condition. Thousands of noble men grow 
 sad at the word "home," and long for the endearing smile of wife, 
 the kiss and prattle of dimpled babes, but cruel circumstances 
 forbid such relations. A false pride, reared by the influence of 
 this false age, allows the heart to break with longing if indeed 
 the fea,r of bringing others to want does not lead to the cruci- 
 fixion of human desires. This is Malthusian. Then dangers and 
 conflicts have come, in form of strikes and riots, to take men from 
 the daily conflict for bread. This is Malthusian. Then poverty and 
 misery come, and the intense fear that drives a mother to suicide 
 or infanticide. This is Malthusian. 
 
 To pack the population of America, to sharpen the contest 
 for land and other means for gaining a livelihood, and eking out 
 an existence, that the power of monopoly might be more des- 
 potic and the class lines more marked, was a part of the great 
 centralizing scheme; and upon what a stupendous scale the plans 
 have been and are being carried out. How unerringly the com- 
 plex arrangement has worked. How readily a strong press has 
 sprung up to grasp the tempting bribe. How cheerfully have the 
 
 
178 
 
 ''great people's" representatives fallen into the cunning scheme. 
 With what hellish glee ha,s every small politician, whose ninth 
 rate ability so illy matched his first rate ambition, rushed to the 
 defense of every cunning scheme that could be tacked to his 
 "party" banner, or made a cardinal principle of his political 
 faith. 
 
 It's enough to ma,ke the angels weep and the devils laugh 
 with glee, to see the working and producing millions arrayed in 
 factious opposition, each to each, while the cunning few who 
 planned the campaign, coolly gather into their coffers the profits 
 of the nation's toil. The schemers knew the people's pride, their 
 prejudice, their vajiity, their credulity, and their party loyalty. 
 They knew that these "sovereign people" were so pleased with 
 the privilege of voting as to believe the act of casting a "free bal- 
 lot" a performance so honorable and patriotic as to drive from 
 the land every foe to liberty. They knew the public would sub- 
 mit to any oppression, if the powers which the rulers exercised, 
 were derived from popular "consent," as expressed at the ballot 
 box. The ballot has become the symbol of force, and the voter 
 having delegated his powers, seems flattered that they are ex- 
 ercised with vigor. But this must change, and when the people 
 open their eyes to the deception and fraud which have been prac- 
 ticed upon them by party leaders, and pretended friends, there 
 will be a social revolt, and if class bigotry stands in the way of 
 progress, restoration will come through revolution. If the masses 
 will comprehend the situation, and act as the gravity of the case 
 demands, prostrate liberty will arise, Sphinxlike, from her ashes, 
 and, with a cheek unblanched by fear, a bosom unagitated by a 
 sigh, and a hand unstained by crime, wrench the standard of- 
 progress from avarice, greed and centralism, and lead on to a 
 glorious future that will pale the lustre of all the ages. 
 
-179- 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 N a previous chapter, I charged that during the dark 
 days of war, when the public attention was diverted, 
 a gigantic conspiracy was formed by a small number 
 of wealthy, ambitious and very intelligent persons, 
 to possess themselves of every avenue to wealth; and 
 by a series of organized monopolies, appropriate the 
 profits of the nation's industries; and. through the 
 power of a great wealth thus acquired, subvert the 
 fundamental principles of our government and erect 
 an aristocracy, as a governing class, with all the 
 powers, dignity and splendor of a monarchy, on the 
 ruins of the republic. I have endeavored to sustain the indict- 
 ment, by showing that all great measures of recent legislation 
 have been shaped by this cunning class, and that the tendency 
 of all such measures lead to centralism, cla,ss aggrandizement and 
 ristocracy, if not to monarchy. I have endeavored to discuss 
 e merits of no measures, further than to show their discrimi- 
 nating results and their harmony with the theory of conspiracy. 
 I have made my argument not as strongly or as fully as patent 
 facts would justify, but as best I could in the space I believed it 
 wise to occupy, and it now only remains to sum up the case and 
 leave it to the great jury. 
 
 I have shown tha,t a few persons have with comparatively lit- 
 tle cost to themselves, acquired over two hundred millions of acres 
 of land, or enough to make six states like Illinois, Iowa or Mis- 
 souri, and sustain a population of over fifty millions of people. 
 How this vast empire wa,s given by the people's representatives, 
 with no value received, and that to further strengthen this land- 
 ed class, there was money enough taken from the public purse to 
 uild a double-track railroad from New York to San Francisco, 
 
180 
 
 and virtually given to these wa,rds of the law, to enable them to 
 build themselves highways on their own dominions. How, by 
 this gigantic monopoly of lands and mines and minerals and for- 
 ests, the masses are reduced to dependence and forced to com- 
 promise with this small class for their future homes, for the op- 
 portunities to earn a, livelihood, and even for the daily wages 
 upon which to live. We see as a result, the basis of the most 
 stupendous landlord system on earth; the more oppressive, as 
 this is man's last refuge from the pressure of over-population. 
 With no correlative force, the land monopoly alone is strong 
 enough to enslave the great ma,ss of the future population of the 
 country. 
 
