Frenzied Finance Part 4

In awed whispers men talked of its mysterious doings and canva.s.sed its extraordinary powers as though "Standard Oil" were a living, breathing ent.i.ty rather than a mere business inst.i.tution created by men and existing only by virtue of the laws of the land.

About the time that the world had begun mistily to take in the tremendous forces which radiated from "Standard Oil," there occurred a financial crash, and the people saw their savings, invested in what they supposed were the legal and absolute t.i.tles of owners.h.i.+p in the material things of their country, suddenly decline in value and contract to prices representing a loss to them of billions of dollars. Throughout the misery and suffering this terrible collapse occasioned, "Standard Oil" remained undisturbed as before and amid all the confusion kept sternly on its dollar-"making" way. Indeed, it seemed to gain in bulk as other inst.i.tutions diminished or disappeared. Then it was that the people first began to demand, what they are still to-day fiercely demanding, "What is this 'Standard Oil'?" "What is its secret?" "Whence came it?" and, "Can our republic endure if it, too, endures?"

To-day "Standard Oil," the "Private Thing," is the greatest power in the land--more powerful than the people individually or as a whole, and its secret is the knowledge of the trick of finance by which dollars are "made" from nothing in unlimited quant.i.ties subject to no laws of man nor nature. The dollars that "Standard Oil" _makes_ are of the same value as the dollars of the people as made by the Government, which dollars we know can be coined and put into circulation only in accordance with law and for the benefit of all the people.

For the better understanding of those readers not versed in the technical phrases of finance and economics I shall in my narrative make use of certain terms of my own which will convey meanings readily grasped when the sense in which they are used is once comprehended. In speaking of "Standard Oil," for instance, I will speak of it as a "Private Thing." By that term I desire to typify the active, private ident.i.ty of a corporation which comprehends, but exists independently of, its legalized functions. Some corporations have a real personality in addition to that which their name and the corporation laws prescribe for them, an inherent power, or individuality, which exists above and apart from their physical functions as sellers of oil, of coal, or of ice. This may be an incarnation of the power developed in the transaction of their legalized occupations, but the "Private Thing" is uncontrolled by any of the restrictions by which the law defines and curbs the corporation whose name it bears. Already I have distinguished between "Standard Oil" which wields all the powers of its subsidiary companies, and Standard Oil, the seller of oil. In the same way we have "American Sugar Refineries" and "United States Steel," the "Private Things" which are not one whit better than nor different from "Standard Oil," the "Private Thing." Though this narrative will deal only with the "Private Things," Bay State Gas and Amalgamated Copper, I have no hesitancy in saying that the methods employed and the results, good or bad, which accrued in the case of any of the other "Private Things" with which the public have had to do, differ only in details from those with which I shall deal in my story.

In speaking of dollars brought into existence by the trick of finance I have referred to I shall call them henceforth "made dollars," to distinguish them from dollars coined by the Government and legitimately acquired by the individual or corporation. These "made dollars," it must be remembered, are really "made" for all purposes of use as surely as if they had the Government's stamp, yet they are not made in the sense of the known volume of the people's money being added to. So, however many of these "made dollars" are brought into existence by this trick of finance, only the men who "made" them can know and profit by their existence. The people are no wiser nor can they adjust themselves to the change of conditions brought about by the creation of all this new money; yet if "unmade" or lost, the entire volume of the nation's wealth would be contracted.

I can set before my readers better by an ill.u.s.tration than by any process of definition, the trick of finance by which "made dollars" are brought into existence. Let us suppose that the United States Government at Was.h.i.+ngton, the only power legally ent.i.tled to issue money for circulation among the people, puts forth a particular $10,000. All the conditions prescribed by law have been followed, and all the people in the country are benefited by the issue and circulation of this particular $10,000, each in the proportion the laws prescribe.

"B," a Western farmer, tills his soil and receives, by the sale of his wheat, the particular $10,000, which he then deposits in _The Bank_.

