People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1893 — Page 4 Advertisements Column 3 [ADVERTISEMENT]

present system is altogether wrong and should not continue any longer.—Remington Press. If Messrs. Martindale and Faris had any independence they would either resign or refuse to allow themselves to be longer used as figure heads. No measure which the Carpenter boss opposes has so far met their approval and no measure which he has favored have they dared, to oppose. Even the gravel road tax levy, which benefits Mr. Tabor and a few of his immediate neighbors in Carpenter township, raises a larger

revenue than is required for the 48 miles of gravel road in Whit'a county, and outrageous as this measure was the two figureheads on the board were compelled by the little boss to approve his demands. The people still remember the little bosse’s court house cement pavement contract and will watch v/ith interest the disbursement of the gravel road tax revenu es. Perhaps the great and o'jly Oliver Perry Tabor has another “pet” in training who \ s willing to take a contract w'ith the understanding that lov. er bids will not be considered. This gravel road, tax savers of robbery to such an extent that it has found no defenders even among the “truly loyal.” Not even Marshall & Co. have dared to express their approval.

In a recent address the Rev. Mr. Zimmerman, of Evanston, spoke of the need of an ethical political economy. He said that political economy as now taught was in the interest of capital, and that the professors treating it were occupying chairs endowed by capitalists. Their only aim, he declared, was to teach how to pile up wealth. Mr. Zimmerman continued: Low wages and large profits or high wages and small profits was the underlying principle. The lowest wages at which laborers can live and propagate was the aim. Assess taxes where they are the most easily collected. Tax the people who cannot successfully “kick.”. It is taught that political economy has nothing to do with ethical questions. The whole system is founded upon the desire of a man to take advantage of his neighbor. It ignores those qualities common to men and angels and emphasizes those common to men and brutes.

The worst of it all is that the common economic millionaire owns a front pew in our churches or is a member—if not him self, his wife—and so divides with the church with the tacit understanding that the church will only teach theology and give ethics a wide berth. Some years ago Mr. Armour cornered pork, buying at $5 per barrel and unloading at sls per barrel, thus netting $1,500,000. He now divides with the church and his praise is sung on every hand. Nobody seems to remember the moral principle involved in that magnificent steal from the pockets of the consumers. The speaker likened such fellows to mounted foot-pads (“a contradiction of. terms”). The one says “shell out; 1 want it for myself,” while the other says “shell out; I want to divide with the church.” The man who hands over his pocket-book and watch feels the same in both cases. And the Rev. A. C. Kelly, in the Church Bulletin, indorses the above by saying: “It is needless to say that the speaker has a world of truth on his side. The lower class of wage earners and the church are growing farther and farther apart. What is righteous in the laborer’s cause should be espoused by the church. The ethics of political economy, and every other economy, must be taught from our pulpits if we are to do the practical work of Christ. Time was when all pulpits south, and most of them north, were silent concerning the ethics of hiftian slavery. We condemn them. The future will rise to condemn us.