 We have seen how cunning managed the finances, and mo- 
 nopolized money as per arrangement. How the bankers, aided 
 by the wise counsel of great financiers of England, like Seyd a,nd 
 Hazzard, dictated the financial policy of the government, and 
 finally monopolized the whole fiscal department. We have seen 
 how they "came to the country's rescue," by loaning their credit; 
 how they permitted the government to issue a prescribed Amount 
 of greenbacks; how they provided for the issue of bonds; pro- 
 cured the National Banking Act; had the bonds purposely de- 
 preciated, that they might buy them cheap, as collateral on which 
 the government was to loan money to them at 1%; how, in order 
 to secure a perfect monopoly of money, they had the State 
 banks taxed to death, a,nd to increase that power, had the cir- 
 culating medium contracted by a wholesale withdrawal and de- 
 struction of the currency, and finally how the government, though 
 it issued over six hundred million more currency during the four 
 years, than enough to pay every cent of expense of the war 
 above taxation it emerged from the war with a debt of three 
 billions of dollars. We have seen that the whole bonded debt 
 was but a gigantic fraud, with not one excuse for its existence, and 
 that the six billions of dollars which the people will have paid 
 before the debt was extinguished, was the most colossal robbery 
 ever perpetrated on earth. It was a despot's tribute, levied on 
 the people of at least one-eighth of the entire vajue of the tangi- 
 ble property in the United States. This gigantic monopoly gave 
 a few bankers in Wall street the power to bring every industry 
 in the country to its knees in a week. 
 

 181 
 
 We have seen the monopoly of trade so strong, through pro- 
 tective laws, which saved manufacturers from competition, a^id 
 enabled a few persons with power to combine and pool, to erect 
 great industries, crush small ones or private enterprises, and es- 
 tablish arbitrary prices on all the necessities of life. We see the 
 power so grea,t that even friends to the policy confessed that 
 protection has cost the people one dollar and forty cents a 
 month, per capita, or an aggregate of eight hundred million dol- 
 lars annually. We have seen that this eight hundred million dol- 
 lars, Annual tribute, equals about 8% on all the real tangibly 
 property or goods of the nation, aside from land values, and this 
 comes, as all taxes and all wealth do, from industry. 
 
 Then we find in summing up, that the land, money and trade, 
 are controlled by the most irresistible monopolies that ever ex- 
 isted, and that every industry in the country is absolutely and 
 despotically controlled by an organized few. 
 
 Of course, the defenders of this policy will pooh at, and ridi- 
 cule the idea of a, conspiracy, but can they deny the results of 
 recent legislation? Can they deny the existence of these mo-i 
 nopolies or their power? Facts will not down at a sneer. The 
 wealth is concentrated, the power freely exercised, and these are 
 dreadful realities. Have not the cunning the land, the mines, the 
 forests, the banks, the money, and a "corner" on the trade of 
 the country? 
 
 I insist that such a combination or multiplicity of happy and 
 harmonious coincidences, would be a mathematical impossibility, 
 on any hypothesis but of a carefully laid plan, the execution of 
 which could only be insured by an organized corps of operators, 
 whose duties were as minutely specialized as are the different 
 branches, ranks and forces of a grea,t army. 
 
 But let us see who have the goods. Labor produced all wealth, 
 and is, of course, the rightful owner of all except what it has 
 given away, or left at dearth to heirs. What are the facts? It is 
 claimed, by what seems to be good authority, that the great mass 
 of producers, those whose energies and sweat brought the wealth 
 into existence, have but little over one-fourth of it, wnile the non- 
 producers have over three-fourths. Then idleness has property, 
 industry ha,s poverty. One non-producer has two hundred million 
 dollars, two million producers have not a biscuit for tomorrow's 
 
182 
 
 breakfast. One thousand of the non-producing class control half 
 the wealth of the nation, while ten millions of the producing 
 cla t ss have hardly a week's wages ahead of want. 
 
 Then we not only find that the cunning few have shaped leg- 
 islation so as to form great monopolies, but we trace the goods 
 to their possession. Now what are the results of the twenty-five 
 years of centralizing legislation, under the management of the 
 conspirators? 
 
 We see cash deified, and labor, which produced it, despised. 
 We see rascals in robes and honesty in rags. We see cunning 
 applauded, and integrity sneered at, or ignored. We see haughty 
 insolence tyrannize over the creators of Americans progress. We 
 see idlers revel in gorgeous palaces, and the pampered reveler 
 grow sick with a round of pleasure; dainty viands nauseate ftie 
 tired appetite, while in the shadow of the palace, in the sound 
 of the sweet music, the brilliant chandelier casts is rays to the 
 low hovel of industry, where sweet babes die of want, a strong 
 man groans with agony, and the pale lips of a withered, beautiful 
 mother, cries to the mute heavens for bread. What is left to the 
 poor, but the "stars and stripes?" What mockery, even tha,t, for 
 the stars are for the rich, the stripes for the poor. The lands and 
 the raw material, from which all must live, are monopolized by 
 a cunning few, and the great mass of workers must compromise 
 with the sma.ll class of idlers, for permission to take from God's 
 bounties the necessaries of life. 
 
 What a mockery is the Declaration of Independence, when 
 it says all men are "created equal," and what a burlesque when 
 it says, "all men have rights to life, liberty ajid the pursuit of 
 happiness," when an honest, industrious man must go in "pur- 
 suit" of an idler, who is enjoying the wildest "liberty," to sup- 
 plicate for the privilege of earning enough to preserve "life" for 
 a brief period. 
 
 But the apologists play injured innocence, and claim grati- 
 tude for "furnishing employment" to the poor. Great God! Who 
 "furnished" the weajth? Who "furnished" the raw material? 
 God Almighty invented labor as a punishment and not as a bless- 
 ing. 
 