_The Bank_, being a part of the Government machinery, only receives, holds, and uses the $10,000 under safeguards provided for by the laws of the land, so hereafter "B's" material life is conducted on the basis that he is the full and actual possessor of $10,000. He knows, further, that his $10,000 cannot be expanded nor contracted, nor its relation to any of the other money of the people which is in circulation altered without his knowledge, because he knows such changes cannot come about except through the Government. I say he knows this--he has every right to believe he knows it--but, in fact, it is not so, because of the working of the secret financial device of the Private Thing. At this stage enters "C," the Private Thing.

"C" purchases with $3,300 ("B's" money) which he borrows from _The Bank_, a copper-mine, depositing the t.i.tle which he receives from the seller with _The Bank_ as collateral for the $3,300. After purchasing he arbitrarily calls the copper-mine worth $10,000--arbitrarily because his act is not controlled nor regulated by any of the laws of the land--arbitrarily because the actual cost, $3,300, is his secret and his alone. Then, arbitrarily, "C" organizes his $3,300 of copper property into the Arbitrary Copper Company, and issues to himself a piece of paper, which he arbitrarily stamps "10,000 stock dollars." This he takes to _The Bank_, and by loan or other device exchanges it for the remaining $6,700 belonging to "B," and thereafter "C" conducts his affairs on the basis that he is the possessor of $6,700, his "made dollars" in the transaction. At this stage there is actually in use among the people $16,700 where "B," the legitimate factor, and his kind, the people, suppose there is but $10,000--$10,000 which is recorded, known and legal, being used by the legitimate factors, "B" and _The Bank_, and $6,700 which is unrecorded and unknown to any but "C" and _The Bank_, being used by the illegitimate Private Thing "C."

Right here is the secret device, the financial trick, by which the greatest power in the land has been created, and by which the people can be absolutely plundered of their savings for the benefit of the few.

At this stage the two-thirds of "B's" $10,000, of which he later is to be plundered, has not been actually taken away, so he cannot possibly have any evidence yet of the process of pillage which has been begun, or that the volume of money which he supposes is all that exists has been tremendously expanded. The next step is where "C" sells his $3,300, stamped "10,000 stock dollars" (which, as already shown, he has exchanged with _The Bank_ for the $10,000 deposited by "B"), to "B" for $10,000, which $10,000 "B" withdraws from _The Bank_ by simply making out a check in favor of "C." ("B's" inducement to exchange his dollars for the stock dollars of "C" is the high rate of interest that they will return in the form of dividends, which rate is much larger than _The Bank_ can afford to pay.) "C" deposits "B's" check with _The Bank_ and hereby liquidates his $10,000 indebtedness to _The Bank_.

At this stage "B" is still the possessor of $10,000, but it is "10,000 stock dollars." "C" is the possessor of $6,700, and "D," from whom the copper-mine was purchased, is the possessor of $3,300; but the two latter amounts make up the 10,000 real dollars, and _The Bank_ remains where it was at the beginning of the transaction. The people, however, are no wiser; but they know, because they have been most carefully educated to such knowledge by "C's" agents, Wall Street, and the press, that their country is tremendously prosperous--that its great prosperity is evidenced by the $6,700 added wealth in the form of 6,700 new stock dollars. At the next stage the financial trick accomplished by the secret device is complete. "B," the farmer, who has contracted for new machinery and other necessities and luxuries to be paid for "next season," attempts next season to turn his 10,000 stock dollars into real dollars, and "C," the Private Thing, knowing their real value to be but $3,300, refuses to make the exchange, but instead, by proclaiming their real value, compels "B," who must have real dollars to meet his debts, to sell them for what "C," the Private Thing, is willing to pay. "C,"

the Private Thing, is willing to pay their worth, which he alone knows is $3,300; he repurchases them at that price from "B," that he may repeat the operation at the return of the next "wave of the country's prosperity."

