Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1917 — CONSCRIPT INCOMES! [ARTICLE]

CONSCRIPT INCOMES!

Is our congress going to say I that it is only the lives of bur boys that are owing to their country in this crisis? Is there something yet more precious that must not be laid on the altar? Is the wealth of our money'”lords too sacred to •be touched without gilt-edged notes, bonds and usury? Perish—the thought! Will redblooded Americans who are ready to give their lives for their country consent to give those lives in defense of the money bags of the Shylocks? Not unless those bags are opened wide ‘to the country’s needs. Two thousand years ago a poor woman dropped into the contribution chest her “mite” —but it was her all. At the same time the rich and powerful gave princely sums, yet the Master Teacher declared

her gift to be greater than theirs. Many a sorrowing mother will be called upon in the days to come: for her “mite”—her brave young son. Fathers are asked to surrender the sons upon whom they hoped to lean in the helplessness of age. Are these sacrifices to be made that the miser’s hoard may be safe? Conscript incomes! Conscript wealth wherever found, if necessary, to the prosecution of the war. In God’s name, are the tplutocrats who have fattened on the public for generations to still be regarded as a “privileged class’’ when the life of our nation and its people are at stake? Conscript the incomes! Let the Shylocks lay their wealth where the poor man lays his life.