 Why do the people deserve punishment? If it is praiseworthy 
 to "furnish employment," the man who blows up a city and thus 
 
183 
 
 gives employment to ten thousand men in its rebuilding, should 
 be canonized and pensioned, and even the undertaker should be 
 taxed for his benefit; while the ma,n who invents a machine, 
 which displaces a thousand men, should be blown' to the moon 
 and his name forgotten, or hated. What idiocy! It is not more 
 "employment" people need, it is greater opportunities to employ 
 themselves. It is not more employment the age requires, for we 
 hang the man who blows up a city, and makes a "demand" for 
 labor, and honor and love the man who makes the machine, that 
 gives more leisure. If it were a virtue to furnish employment, the 
 great machines should be broken up, and the pleasing tasks 
 turned over to men and women. 
 
 Did genius tire over book, laboratory, crucible and in experi- 
 mentation, to lift the burden from labor's back, and unchain the 
 brain to the realms of light, giving the toiling man time for men- 
 tal feasts and domestic pleasures? or that he might retire to a 
 miserable abode and die of want? By her sleepless energies 
 genius has fanned the latent forces into life and action, that in- 
 quiry might investigate, beauty be adorned a,nd labor light the 
 torch of its mental being. If the few appropriate the benefit of 
 these new forces, and rob humanity of their countless blessings, 
 they subvert the purposes of their infinite designer, and treason, 
 revolution and bloodshed will call back barbarism to build a,new. 
 
 Genius never lost an hour's repose to smooth the path of 
 idleness, but to ease the burdens of toil. The divine idea, that un- 
 seen, incomprehensible power, which moves forward the world's 
 development, sent smiling genius to ease the burdens of toil, and 
 banish drudgery and slavery from among civilized men. God 
 "furnished employment," by furnishing an inexhautible supply 
 of raw material, for all tastes, needs and uses, a,nd if man must 
 of necessity depend upon another man for employment, he has 
 been robbed of his birthright. If our forefathers were joking 
 about being born equal, and being entitled to "equal rights" to 
 "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," what a huge farce 
 it was, to send a million men tramping off down South, to break 
 the chains from slavery, only that a few "niggers" might pat 
 "juber" at a free lunch and join in the chorus of "Yankeo 
 Doodle." 
 
 We have seen that the land and all its resources, and all in- 
 
184 
 
 dustries are controlled by monopoly; now let's review the results 
 of the social and political influence, exercised by these, and see 
 if the tendencies are not toward the subversion of liberty and the 
 establishment of class rule, if not monarchy. "When the right- 
 eous are in authority the people rejoice, but when the wicked 
 beareth rule the people mourn." Do the people mourn or rejoice? 
 Is our condition as a nation, one of hope or fear? of pride, or 
 shame? of joy, or sorrow? of peace, or dagger? Idleness is con- 
 fident, insolent, despotic, and feels safe behind law, police and 
 militia; while industry is organizing, protesting, threatening, 
 starving. Labor has been degraded and turned empty-handed 
 from the fortune it ha,s reared, by hordes of cheap laborers, 
 brpught, tariff free, to cheapen the productions of those whcv 
 ha,ve paid millions for the passage of laws that gave a mo- 
 nopoly on American trade, with the promise to keep wages high. 
 The great monopolists, who own the lobby, and congress and the 
 courts and legislatures and politicians and party leaders, have 
 a "corner" on the land, the mines, forests and all of nature's 
 bounties; they bring thousands of cheap laborers from alTroad, 
 erect great machinery at fabulous cost, then by combinations cut 
 down the "supply" so as to raise prices, turn their men out to 
 starve, and then tell labor there is no help for it, as the supply 
 is greater than the demand. What infamy! Shut God's children 
 from nature's bounties, by appropriating all the opportunities, 
 and then send them away to starve, with the insulting excuse 
 that there is no demand for labor. The raw material in America 
 would busy the whole human family for a thousand yea,rs, and 
 yet so few have appropriated it that industry starves while the 
 bounties of lavish nature waste. Then when the employer turns 
 down wages to the barest necessities, with the laborer not a, day 
 ahead of want, he buys or forces him to vote for the perpetuation 
 of the policy that makes him a hopeless serf. Monopoly reduces 
 labor to the last extremity, wrings from frail nature, pride, 
 patriotism and love of honor, or worse, reduces it to Absolute 
 want; then when a vote is sold or bribed by force, monopoly cries 
 that popular government is a farce, a failure. Votes are bought 
 and sold, but the voter is reduced to a chattel by his hard condi- 
 tion before he yields to necessity and takes a bribe. If a wife 
 and babes cry for bread, and the muscles of the protector will 
 
185 
 
 not sell, and the vote will, the bargain is easily made. Agriculture 
 is crushed; the farmer's customers are driven away; his products 
 are unsold. The profits of the farmer's toil ha,ve been accumu- 
 lated in the East, the great fortunes sent West, and through "ac- 
 commodating" agents have been loaned to the needy so exten- 
 sively that a great majority of the farms a,re mortgaged. What 
 is the result? A few men control the price of every commodity, 
 and when the proper time comes to squeeze out a few thousand 
 farmers, freights are raised, banks shut down, and the farmer 
 "helps in the coming election," and is then closed out and joins 
 the grea,t army of homeless men who compete in the battle for 
 bread. Then we see the same small class who control the land, 
 the raw material, the banks and the trade, by fraud, bribery, cor- 
 ruption and intimidation, controlling elections, and through them 
 a,ll the machinery of government, from the constable to the great 
 senate. 
 