By this operation "B," the farmer, has lost, as absolutely as though they had been taken away from him by a Government decree, $6,700 of his own making, and "C," the Private Thing, has "made," as absolutely as though the Government had allowed him to coin them for his own benefit, 6,700 real dollars, and _The Bank_, created, regulated, and controlled by law, and existing because of the people's deposits of money, has been the instrument by which "C," the Private Thing, has deprived "B," the farmer, of his savings, because "C," the Private Thing, is at one and the same time during the operation I have outlined, himself and _The Bank_.

A careful study of this ill.u.s.tration, by even laymen unacquainted with financial or corporation affairs, will clearly show that the foundation of this transaction was _The Bank's_ putting in jeopardy $3,300 of "B's"

deposited $10,000, and that if the $3,300, after being put in jeopardy, had been lost, "B" would have been the loser,[2] which, in turn, means that the compensation for the jeopardy in which the $3,300 was placed was the possibility of $6,700 profit; and that, therefore, the $6,700 profit when made should have gone to the owner of the $3,300, "B,"

instead of to "C," the user of it.

It is therefore in this sense that I shall use the term "made dollars"--wherever they are "made" or "unmade" through one set of men using the dollars of another set of men without that other set knowing that their dollars are being so used; and wherever the result of such use is that when dollars are "made," they are "made" by the ones who use others' money, and where dollars are "unmade," they are lost by the ones who own the dollars which they don't know are being used.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] I say "B" would have been the loser because all money lost by a bank must eventually be lost by the depositors, the people, or the surplus or capital of the bank which belongs to the people, through their owners.h.i.+p of the stock in the bank. Of course the loss of individual amounts such as $3,300 would not come directly on the people. But when the aggregate of the money put in jeopardy by the four cla.s.ses of inst.i.tutions I name--national banks, savings-banks, trusts, and insurance companies--runs into billions and is lost, the loss _must_ fall on the people, because the only other ones involved are the managers and controllers of these inst.i.tutions, who always see to it that when the losses which would wreck the bank are actually made, they, the managers and controllers, have no deposits and none of the stock.

CHAPTER VI

CONSTRUCTION OF "STANDARD OIL'S" "DOLLAR-MAKING" MILL

I believe "Standard Oil" was the first to utilize this secret device for circ.u.mventing the safeguards which the law has erected to protect the savings of the people. It was the first practically to apprehend that, a large proportion of all the moneys in circulation, which belong to the people or the Government, being in the custody of the national and savings-banks and trust and insurance companies, it would only be necessary for a set of men to obtain control of sufficient of the princ.i.p.al national and savings-banks and trust and insurance companies to control practically unlimited amounts of such funds. Once in control of these funds dollars could be absolutely "made" at will by the three following steps: 1st. Using the money in these inst.i.tutions to acquire properties. 2d. Consolidating such properties on an inflated basis, and selling them to the people (who, in fact, already owned them; because they owned the funds with which they had been purchased); and, 3d, by stock-market trickery scaring their owners into re-selling them at an enormous shrinkage from the price they had paid. To understand a situation with "Standard Oil" is to act, and twenty years ago it began to weave a net to secure control of the four cla.s.ses of inst.i.tutions I have named.

Its first move was to establish a great corporation, the Standard Oil Company, and make its stock, 1,000,000 shares, sell at from $650 to $800 per share, or $650,000,000 to $800,000,000. It kept its affairs mysteriously secret, it paid enormous dividends, and from time to time it caused to be published broadcast throughout the world the statement that it was held in such value by its creators, the Rockefellers, Rogers, etc, that they continued to own all but a few shares of the entire capital. To prove that there could be no doubt of such continued owners.h.i.+p, the public's attention was repeatedly called to the fact that the Standard Oil Company was the only great corporation which did not allow its shares to be traded in upon any of the stock-exchanges. As a matter of fact, though they are not traded in on the regular stock-exchanges, they are actively bought and sold daily on the New York "Curb."

