People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1896 — Concentration of Wealth. [ARTICLE]

Concentration of Wealth.

Written for the Pilot. We are advised by the Chicago Inter Ocean that things look very dangerous. That the old way of managing the business of this government is about to pass away and that a new era is about to dawn. “God’s anoint- 1 ed kings” of Wall street are on the very brink of being ruthlessly removed and a new order of things, in which' the will of the people is to be the supreme law of the land, established. And for these reasons we are advised that the country is in the very throws of death. In the first place we believe that if this government continues to exist, it will be on account of the efforts of the common people, and by the common people we mean just such men and women as are daily seen on the streets of Goodland and Rensselaer, not the very rich nor the yery poor. In this country the people are divided into three classes, the very rich, those in medium circumstances and the very poor. Both the very rich and the very poor constitute the dangerous elements. The rich because they are rich and the poor because they are poor. All the anarchy that exists in the United States today can be traced right to its home and be found in one or the other of these classes of society. The anarchist who raises the red flag in Chicago and attempts to array a lot of ignorant men against the country's laws, hideous as he is in the eyes of all good men, is not worse than the anarchist who owns a $4,000,000 building and pays taxes on only $225,000. The anarchist who steals a dollar’s worth of sugar from the counter of one of your stores is not worse than the sugar thieving United States senators who sold their votes and honor at public auction in the City of Washington lessthac two years ago. We do not desire to be misunderstood in this matter; what we do mean is that all violators of the law should be punished whether they be rich or poor, high or low, black or white. • There is a great battle going on in which, on the one side you can see all the middle classes working night and day to maintain the honor of the government. On the other side you see the very rich doing everything in their power to destroy the honor of the government, raiding the government gold reserve, forcing the issuance of bonds in time of peace to maintain the reserve, and the next day going back to the treasury to draw out the same gold, to force the issue of more bonds; side by side with this class we find the poverty stricken wretch with his red flag in one hand and in the other treason’s dagger half unsheathed, clamoring for the destruction of the government. Is it any, wonder that the people are aroused? Does not every sane man know that if the wealth of this country continues to pass into the hands of the few, as it has been doing for the last thirty years, that the people can not hope to rule this government? Does not every one know that if a man is to be a good cit izen he must have a home, and how can he buy a home when his wage earning power is so reduced that he can only earn the necessities of life? Such has been the history of all great republics.

First, the accumulation of the property into the hands of the few. Second, the despotic ruling over the masses by the few; and last, the destruction of a government by the many that was found unworthy to be preserved. Reformist. Good lit ml. Ind., J|ily 15. 189«.