 Can these things be disputed? Does not the evidence show 
 conspiracy; or does the yoke of monopoly rest more easily that 
 I have not produced the original document with the signatures 
 of the conspirators? 
 
 Now, by what right do a few own the land and its resources? 
 By what right do a few Assume to manage the financial affairs 
 of this country, or to instruct the people with whom to trade; to 
 whom they must sell and of whom they must buy? No king or 
 nobles on earth exercise a more despotic control over the business 
 of a country than a few monopolists do in ours. Then the rule 
 of cash has come; the most gigantic fortunes that ever blessed 
 or cursed the world, have sprung up in our generation. The aris- 
 tocracy has been reared with greater wealth, power, digsfty and 
 splendor than any on earth. But is there danger from further 
 effort toward personal rule? Let us look along the volume of 
 evidence. 
 
 There are a million a,t least of idle men, hungry, destitute 
 and discontented. Wages are gradually sinking, and cheap labor 
 from Europe is being brought, thus firing the flame of rage that 
 sits in the company of want. Capita.1 is offering greater rewards 
 for inventions and making every effort, by improving machinery 
 and securing cheap, passive men from Europe, to lessen its de- 
 pendence on labor. The insolence of capital is pushing industry 
 
186 
 
 to a deeper discontent and a more dangerous condition. Secret 
 spies and paid, treacherous detectives have become a part, of 
 every extensive enterprise, the police are a necessity in everjj 
 monopolist's outfit, a well-drilled militia is the willing tool of 
 these wards of the law, and all these forces are ready for any 
 emergency, from shooting women in St. Louis to expelling a state 
 officer in Iowa. We as readily associate the idea of militia with 
 an empty coal mine, as bribery with the election of a United 
 States senator. Let the bosses push these idle, desperate men, 
 who are just learning their power, by imitating the example of 
 monopolists in organizing, until riot and bloodshed a,nd insipient 
 wars for bread or blood occur at frightfully frequent intervals, 
 and how long before the people, in despair for the republic, would 
 ask for a stronger government to bring rest, safety and stability 
 to the state? Monopoly has moulded public opinion to the favor 
 of the detective system a,nd the militia system, and, by its ap- 
 peals to public fear, is preparing for another step on the line pro- 
 posed to be traveled. To keep a strong sentiment in harmony 
 with its interests, it is stall-feeding the public appetite with re- 
 ports of threatened dangers, riots and seditions. All that wealth 
 can secure, monopoly has, a,nd if it longs for greater pomp and 
 splendor, that can come only through monarchy. 
 
 Those who are not aware that the consummation of this last 
 act in the great drama was earnestly discussed and favored by 
 many of the "upper circle" in the winter of 1876-77,~when Gen- 
 eral Grant, the stern hero of many victories, and idol of the 
 a.rmy, was president, and the nation's peace depended upon the 
 patriotism of political victors, have lost a few page of valuable 
 history. Had not the majority, who had triumphed at the polls, 
 yielded to a compromise that disfranchised them, for the sake of 
 peace, Grant would have been declared dictator, and then well, 
 none can even guess the finale. The people had tired of war, 
 and to save the recurrence of such horrors, "all but honor" would 
 have been sacrificed. 
 
 A few months ago I was walking with a friend from Wash- 
 ington in the gardens of Versailles, France. We met among the 
 fountains, M. Gambetta, then one of the famous men of Europe. 
 The greeting was cordia.1, as my friend had the pleasure of his 
 acquaintance. He spoke no English, but upon introduction, wel- 
 
187 
 
 >med me to France very politely. I was dazed with surprise and 
 astonishment at the splendor of the scene. Noticing my enthusi- 
 asm the great Frenchman, raising his awkward a,rm, eloquent in 
 its clumsy movement, and waving me to the playing fountain, 
 said: "Brilliant scene! We live in the sunshine of the buried 
 empire. But France is safe. We have resisted the ava,lanche. 
 Monarchy is behind us." Turning to me, he said, seriously: "It 
 may be ahead of you. I feel safer when the battle is over." 
 
 His forebodings came from the American press, and the tone 
 of moneyed Americans who travel. I do ont clajm there is im- 
 mediate danger of American monarchy, but what is there in a 
 name? Octavius established a despotism in the name of republic, 
 while Caesar failed to rea,r a mild monarchy as king. 
 
 But do we live in a republic? or do we really wear the em- 
 blem to flatter our pride, deceive the world and shield our shame? 
 Is it not true that we sing in the sunshine of the republic, and 
 toil in the sha t dow of a moneyed despotism? 
 
 Let the screws be turned down a little closer on labor, freights 
 raised on the farmer, until riots and lockouts and strikes become 
 the rule, and some daring leader will appear whose vaulting ani- 
 bition despises the society ba,uble, and he will be hailed with de- 
 light. This must be the final result, though we nlay for many 
 years escape the charming idiocy of a brilliant monarchy, and in 
 proud poverty, move along under a republic, where cash and* 
 cunning exercise despotic power. 
 
 But we have men with royal powers ajid royal revenues. What 
 do we lack? Royal splendor. 
 