At the height of the recent financial storm word went round that the crafts of three over-night-made multimillionaires, men foremost in the seventh group of "Standard Oil" votaries, were in the trough of the financial sea and headed for the breakers, which were already strewn with the wrecks of the people's savings. Following closely on the heels of these stories came the astounding one that each of these enormously rich men had, in his endeavors to raise large amounts of cash, disclosed among his a.s.sets blocks of "Standard Oil" stock ranging from 5,000 to 20,000 shares each. Hardly had the public heard this before all financialdom knew that the storm-tossed crafts had received succor, and that the crisis had pa.s.sed. For one brief day the financial press of the country printed the item: "Standard Oil came to the rescue by buying for cash large blocks of Standard Oil stock which had long been held by this or that interest for investment," and no more was thought of the incident. Even the most alert financiers never suspected that the most important stock secret of the age had been on the verge of becoming public property.

Planted deep in the minds of the public that watches the comings and goings of the Street is the conviction that Standard Oil is the holy of holies among stocks. The world has been taught to believe that the owners of Standard Oil regard the shares of the great oil corporation as their most precious, most sacred possessions. Yet while "Standard Oil"

has been so scientifically spreading abroad the impression that the public would never be permitted to own Standard Oil stock, secretly it has been engaged in exchanging that stock for the securities of the people in the form of banks and trust companies, railroads, and other a.s.sets of definite value. So completely has "Standard Oil" pulled the wool over the eyes of the votaries of finance that there cannot be found in or out of Wall Street a single great financier who would not laugh to scorn the suggestion that "Standard Oil" is engaged in a campaign for the distribution of its Standard Oil stock to the public. Yet pin your great financier down to the facts, and he'll admit that he himself has quite a block of the stock, and that inst.i.tutions of which he is a director include among their a.s.sets in one form or another good-sized parcels of the inestimable security. But so completely are these very wise men held by the spells woven over them when for this or that special reason they were allowed as a favor to acquire their holdings, and so impressively have they been shown that their owners.h.i.+p in Standard Oil stock must be kept secret, that no suspicion has ever entered their minds that they were playing the part of lambs in its purchase.

Nor was the episode I have described above allowed to disturb their serenity. It soon became known to the innermost circle of Wall Street that the stock the three men had resold to "Standard Oil" represented the share of each in some of the gigantic deals to which he had been a party during the last ten years, and that with its acquirement had gone a pledge that it would always be kept in the purchaser's "tin box," and whenever inspected by "Standard Oil" would be free from "pinholes." And so, adroitly, dangerous deductions were prevented.

For the uninstructed I may say that a capitalist's "tin box" is the receptacle for the stocks and bonds that largely represent his fortune, and pinholes in a stock certificate are in Wall Street conclusive evidence that such certificate has, at some period, temporarily pa.s.sed into other's hands as collateral for loans, for there has been pinned to it a memorandum or note stating the details of the transaction in which its owner parted with it. Pinholed securities are looked upon by the upper crust of big financiers with much the same horror as that with which members of the American social upper crust look upon their No. 10 boots and gloves--reminders of their peasant ancestry.

But to return to "Standard Oil's" financial weavings: Their next move was to use Standard Oil stock as the basis for loans, that is, as collateral for money borrowed from the banks, trust and insurance companies, and treasuries of other great corporations and estates. The money thus acquired was paid out to purchase the control of banks and trust and insurance companies in all parts of the United States, the Standard Oil owners.h.i.+p being represented by dummy directors and officers.

