People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1895 — What the Money Power Is. [ARTICLE]

What the Money Power Is.

(W. H. Harvey, in North American Review for July.) Money has no patriotism. It has no moral principles. If the life of the government were in danger tomorrow, as it was in 1861-1865, the money power would hold it up by the throat. In fact, it is now strangling the government. It smiles on you when you recognize its power, but will crush you if you antagonize it, just as it induced Pontius Pilate and the officials of that government to kill Jesus Christ and scatter his followers. It is now plainly aroused; if the danger to it continues to rise in this country it will exhibit its strength and it will be terrible! It will seize the government. Official despotism will follow. Men whose characters have been molded and made by the conditions leading up to the present situation, when elected to office, become the servants of this power. Their salaries are not reduced; if changed at all the salaries are raised. The purchasing power of their dollars is raised by the system they defend. Their self interest goes with the money power and they court its favors and look for a soft j spot, financially on which to land at j the end of their term of office. They seemingly become heartless concerning the common masses —the plain people—hence, official despotism. These are the conditions that come with the | breaking down of a government as a , natural result of the absorption of the 1 wealth of the people. I do not mean any one individually, or any number of | men collectively, when I speak of the money power. It is a thing impersonal. It is a grasping, perverse nature cultivated by man, that seizes upon the use of money to accomplish its evil purpose. It is most dangerous because it gives strength and prominence to those who advocate its cause, and has the appearance of being a just and reasonable right under the laws of man for the disposal of property. It is not so easy for men to see that its tendency is evil and its victims millions, when their eyes are blinded by the dazzling blaze of possibilities of wealth for themselves. The right to accumulate unnecessary property and to produce distress among the people is not a divine right, and should not be guaranteed by human laws.

prevail against yon. God Is with yoit The day of judgment for kings and tyrants i 3 near. The war is already begun. Your blood has been spilled on the streets of your cities and In the mining camps; your brothers lie rotting in prison; your wives and children have gone ragged and hungry; every Issue of the dally press records the slaughter of workingmen who dare to ask for living wages; small bodies of your brethren are confronting the soldiers and militia every day. Why stand ye unorganized, waiting for your turn to be slaughtered? Why not prepare to meet the issue, If it come? Will you wear the chains of slavery in fear and trembling. There is no pity for you—why should you spare the enemy? If you will not unite to freo yourselves you should be swept off the earth by Almighty God. He commands it. Will you obey? He calls from on high, “Tell my people, the oppressed and downtrodden, to make one more fight for liberty.” Money and superstition have ruled long enough. Let tho people and God be heard. In tho revolution of ’76 when I dwelt among you as a man I believed that God was with us—now I know it —and I proclaim to you that God meant you to bo free, and you shall bo free. To be prepared is half the battle. As one of your illustrious leaders has advised, “Savo your money and buy a gun.”