 Compare the "magnificent establishments" a phrase of 
 aristocratic birth of our "patricians," who began a few years ago 
 poor, and have served the country so well, that on five thousand 
 dollars per year, they have become millionaires, with the pala,ces 
 of the "lords" of Europe, and "republican simplicity" is by far 
 more gorgeous. Compare the fortunes and show of the iron kings, 
 the lumber kings and the railroad kings, though they have spent 
 millions in procuring the passage of la,ws for the benefit of labor 
 with those of foreign nobles, and "republican simplicity" 
 eclipses the world in its brilliancy. 
 
 Are not the classes, too, almost as much divided as though 
 the upper few wore childish titles? Would the "track" be more 
 
188 
 
 promptly cleared and passenger and freight traffic more readily 
 suspended if the "Duke of Burlington" were to pass on the "Q," 
 than it now is for the pleasure of a "flying trip ' of a great mag- 
 nate? 
 
 Should the "Earl of Manhattan" make a tour of inspection of 
 the Wabash system, in his bronzed palace car, would the "fleeced" 
 peasantry on his route gape more innocently to see the cold face 
 of the modern Croesus? Would "Lord Vanderbilt" dine more 
 sumptuously, or stain his hajids with greater avarice? or the 
 "Count de Huntington" demand greater loyalty from his mem- 
 bers of the senate? 
 
 But a gauzy veil, a meaningless name, hangs between the re- 
 public and a monarchy; and as the grea,t plot has thus far been 
 so unerringly carried out, without a single check or miscarriage, 
 and the conspirators enjoy the substantial results for which they 
 . strove, they may willingly rest with their easily won laurels 
 until the times a,re ripe for the final act. But the preparations 
 are still being pressed. Everything possible is being done to cre- 
 ate a feeling of discontent and disgust with politics and public 
 affairs and to create a feeling of pride and prejudice in favor of 
 the prevailing policy. 
 
 We are told that "public opinion" will tolerate no encroa.cn- 
 ments. Nonsense! Has not "public opinion" sanctioned every 
 monopoly in its insipiency and growth? But who makes public 
 opinion? The "upper crust," just as they lead the fashions of 
 dress and social etiquette, and which the poor imitate as best they 
 can. The "polite," the educated, the eloquent, the paid pulpiteer, 
 journalist or politician the prince who thirsts lor blood and glory 
 and declares war, is backed by "public opinion;" but the prince 
 furnished the public opinion as a basis of operations. Monopoly 
 is gradually preparing "public opinion" for future service. The 
 oppressed and impoverished voter is bought, when the "sa,cred- 
 ness" of the ballot is hurled to the land with a sneer. The politi- 
 cian is bought to furnish evidence that the people cannot choose 
 wisely, or that all are rascals. Men are praised for not "dabbling" 
 with politics, and when good men hold ajoof from public affairs, 
 and bad men come to the front, "popular elections" are held up 
 as proof of the lack of patriotism, or ability of the masses, for 
 self-government. 
 
189 
 
 These are means by which the small class hope to clothe) 
 themselves with regal powers. But beside this passive sentiment, 
 gradually yielding to the better organized will, they have sown 
 the whole social field with deep discontent, gathered the turbu- 
 lent into great dangerous business centers, organized a sedition 
 in every private hall, and planted a, bombshell in every dingy 
 tenement. 
 
 We are proud and vain and unwilling to see the magnitude of 
 the dangers that threaten us. But when strength banishes fear and 
 doubt, a,nd hope soars above the darkening clouds, and laughts to 
 silence the warnings of the wise, danger may lurk uncomfortably 
 near. The fates are jealous; to be proud and wise is given only 
 to the gods. 
 
 The great body of the people are beginning to feel this social 
 pressure, and the country is full of eloquent and earnest complaint 
 about "unequal distribution" of profits, as the cause for the pres- 
 ent abnormal condition. This is too narrow a view. Given a 
 policy that would monopolize land and its resources, the present 
 condition would be inevitable; then, given a, monopoly of money 
 and trade, the transition becomes hurried and irresistible. The 
 difficulty is not in "unequal distribution" of the profits of labor, 
 but in the maladjustment in the social system. The difficulties 
 arise from the grotesque folly of recognizing the omnipotency of 
 cash, and the right of any person or corporation to the exclusive 
 control of as much of the ea,rth or its native resources as he or 
 i1 can, by any means, buy or steal from some power claiming au- 
 thority. 
 
 Every danger that threatens peace and security; every evil 
 that disturbs society; every sorrow that darkens the cottage ajid 
 sends the shriveled child supperless to bed, arises, not in the un- 
 just distribution of the profits of labor, but in the unwise, unjust 
 and barbarous maladjustment in the social arrangement, or the 
 class appropriation of the materials upon which all labor must 
 act, and are the primary agencies of all wealth. Philosophers and 
 economists may speculate, preachers warn and orators rajit, but 
 the difficulty lays in the grotesque folly of ceding forever, the 
 world, with the soil, the mines, the minerals, and all of nature's 
 bounties, to the favored few, who control the money and trade. 
 
 What more than mockery to tajk about a "just distribution" 
 
190 
 
 of profits of labor, when a few so combined as to act as one 
 "own" the earth with all its stores, and 99% of the labor the 
 machinery a,nd the whole industrial mass depending upon the 
 few for the privilege of living, by performing the other 1% of the 
 labor. These are the advantages for which organized cunning 
 strove, and 'til folly to suppose they will relinquisliHhem without 
 a struggle. 
 
 We have reached a crisis. There can be no temporizing that 
 will not fan the combustible materia.1, now smouldering, into 
 greater danger. We cannot stand still. "He who halts is a cow- 
 ard, and lie who doubts is damned." Every consideration of jus- 
 tice, safety and patriotism demands prompt a,nd decisive action. 
 