The next move represents another of the dazzling devices of finance in which "Standard Oil" is adept, and brings the process of artificial expansion still further along. Control of a certain number of these savings and national banks and trust and insurance companies having been acquired, the funds of each were so manipulated by depositing those of one inst.i.tution with another, and the latter's in turn with the first, as to swell the deposits of all and create in all of them an apparently legitimate basis for increases of capitalization. At the same time there was shown an apparently legitimate necessity for the establishment of additional banking and trust companies, which were duly organized and their a.s.sets juggled around by the same process. The result of all this manipulation defies description. Throughout the series of correlated inst.i.tutions loans and deposits are multiplied in such an intricacy of duplication that only a few able experts, employed by the "System"

because of their mathematical genius, are able to unravel the tangle to the extent of approximating the proportion the legitimate funds bear to those which have been created by the financial jugglery I have indicated.

When "Standard Oil" had gathered into its net sufficient of the important private inst.i.tutions of finance there still remained the federal Government, the largest handler of money in the country. It was not hard for "Standard Oil" to introduce its expert votaries into the United States Treasury and thus to steer the millions of the nation into the banks subject to the "System's" control. This accomplished, the structure was complete and the process of "making" dollars proceeded on a magnificent scale.

That there may be no possible doubt in the minds of those of my readers who are unacquainted with such matters that I am citing every-day, actual happenings, I will tell just how the Daly-Haggin-Tevis-Anaconda-Amalgamated transaction was worked out, showing that but for the existence of the National City Bank of New York, or a like inst.i.tution of the people, it could not have been brought about.

When Mr. Rogers and William Rockefeller "traded" with Messrs. Daly, Haggin, and Tevis for the Anaconda stock, and with others for like stock or other properties which I have already named, the price agreed upon was $24,000,000 to Daly, Haggin, and Tevis, and $15,000,000 to the others, or $39,000,000 in all. This was to be paid by "Standard Oil" and received by Daly, Haggin, and Tevis, and the others, but one of the stipulations in the "trade" was that instead of the money's being paid to Daly, Haggin, and Tevis, and others direct, it was to be credited to them on the books of the National City Bank of New York and was to be, by agreement, not withdrawn from the bank before a given time, the bank agreeing that the new owners of this money should receive interest at a low rate upon it while it so remained deposited. At the same time the bank agreed to loan Mr. Rogers and William Rockefeller the $39,000,000 at the same rate of interest upon the collateral which the $39,000,000 was used in purchasing. Therefore the first part of the transaction was as follows:

The bank, having $39,000,000 on hand belonging to the public in the form of savings deposited, or having a fict.i.tious $39,000,000 in the form of book-keeping accounts made possible by the deposits of the public and the manipulation of the funds in other banks and trust and insurance companies belonging to the public or the Government, caused an entry to be made in its books showing that this $39,000,000 had been loaned to Mr. Rogers and William Rockefeller, and that they, having transferred it to Daly, Haggin, Tevis, and others, were, upon the books of the bank, the real owners.

The second part was the summoning into the City Bank of certain "Standard Oil" lawyers, office-boys, and clerks, and the organization by them of the Amalgamated Copper Company. The lawyers drew up the papers and the office-boys and clerks signed them. First, the papers certified that "whereas we (the office-boys and clerks) are desirous of taking advantage of the corporation laws of the State of New Jersey, we (the said office-boys and clerks) do so take advantage of the said laws and form ourselves into the Amalgamated Copper Company, which will have a capital of $75,000,000, and which will be allowed by said laws to own copper-mines and other things, to mine copper and other things, to manufacture, buy, sell, and trade in copper and other things, and to do numerous and variegated other things; and that whereas we (the said office-boys and clerks) have now become the Amalgamated Copper Company, one of our number will purchase the entire capital stock of the said Amalgamated Copper Company for $75,000,000 cash, which $75,000,000 cash we herewith certify to have been paid in the form of a check for $75,000,000, herewith delivered to the treasurer, one of our number, by the clerk who drew it; and the treasurer, herewith certifying that he has received the $75,000,000, herewith delivers unto said clerk the $75,000,000 capital stock of the Amalgamated Copper Company, and we (the said office-boys and clerks) herewith certify that there is within the treasury of the Amalgamated Copper Company $75,000,000, and we (the said office-boys and clerks) vote that it, the said $75,000,000, shall be used in the purchase of certain stocks and properties, and said certain stocks and properties shall be the same stocks and properties previously purchased by Mr. Rogers and William Rockefeller, and now owned by them, and we (the said office-boys and clerks) herewith certify that we have paid from the treasury $75,000,000, that said $75,000,000 is in the form of a check, and said check is the one previously received, or its equivalent, by our treasurer, from one of our number, to wit, the clerk referred to earlier in these papers, and said $75,000,000 has been paid to Henry H. Rogers for his and William Rockefeller's use." Henry H.

