People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1895 — IT IS A NEW DANGER. [ARTICLE]

IT IS A NEW DANGER.

LESSON FROM THE GOULDCASTLLANE NUPTIALS. Plutacraey Meant to Establish a Monarchy on the Raia* of the Republic— Menace to Liberty and Popular Government. A wedding occurred in New York the other day, the account of which filled the daily papers. Great scare headlines announced it, pictures of bonnets, dresses and faces Illustrated it. Congress and its adjournment were forgotten; ( business was suspended and a nation of jays held their breath until the ceremony was over. Who were the high contracting parties, whose wedding could thus bring everything to a standstill in a republic? A profligate foreign count and the giddy daughter of a railroad wrecker. Anna, daughter of the deceased Wall street gambler, Jay Gould, a boodle heiress with her bloodstained money, coined out of the hearts and lives of her father’s victims, buys a title and pays $15,000,000 for the privilege of being called Countess de Castellane; yea, she gives also her life, her flag, and her country, that she may gratify this ignoble ambition. Just as her father sold his soul for dollars, so she, with barter in her blood, sells herself for a title. The most sickening phase of this un-American affair, is the truckling, servile attitude of the great dailies, in levoting columns of space to the minutest details of this nauseating event Had there been any exhibition of patriotic feeling, the press would have remained silent; but because a bag of gold and a title of nobility were to be joined in “holy (?) wedlock,” these cringing dailies applaud. In 1893 Anna Gould went to Paris title hunting, chaperoned by Mrs. Paran Stevens. Her errand was known and a number of titled paupers made bids for her money, but without success, and the heiress returned to New York. The Count de Castellane, with an eye single to her millions, followed her home, and being a sport like her brother George, they became chums and he secured the consent which won him the prize. The transaction was as deliberate, and as successfully carried out as any which have rendered infamous, the cruel father. There is little to be said for the worthiness of either party. The bride’s only distinction is the fact that she is the daughter of the man who earned infamy by precipitating Black Friday, which caused the greatest panic this country ever knew. His life, in fact, was spent in bringing misfortune on others. Broken homes, shattered fortunes and suicides mark his entire path. If there is such a place as hell and one corner in it is hotter than another, then we know where to find Jay Gould, tortured by the wailing and gnashing of teeth of the “lambs” he fleeced and sent to perdition. His pathway on earth was watered with the tears of widows and orphans. Mechanics, merchants and farmers were alike devoured by this insatiate monster, making a dismal contrast to the $67,000,000, his cruel grasp wrung from them. To avoid taxation and rob the state, these greedy ghouls change their residence to New Jersey, and escape the income tax by transferring Anna’s share of the paternaf plunder to France, through the pockets of a spendthrift count.

The ether party to this nefarious trade, is a titled nonentity, devoting his time to fortune hunting, seeking his prize as a hunter does his game. The great dailies searched frantically for his redeeming virtues, but in vain ind were finally forced to applaud him for what he had not done; no scandal had stained his name, he was not known as a professional gambler and had industriously applied himself for many years to the “manly sports.” What an astounding array of virtues! Strip this dude of his title, and turn him loose to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, and ten to one, he would turn tramp. Without this title, thousands of bright American working girls would spurn his attentions. But he is the son of his father and the title went with the transfer; and because of this, a nation stands breathless to see this adventurer capture his prize and return with his booty to France. There the pair make their permanent residence, she renouncing the land which gave her birth and fortune. Brought up a Presbyterian, she takes up the church of her husband, abandoning her own faith. This wedding in itself amounts to nothing, but for the tact that it is an evidence of what is taking place all over the country. It shows a trend that is becoming a danger and a menace to our republican principles and our liberty. I refer to the feverish anxiety of American plutocrats to marry titled foreigners. This craze is spreading with frightful rapidity, and while it magnifies the value of monarchy, it equally depreciates and belittles the spirit of republicanism, and entails upon our producers the idditional burden of supporting a titled aristocracy abroad, as well as a codfish aristocracy at home. For a smaller offense than this, our forefathers precipitated a revolution refusing to pay a tax to monarchy in England; but now we shamelessly permit a drain of dollars to flow continuously into the pockets of a pauper nobility. The majority of these titled jackanapes are bankrupts in fortune, profligates, with all the vices and none of the virtues of the ancient nobility. Tne intermarriage of throne with throne and title with title Jias vitiated this blue blood till ’tis little thicker than water; and with neither fortune por manhood left, nothing remains to.

these puny bearers of great name-i but their titles. Incapable of self support, these silly drones must tradf them for the boodle of American heiresses. But while their race was thus de generating in Europe a strong new race of nature’s noblemen was a' work in America, turning the wilderness and the desert into gardens ol gold, and building great towns ant cities. Their muscle and manhooc made the greatest nation on earth, anc the untold wealth they produced became the wonder and the envy of al the world. Then the fearful insanitj for vast fortunes brought to the fron' such monsters as Jay Gould. Mer capable of robbing their fellows a< wholesale, graduated from collegei into society and sin, their sons and daughters, who receive the legacy ol wealth with none of the spirit ant dash of their ancestors. These worth less, enervated parasites having noth ing to do, devote themselves to apinj royalty in all its disgusting uselessness. And having reached this point the hungry buzzards of the old world scent the carrion, and marriages suet as this of Anna Gould are the result Now the danger lies in the fact that it is this very class of Americans whe possess the great bulk of the nation’s wealth; with power unlimited, they shape legislation to suit their purposes and not only own congress, but th< president is their willing tool as well These empty-headed devotees of monarchy, having accomplished the ruin ol their country, with fortunes great be yond computation, spend their lives in ease and luxury. With nothing else -to do, they become morbidly desirous of an American monarchy They want a coat of arms and an aristocracy, and while the chivalry ol Europe were supposed to win theii titles through merit, these titlehunters seek to buy theirs and would willingly build a monarchy on the ruins of the republic for the sake of connecting their names with royalty, but, until that can be done at home, they can buy tf.les abroad. The masses here are but machinery to sustain this privileged class, and in return these parasites look with contempt upon the very people and conditions from which they themselves sprung, and would be glad to place over this nation a dictator, of which Cleveland is but the forerunner. To deepen this desire, Napoleonism is revived, and the martial spirit encouraged among the young. A “blue book” of royalty is published in New York which gives the names, estates, titles, ages, etc., of all titled paupers of Europe. This book is sent to the millionaires of the land that a selection may be made by ambitious mammas with marriageable daughters. The plutocrats of the nation are steadily taking tfee dollars from the farmers and mechanics to be accumulated in great piles only to be transferred to a foreign land to support a half-breed and worthless nobility. Is this not worse than maintaining one at home? Who can doubt that these families having once tasted the royal draught will seek to have a monarchy in America? They are already out of touch with our institutions and have no sympathy with the misery of the many who toll for them. They may at any time force a conflict to establish themselves as the royal rulers of the people. I hope we shall correctly measure the terrible menace which threatens us in this direction. The groveling in the dust of the great dailies during this last exchange of boodle for title, shows that they will be found sustaining the idea of monarchy, should such an attempt be made. In this recent alliance, we see an additional reason for arousing to the grim necessities of the hour. It is becoming a struggle for actual life and liberty; and if we fail to find and apply a remedy for this evil we shall merit the curses of coming generations. I have material enough for a dozen articles on this point and in my next will bring to light the names and addresses of some of these “noble” paupers gleaned from this “blue book” of the aristocracy. GEORGE F. WASHBURN. Boston, Mass., March 9.