 We cannot retreat, as the bridges are burned and "Xerxes 
 bids up forward." When a country is ruled by cash, through the 
 instrumentalities of hiring politicians, who lie like polished gen- 
 tlemen in good English, and use truth with as much pa.rsimony 
 as a French courtier, a failure, brilliant in its colossal catastro- 
 phies, may not be surprising. We have reached a crisis, a turn- 
 ing point in our nationa.1 existence, and something must be done, 
 or time will snatch the laurels from our honest fame and stamp 
 our national pretensions as the most sublime failure. Labor points 
 to the mightiest achievements of the race; to the grandest cities, 
 most beautiful capitols, schools, churches ajid cathedrals; to the 
 most ingenious and powerful industrial systems; to the net-work 
 of railroads that annihilate distance, and telegraphs and tele- 
 phones that ignore space; to the most beautiful a.nd extensive ag- 
 riculture that ever brought joy to a hungry world, as proof of 
 her worthiness; and then to its hopeless condition, as proof of 
 crime. Now, labor, awakened by weight of oppression, calls from 
 the mortgage-crushed farm; from the bankrupt business; from 
 the modest cotta.ge; from the deserted shop; from the abandoned 
 mine; from the dingy tenement; from the dismal hovel; from a 
 half million tramps, as destitute, as wretched, as despised, as was 
 the Galilean and his followers; from the pale lips of dying inno- 
 cence, and from the cheap ha.lls where a million brave^ organized 
 laborers assemble, in a voice that shakes the thrones and the 
 palaces, that sends a thrill of fear to the oppressor's hearts, for 
 a reign of justice. There may be differences of opinion as to 
 measures of relief, but when the public becomes fairly aroused 
 
at i 
 
 - 
 
 191 
 
 to the magnitude of the dangers of the situation, a, wisdom, born 
 of experience and necessity, will suggest the proper remedy. Mo- 
 nopoly may own the land, and carry the keys to the great store- 
 house of nature; may control the circulating medium, the trans- 
 portation lines, a.nd hold a perfect monopoly on the nation's trade; 
 may rule at will, senates, legislatures, courts, the militia, the po- 
 lice, the throne and its secretaries, but with the giant forces now 
 at man's command, where lies safety but in the contentment and 
 a,lty of the lower millions? 
 
 A great wrong has been perpetrated and justice demands a 
 halt, while enlightened patriotism demands an overhauling of 
 the books. Time never sanctified a crime, and though the magni- 
 tude of the offense may dazzle the giddy, wrong does not become 
 right by becoming colossal. Don't tell me that because the "titles 
 are confirmed," we have the best money on earth, that transport 
 lines are private property and "can't be touched," and that "pro- 
 
 Eion" is a fixed policy, and therefore, these questions are set- 
 ; for, they are infinitely unsettled. 
 The times demand a change, and monopoly must stand up, 
 le "blind justice" proclaims to the "genteel audience," her 
 own resurrection; the "eternal" truths of the Immortal Decla,ra- 
 tion of Independence; the awakening of conscience; the rehabili- 
 tation of America's free citizenship, and that the Gods recognize 
 no mansion and no cottage, but send the sunshine and showers 
 on all a,like, and the smiles of spring-time to gladden the hearts 
 of iove and virtue, whether compassed in broadcloth or hemp, 
 satin or calico. 
 
 When we denounced the crime that monopolized all of na- 
 ture's bounties and makes millions homeless supplicants, the r 
 special pleaders, with mock patriotism, prate about "vested 
 rights," and the "sacred rights of property." Away with such 
 nonsense! 
 
 I want to see conscience enthroned. I want to see a time; 
 when judges can be just, statesmen patriotic and politicians hon- 
 est. I want to see impartial laws, humane religions, and virtue 
 respected, though it wears no diamonds. I have heard enough 
 about the "sacred rights of property." I want to hear about the 
 "sacred rights" of people to live, and love and earn the plenty 
 
192 
 
 which our age demands, and enjoy a home and feeling of dig- 
 nified liberty in the land which God has given them. 
 
 Have the British lords a "vested right" in twenty millions 
 of acres in America? We gave our "representatives" no authority 
 to sever our grea,t country, or wrench it from our children, and I 
 utterly and forever declare, that congress ha,d no more right to 
 give away these vast tracts of land than it had to trade the Dis- 
 trict of Columbia for a tin whistle. 
 
 Now, what shall be done to cure this national malady? There 
 are but two methods of effecting great social reforms in a re- 
 public; one by the ballot and the other by the bullet. None but 
 a fool will consider the latter, as the sorrows of war always fall on 
 the toiler. Then there is but one way worthy the consideration of 
 patriotic men. Strikes, boycotts and threats are useless and 
 childish, except as pressing invitations for interested parties to 
 halt, to argue, and listen to the dictates of justice. The ballot 
 box is the supreme arbiter, and I ha,ve no respect for a man who 
 will strike or grumble, or whine, and live destitute, while he 
 holds in his calloused hand a, ballot, which he dare not cast 
 against a party boss. With only these two methods of reform, 
 to teach laboring men tha,t they "should not go into politics," 
 is to teach them to shirk the duties of citizenship, and is, in ef- 
 fect, drilling them for the other method. 
 