Rogers, now having $75,000,000, where formerly he had stocks and properties which had cost him $39,000,000, and being desirous of investing it, purchased from the clerk the $75,000,000 of Amalgamated stock which he, the clerk, had previously purchased from the treasury of the Amalgamated Company, Mr. Rogers promptly paying for said purchase with the $75,000,000 check or its equivalent, which has already done such yeoman service.

The organization of the Amalgamated Copper Company of New Jersey now being complete, and the company being in possession of all the property which had formerly belonged to Mr. Rogers and William Rockefeller, and which had cost them $39,000,000, and the clerk having again come into possession of his $75,000,000 check, and Mr. Rogers and William Rockefeller being the sole owners of the $75,000,000 of Amalgamated stock, the second part of this transaction was completed. The third began by the office-boys and clerks resigning from their positions as directors and officers of the Amalgamated Copper Company of New Jersey in favor of the more responsible and better known "Standard Oil"

votaries. Mr. Rogers and William Rockefeller then had the National City Bank of New York offer for sale to the public the $75,000,000 of stock in such a way that, although it was then the private property of Mr.

Rogers and William Rockefeller, the public were led to believe it was the property of the Amalgamated Copper Company. Simultaneously, the National City Bank of New York offered to loan the public its deposits at the rate of ninety cents on the dollar, on any amount of the Amalgamated stock it, the public, purchased; whereupon the public, taking advantage of this offer, agreed to purchase from the National City Bank of New York the $75,000,000 of stock for $75,000,000, thereby enabling it to certify upon its books that the $39,000,000 it had loaned to Messrs. Rogers and Rockefeller had been repaid, and enabling Mr.

Rogers and William Rockefeller, after paying said debts to the National City Bank of New York, to become the absolute owners of $36,000,000 of money, none of which they had owned before, and which they had "made" as absolutely as though they had coined it by permit from the Government of the people who had parted with it.[3]

The fourth part of the transaction began when months afterward the public, who had borrowed their money from the National City Bank of New York and other banks and trust and insurance companies to buy Amalgamated stock at 100 cents on the dollar, were compelled to repay it, and to do so were obliged to sell the Amalgamated stock which they had purchased at $100 per share for the best price they could get, which was $33 per share; and if we suppose for a moment that the "Standard Oil," after repurchasing it at $33 per share, at a later day repeated the operation of selling it for $100 per share, it will be seen that "Standard Oil," the "Private Thing," would thereby "make" an additional $50,000,000, as absolutely as though they had been allowed by the Government to coin it.[4]

This explanation is not the creation of an extravagant fancy. It is not romance, but reality. The thing described was a supreme manifestation of the "System," of the perfect working of that tremendous financial machine which reaps, grinds, and harvests for its own benefit, the earned savings of the American people.

