People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1896 — Page 6 Advertisements Column 1 [ADVERTISEMENT]

> Illustration from American Peoples Money. i ‘ (Wn'Ajf i F ' • T 'W'l ! ■ 1 J® 1 : : 1W /< tik w ; > */ ' ¥<wl ; Sw® ’ (»lb w ; > w j® w®w - ; HS v JlrL ; ; 1 I i i . Poverty: Kind sir, will you relievo me of a little of , 1 my heavy burden? i J Wealth: Not to-day, sir, not as long as I know any of 1 , the U. S. Supreme Court. I

Extract from American People's Money. In reading the following from Fronde's Caesar (p. 6), we seem to have before us an almost exact picture of our own times. •• ‘lt was an age of material progress and material civilization: an age of civil liberty and intellectual culture: an age of pamphlets and epigrams, of salons and dinnerparties, -f senatorial majorities and electoral corruption. The highest offices of state were open, in theory, to the meanest citizen: they were confined, in fact, to those who had the longest purses, or the most ready use. of the tongue on popular platforms. Distinctions of birth had been exchanged for distinctions of yvealth. The struggles between plebeians and patricians for equality of privilege were over, and a new division had been formed between the party of property and a party who desired a change in the structure of society. 'The free cultivators were .disappearing < from the soil. Italy was being absorbed into vast estates, held by a/few favored families and cultivated by slaves, while the old agricultural population was, driven off the land and was crowded into towns. The rich were extravagant, for life had ceased to have practical interest, except for its material pleasures; the occupation of the higher classes was to obtain money without labor and spend it in idle enjoyment. Patriotism survived on the'lips, but patriotism meant the ascendancy of the party which would maintain the existing order of things, or (the party which) would overthrow it for a more equal distribution of the good things which alone were valued. Religion, once the foundation of the laws and rule of persona! conduct, had subsided into opinion. The educated in their hearts disbelived it. Temples were still built with increasing splendor: the established forms were scrupulously observed. Public men spoke conventionally of Providence, that they might throw, on their opponents the odium of impiety; but of genuine belief that life had any serious meaning, there was none remaining Geyond the circle of the silent, patient, ignorant multitude. The whole spiritual atmosphere was saturated with cant—cant moral, cant political, cant religious; an affectation of high principle which >•‘ ■ Z ■ * e>

I lilustrutlou from American Pei pie’s Money. >• at* * ! W £ rW WJOih t .V - • ■ J3PBE * ! if —• j“\/ # - z/MarWlaF JU 'jc. v _ I 'wm <fe i - Jlr rWJJrn ■i&// <i ' 9 7^L.«LM sotD 1W& £ J '<ss» iF b> l~ Ai ~ <Sy> 41 s ‘ £ “How the American people get their ideas.” AtSA.lAh.i * fe.a . a a. a .A . a a . - - » - .