 Our case is not yet hopeless, and if the great middle class 
 will arouse from its apathy, and act as its own judgment dictates, 
 promptly, energetically, bravely, patriotically, our country may 
 be saved from a darker danger than threatened it when the can- 
 non boomed against Fort Sumpter. If the passive, doubtful, 
 grumbling policy is pursued, monopoly will make occasional con- 
 cessions, under great pressure, to still the public clamor of the 
 mob, until the hour is ript for a, bold strike for the closing act 
 of the great drama. 
 
 I believe in the efficacy of the ballot. I believe in the patri- 
 otism of the American people. I believe that a vast majority of 
 the members of all parties are honest and that they will act 
 bravely, as becomes the free citizens of our great republic, when 
 they realize the gravity of the times. But to free the ballot from 
 the "low estate" into which a multiplicity of corrupting influ- 
 ences have cast it, will require the patriotism of a, Washington, 
 
193 
 
 the courage of a Jackson, and the integrity of a Lincoln. It will 
 be no child's play, for nothing but a reversal of the whole indus- 
 trial policy will suffice. The body politic is sick and the disease is 
 at the basis of social structure. To hope to cure the evils by 
 simply shortening hours of labor, establishing boards of arbitra- 
 tion, regulating freight charges and the like, as' fallacious as 
 to hope to cure a smajl-pox patient by tearing off the scabs. 
 
 Justice demands that the great estates be broken up; that 
 the land be returned to the people, that no man in a country so 
 plentifully bestowed, may be in want, or be a stranger in his 
 Father's house a trespasser in a world, where God invited him 
 to a free exercise of his powers. The government MUST divorce 
 itself from Wall street, and the currency be regulated by the sov- 
 ereign people, who need it in their daily business; and the farmer, 
 mechanic, business man, or a.ny other, needing, must have equal 
 opportunities for favors in financial affairs, with the richest in 
 the land. To "coin money" is a function of government, and the 
 government should not delegate to a monopoly the performance 
 of its most sacred duties. 
 
 "Protection," the most palpable curse tha,t ever damned a na- 
 tion, bribed a congressman, seduced a court, starved labor into 
 casting a "free ballot" against its interest, must be abolished, that 
 American genius, matched with America^ skill, may explore the 
 world and feed and clothe humanity with our abundant products, 
 wringing glad shouts of joy from the hungry throats of all the 
 earth. 
 
 The transportation lines must be controlled, if indeed not 
 owned, by the government, that the producer may not be "robbed 
 on his road to market." 
 
 The civil service should be so reformed, that a great ma- 
 jority of officers now appointed would be elective, and character, 
 efficiency and general worthiness, and not opinions, be the test 
 of availability. 
 
 The senate of the United Stages must be elected by the peo- 
 ple, before the custom, which demands the purchase of a legis- 
 lature by a senatorial candidate, ripens into law. 
 
 Yes, repeal every class law which blackens our statute books; 
 give the homeless people access to the soil, the mines and min- 
 erals; abolish protective laws, which tax the whole of us for the 
 
 -13- 
 
194 
 
 benefit of a few of us; swell the circulating medium to the neces- 
 sities of the country; make corporations a,nd officials, servants 
 to the common good; and agriculture would wear a new life; 
 commerce whiten every sea; the rustling wheels of industry leap 
 into action; every seditious hall be emptied of its dangerous 
 throng; and soul-stirring music would gladden the home where 
 groans of innocents were wont to drive honesty to crime. Then 
 will arise a government "of the people, for the people, and by the 
 people;" a government strong enough to bind with cords of steel 
 every loyal heart; strong enough to protect the basest man who 
 seeks a refuge on our soil; yet, too wea,k to oppress the most 
 helpless wretch that ever rested his weary limbs beneath the 
 shadow of our flag. 
 
 The people desire peace and security and such a degree of 
 commercial liberty and governmental stability; based upon "mod- 
 ern progress, that when Ambitious men and haughty despots talk 
 war, "commerce" may pat the belligerent gentlemen on the back, 
 and cry, "stand back, sir, don't you spoil my trade!" 
 
 But can these needed reforms be accomplished peacefully? 
 I don't know. It will be a struggle of Titans. It may transpire 
 tha,t a people who can sit so peacefully under a despotism are un- 
 worthy of freedom. Monopoly controls the lands with its re- 
 sources, the money, the commerce, the transportation lines, the 
 congress, courts, legislatures, the church, the police, the militia, 
 the political party leaders, and can starve a million men into 
 obedience or revolt in a week. Where is hope or safety? There 
 are millions of men idle arid discontented, thousands of homes in 
 want, and a deep, dangerous murmur of fear, dissatisfaction and 
 earnest protest on every hand, and where is safety, but in the 
 patriotism of the masses? 
 
 There has been a, cry for change; but thus far, monopoly has 
 been as deaf to the cries of justice as Pharaoh to Israel's cries. 
 When starving labor protests, monopoly doubles its guards. 
 When it strikes, monopoly calls the militia, to feed the hungry 
 with villainous saltpetre. 
 
 How long will want remain non-aggressive, in the presence 
 of such abundance? How long will poverty remain loyal, when 
 oppressed by an idle class? Oppression drives loyalty to mad- 
 
ii 
 
 ! 
 
 195 
 
 ness, and should monopoly grow more insolent, who can promise 
 security? 
 