In showing how these thirty-six millions were made in the brief s.p.a.ce of this creature's (Amalgamated Copper's) life, I deal with reality and not romance; but let my readers for a moment give their imaginations play and picture to themselves one scene in this stupendous drama. A great room in the greatest banking house in America, if not in the world--silent, solemn--an atmosphere of impregnable rect.i.tude--the solid furniture, the heavy carpets, the chill high walls, the ma.s.sive desks, the impressive chairs, the great majestic table portentously suggestive of power. Presto! the dim calm is broken; the air vibrates as when an ancient church is invaded by a swarm of vampire-bats. Into the great room enter a group of men and a flock of youths, who settle in the impressive chairs round the majestic table. You wonder what is the motive of the a.s.semblage. These grave lawyers, whose names are weighty in the nation's councils, and these gray-haired, dignified financiers might well be gathered to arbitrate a dispute involving empires; but why these office-boys and clerks, with their restless, surprised eyes and uneasy gestures? The flouris.h.i.+ng of papers, the murmuring of voices in a confusion of "seventy-five million," "we buy," "we sell," "we are," "we will"--words, nothing but words; then silence as one reads from a stiff parchment certain resolutions which the suave gentleman with incisive steel-clicking manners, at the head of the table, puts to a vote. Then these youths, whose souls are afire with the hope of a director's $5 gold fee, timidly sign the record, trembling the while lest a blot call down on them a scolding; a head clerk, whose fondest dream is a raise of salary as the result of coming under the Master's eye in a seventy-five-million-dollar deal, affixes a seal, and there is an exchanging of thin slips of paper--checks--dollars--magically "made dollars." Exit office-boys and lawyers.

The door closes--silence again. Then the air vibrates with the sound of a hearty hand-slap and the genial, whole-souled greeting of the "Master"

to his partner. "William, I feel as though I had done an honest day's labor! Thirty-six million dollars 'made' and no hitch, no delay!" Then follows the partner's mild answer: "Yes, Harry, but don't forget James'

and the others' shares will shrink it up quite a bit."

Thirty-six million dollars for _one honest day's labor_! Thirty-six million dollars--and Alaska cost us but seven millions and Spain relinquished to us her claims on the Philippines for only twenty millions. Thirty-six million dollars!--more than a hundred times as much as George Was.h.i.+ngton, Thomas Jefferson, and "Abe" Lincoln together secured for the patriotic labors of their lifetimes. And this vast sum was taken from the people to enrich men whose coffers were already, as the results of similar operations, so full of dollars that neither they nor their children, nor their children's children could count them--as the people count their savings, a dollar at a time--as thoughtlessly taken as are the apples that the school-boy steals after he has eaten so many that he can eat no more.

A thousand times have I tried to figure out in my mind what worlds of misery such a sum of millions might allay if issued by a government and intelligently distributed among a people--and do my readers know that never in the world's recorded history has any nation felt itself rich enough to devote thirty-six millions to the cause of charity--even in the midst of the most awful calamities of fire, flood, war, or pestilence? On the other hand, I have had to know about the horrors, the misfortunes, the earthly h.e.l.l, which were the awful consequences of the appropriation of this vast amount. I have had to know about the convicts, the suicides, the broken hearts, the starvation and wretchedness, the ruined bodies and lost souls which strewed the fields of the "System's" harvest.

Pondering all these things, I have ceased to wonder at the deep murmurs of discontent that are rising, rising to my ears from all parts of the continent.

Can it be that a just G.o.d suffers the sons and daughters of some of us to eke out a bare existence as the best reward of earnest effort and sterling worth, and at the same time rewards these other men with $36,000,000 for one day's labor? Is this the freedom which our fathers and our sons died on many a b.l.o.o.d.y, hard-fought field to preserve? I am conscious of a haunting fear that these men and women may not always be patient, may not always be put off with skilled evasion or slippery subterfuge, and for one brief moment I see visions of a marching people, bearing aloft grisly heads on gory poles, and hear above the low, b.e.s.t.i.a.l murmur of the mob the cry for bread and for revenge.

And then I remember that this is _America_, not France; that our laws are strong--if but the people are aroused to see them obeyed; that our prisons are ample, even though they be for the present filled with petty rascals who can do but little harm though turned loose to make room for the real scoundrels who are undermining the foundations of our Republic.

FOOTNOTES: