Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1908 — THE SNEER OF WEALTH. [ARTICLE]

THE SNEER OF WEALTH.

Won't somebody give 30 cents to the Bryan campaign fund?—New York Tribune. Allowing for the joke, which seems to be a necessity with us in every relation, the sneer that underlies this remark is not well considered. as. indeed, sneers rarely are. Let us look at the subject a moment: For years the people have been sullen at the great sums of money raised by the “beneficiaries” to carry elections. This sullenness has grown from the days when It was frankly called "frying the fat” out of the protected interests to those more recent days when there was an issue of veracity between two great personages about the raising of a quarter of a million of dollars for the Republican campaign of New York—the issue being as to the Initiative on which the sum was raised Just before the election. This culminated in anger on the part of the people so plainly felt that the President and his candidate tried to get a publicity plank in the Republican platform. They were ignomlniously defeated. The President might choose the candidate, but he should not shut off the golden stream that had been wont to flow every four years when

tapped by the Republican party. Then came the Democratic platform, declaring for publicity, and followed promptly by the action of the Democratic national candidates and committee, announcing that no contributions from corporations would be accepted, and limiting the highest single subscription to $lO,000, all gifts to be published before the election. Thereupon there was hurring to and fro by the Republicans, and, as Mr. Taft announced at Cincinnati, a treasurer for the Republican campaign was chosen from New York, where he would be compelled, under the law, to make public the contributions—after the

election! That is, we are to have thus much Republican publicity because the law of a State compels it. Meanwhile, a Western treasurer for Republican campaign contributions was chosen in Chicago, his strength being, as announced, .that he is not only a wealthy man, but Is a member of the board of review, that passes on the taxes that large corporations and estates pay in Illinois (which has no law compelling publicity for campaign contributions). His facilities for the job are at once apparent. So much for the Republican position. But now here is the Democratic party, confessedly made up of the people who are not rich, with no friends among the “beneficiaries,” and no facilities for “frying the fat” out of them, which has expressly renounced such contributions and has asked instead that the people send in their contributions, sums as small as one dollar being asked. The Tribune suggests 30 cents. So we have reached the stage where not only one party has all of the beneficiaries corralled, ready to tap for its benefit, but when an appeal is made to the common people that this is their fight, and that their humbly gifts from each, according to his means, should be made for the “common defense and the general welfare,” it is sneered at by those that look down from the buttressed wealth of the country. The sneer indicates the situation and the contemptuous advantage which the cohorts of wealth believe they hold. What can the plain people, the mass that work for a bare living, do to raise money for a political party that shall have charge of the people's government? “Won’t somebody give 30 cents to the, Bryan campaign fund?” There is heard all the insolence of wealth, all of the arrogance of long-continued possession of power. The idea of the people, the simple people. Raising money enough out of their small means to finance a national campaign! For the plain people to antagonize the combined wealth „of this plutocracy is like a man tackling a machine with his bare hands. But one thing makes the contest not only an even one, but may give victory to the people, and that is that it is votes that are counted, not money, and of these the people have the most, if they use them rightly. —lndianapolis News.