 Every voice should council moderation, but in every crowded 
 tenement; in every destitute home of necessary idleness; in 
 every hut, whose small income brings want; in every closed 
 shop; in every emptied coal mine, there are strong men, bold 
 from desperation, who cannot hear the better councils, and who 
 are driven to look upon capital as an enemy because they have 
 felt its injustice. It is mockery to talk of patriotism to those 
 who are crouching supplicants for work, and who must join a 
 "labor union" to get pay enough to compromise with want. Toil- 
 ing men do not warm with enthusiasm over the glories of a coun- 
 ry where insolence rules, where idleness fattens in vice and 
 uxury, and industry bends under the burdens of hard necessity. 
 
 When the most imperative duty of man is to experiment upon 
 ow little he can live, patriotism is at a low ebb. 
 
 Monopoly, by its arrogant meddling with public affairs, con- 
 trolling politics, lobby, legislature, the judiciary and gathering 
 the profits of all industries, has disgusted business men, discour- 
 aged farmers, and forced labor to secret enmity. It has fostered 
 dangerous discontent in the great turbulent centers, and safety 
 demands the best judgment of the wise, the grandest heroism of 
 the brave and the most prompt and vigilant action of the patri- 
 otic. 
 
 There is yet a means of escape. But it is not through Pinker- 
 ton's knaves; the brutal clubbing of burly police; fhe charge of 
 white-gloved militia; the city prison or the hangman's noose, but 
 by a repeal of class laws; restoration of usurped rights, and open- 
 ing the doors to opportunities, that desire for action may find 
 vent in gainful, and not destructive, pusuits. The same energy, 
 which in hope, rears an opulent metropolis, in despair, levels it 
 to the ground. Force, well directed, builds up a city; ill directed, 
 blows up a city. It is the same force. 
 
 Then think; with fifty bold, desperate men in each great city, 
 as well organized and reckless as the Russian nihilists, with dyna- 
 mite worth thirty-five cents per pound, and a, will to use it, con- 
 sternation would drive the city to helplessness, and all unmovable 
 property could be rendered valueless in a week. 
 
 Should the people in those great centers, who feel so secure 
 
196 
 
 in the strength of the government and alertness of the police, be 
 startled from their midnight slumbers by a shock more terrific 
 than ten thousand cannons, a t nd hear the great stones, blown like 
 chaff into the air, come crashing down through roofs and spires 
 and temples of justice; see the red flames burst forth from store- 
 houses of rich and costly wares, till they pierce the very clouds; 
 see tender maidens and dimpled babes, above the rea,ch of help, 
 rushing to and fro, and the cruel heat licking away the golden 
 locks; see mothers with startled infants in their naked arms, 
 shrieking for help, and hear the cries a.nd prayers to the mute 
 heavens for mercy, drowned by the crashing timbers and the 
 awful roar of the consuming fire; the world would shrink with 
 horror from the sight, and drive away the terrible thought in a 
 mental effort to prepare suitable punishment for the fiendish per- 
 petrators. 
 
 How unutterly infamous would be the wretch who planned 
 such hellish deeds, and an attempt to palliate the crime, would 
 palsy the tongue; but alarming as it seems, there are, in every 
 center of idleness and discontent, a thousand frantic brains, 
 through which such pictures play with savage defight. If I dis- 
 cover a conspiracy to commit arson, murder, treason, or other 
 crime, the law demands that I interfere, or give the a,larm. Now, 
 I see in tens of thousands of haggard faces, reflected the startling 
 pictures of woe and destruction that fires tens of thousands of 
 bewildered brains, and I tell the apathetic people to arouse, and 
 by some just and generous means, avert the danger that 
 threatens to overwhelm us. 
 
 The future is indeed dark, but unless monopoly Is dethroned, 
 and the whole industrial system changed, the people will grad- 
 ua,lly sink until despair arouses resistance, and then comes resti- 
 tution, through revolution. Deplore it as we may, the issue has 
 been forced by oragnized aristocracy, and, if relief comes, it must 
 be from the organized patriotism of the lower millions. In grasp- 
 ing all the rights and privileges belonging to the people, 'tis they 
 who have raised the standard of revolt. They and not we, have 
 lajd the mines, but who may ply the torch, remains for the future. 
 
 If the great middle class will shake off its apathy, obey the 
 dictates of patriotism, and prepare for auction, the country may yet 
 be saved by the ballot, the glories of the republic survive this 
 
197 
 
 lock, and posterity bless this generation for rescuing the coun- 
 try from a darker danger than hovered over it in '61. If the high 
 mettled pride of our ancestors finds no abiding place in this gen- 
 eration, the sun of liberty is forever set, and the failure of an ex- 
 periment in self-government will go down the ages, a warning 
 to all who foolishly prefer ruling themselves to being ruled by 
 others. 
 
 But liberty will not sleep, and if our people are lost to pride 
 and patriotism, the gods tha,t preserved the continent for a new 
 experiment in human government, will spur mad ambition, and 
 goad apathy into action; then the bugle will call, the fields will 
 be tented, the heart made sad, the home desolate, and the patriot 
 will sit by the low camp fire and read this little volume to com- 
 rades, who are fighting with him, a new war for liberty. 
 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 To people in the West, who pay six dollars per pair for good 
 blankets, my argument on page 108 may seem defective, as being 
 based on too small a per cent profit and too low a price. They 
 must remember, however, that we of the West, pay a heavier per 
 cent to numerous "middlemen," and that the English traders are 
 satisfied with from two to five per cent on reliable sajes. My 
 argument is based upon Eastern quotations, close to the wholesale 
 nters. No explanation will be necessary in the East. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
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