Confiscation; An Outline Part 6

This foreign master of the art of governing legislates in the interests of his own people, who are the only source of his country's power or greatness, and he leaves the income of the large farm or small one where it is made. And when the issuing of bonds is the only alternative he issues them in sizes those small incomes can buy.

Their labor pays the debt in the end, and it is their interests that are first consulted when profits from bond issues are considered. He makes the size of the bond fit their ability to buy, and not that of the millionaire syndicate, as is the case in this misgoverned land, where the matchless ignorance and complicity of the law-maker is made to serve the matchless corruption and greed of its millionaire master.

No French syndicate makes its five to ten per cent. profits off every issue of bonds.

Thousands among our toilers could have secured their ten-dollar savings could they have bought Government bonds of that denomination but they could not, and were forced to become the victims of swindling bankers.

Individual greed cares nothing for its victims as they are thrown on the streets and its ways.

When this enterprising foreigner, with his surplus capital, the result of wise laws, started for Panama to do a much needed work for this Western world, that this great gold producing country could not find the capital to do, our blackmailers worked the Monroe Doctrine on him and all the while he was quieting the rascals, the sappers and miners were splitting their sides at our treasury door.

Congress is opened by a chaplain. It should be opened by a physician and a warrant - bibs for the drooling chins of some and the rest to jail.

[2] The writer is not within hundreds of miles of works of reference; but these figures are substantially correct. The quibbler, however, is welcome to anything he may find.

Conclusion.

A policy that keeps our increase of wealth in the country, and prevents it from lodging in a few hands, can work no injury whatever. No enterprise worthy of notice will languish for the want of the necessary capital. The savings banks are the depositories of the people, and the capital of those inst.i.tution in all the cities of the country exceeds that of the commercial or capitalistic banks, and the "statements" of the savings banks should dispel any fears as to whether capital can be concentrated afterit once gets into the hands of the people. $50,000,000 is the a.s.sets of more than one savings bank in the City of New York. And our own San Francisco has its Hibernia and other banks of its kind, with from $5,000,000 to $30,000,000 of capital. And when it is remembered that the total deposits of an individual in most of those inst.i.tutions is not allowed to exceed $3,000, we can see that the people will not fail us as "concentrators" when their help is needed.

Those statements also show whether those of small means are for concealing it, or for putting it into the hands of competent managers for investment. And if these competent managers approve of an enterprise they will not neglect their client's interests by refusing to make the required loan.

At present, they do not seek investment outside of corporate limits, and, of course, the money they have been intrusted with, must be about all invested, and cannot be called idle money, or there could be no interest paid to its owners.

There will be no friction in the management of industrial enterprises when this savings-bank depositor makes a direct investment. The voter at the polls has his say as to who shall fill a political office, but he cannot interfere in the work of the office itself. Neither will our investor have the right or power to interfere. In short, the modern industrial world would go to pieces even now, if it was run by its million owners, instead of by its appointed or elected superintendent.

These small depositors are either laborers or in "business;" business that they would enlarge if business of all kinds was not already overdone. It is not to be inferred from this that the new law will cause factories to run day and night, or keep the merchant's door always on the swing. There will be an increase of business surely; but this world is not like a goose whose liver we are after. Her capacity to absorb what we make or produce is limited, and when we reach that limit, let us be content, and chain down Greed for the moment, that we may look out and see how beautiful is this world whereon we live, when freed from the crack of the master's whip.

Through Confiscation alone can the people regain their liberty and possession of their resources.

A readjustment means justice to all.

Without it the days of the republic are numbered, and the overwhelming disaster to mankind will mark the burial place of the aspirations of its founders, and the latest conquest of individual greed.

That disaster cannot be averted by Grover Cleveland, the head of the Democratic party, finding a foreign market for a few more s.h.i.+ploads of our products. And never should the oppressed of other lands find an enemy here to take their bread. Pinching nature has not made wolves of this people that they should go and show their teeth among the cabins and hovels of Europe. Theirs is but a crust now, and a judgement should wither the hand that would take it from them.

This disaster cannot be averted by Thomas B. Reed, the idol and recognized leader of the Republican party, forcing the producers of those few s.h.i.+p loads of products to consume them themselves. The whole could be dropped to the bottom of the sea, or sold for their value a hundred fold, and it would not stay the doom of the Republic one swing of the pendulum.

This disaster cannot be averted by Robert G. Ingersoll - another idol - advising the millionaire to be extravagant. Or by taking the labor-saving machinery away from the people, and keeping them longer at their toil, as this humbug has suggested.

This Is The Age Of Beef.

Our leaders are incompetent. Argument here is needless. We have plenty of everything, and plenty of hunger at the same time, which shows mismanagement. Our leaders, therefore, must be incompetent. Nor should the blame of this be charged to the people. Statecraft, like the prescribing of medicine or the practice of law, is a profession, and the unlearned in their ways is at the mercy of the quacks of all three.

When none but quacks offer their services to the State a selection must be made, and the people cannot be held to account for choosing quacks when there was nothing to choose from but quacks.

Whatever physical characteristics distinguishes the genius of leaders.h.i.+p from the ordinary man; whether it is long legs or short; long nose or pug; big heads or little, one thing is certain - history tells you on her every page that leaders.h.i.+p is never found in combination with beef.

Cleveland and Reed! How they stew and swelter in positions they cannot fill. How these Jonahs have grown till they have become the whale itself. How their fat will spot the pages to come, and float on the sea where the Republic went down.

And Ingersoll - let us not forget Ingersoll - the thumber over of past woes, whose five hundred dollar opera ticket identifies the cla.s.s to which he now belongs, and proves his success as a fifteenth century reformer. The people made and keep up the acquaintance of this man by way of the ticket office, but instead of considering him as they would any other footlight performer, who had struck a paying vein and was working it for all it was worth, and who can only be heard at so much per ticket, they have come to look upon the character he has been acting as the man himself, and their friend who would make their cause his own.

No fee is collected at the door of the little church that is found along the byways of every Christian land, and its humble preacher can be heard free of cost. But abuse of this follower and disciple of Jesus, whose teachings are in no way responsible for the crimes of Individual Greed, has been the source of large profits to this man, who has even gone so far as to tell his hearers not to give a dollar to the support of a preacher - meaning, doubtless, while you could see his performance for half the money.

This man, whose audience is world-wide, uses his great opportunity for helping mankind by inclosing the scenes of former struggles, and collecting the gate receipts.

This bogus friend of the people answers the cry of distress that is heard all over this bountiful land by a shrug, and a nod to the master to drop a few more crumbs, as if the people were hungry dogs under the table.

Ingersoll a friend of the oppressed? He would render justice to the enslaved toiler by lengthening his hours of labor.

A sham reformer, who would destroy the Inquisition of this day by plunging his spotless blade into an Inquisition whose sun has set, never to rise again.

Ingersoll of the tender soul, who shows the sincerity of his exhibition-tears for the persecuted dead by riding, rough-shod, over the sensibilities of the blameless living.

Warrior Ingersoll, furiously charging up and down an abandoned battle-field, rattling the bleaching bones of a dead and gone enemy - for an admission fee.

Ingersoll the capper, who would turn all eyes to the ashes of a burned-out bell, while another is being dug in our rear.

Cleveland - Reed - Ingersoll,

The Three

C A G L I O S T R O S.