Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1889 — Millionaires. [ARTICLE]

Millionaires.

Thk Shah of Persia declines to visit as because there i« no one in our republican l&nd of rank sufficient to give him reception. There is George Francis Train, who could be persuaded to fillthe bill; and what possible objection coaid be urged against P. T. Barnum? Count Joachim is, we believe, dead, and the question is not yet settled whether we have a “Bourbon among us” or not If this will not do the Shah to his satisfaction, we can assure him that the blood of the Stuart*, and Plantagenets, and Brunswickers, and even Hobensollerns runs in tk e veins of eome ot our cartmen, longshoremen and farffiere. It might be hunted np for the occasion. The Magas ne of American History presents historic and incontrovertible reasons for believing that the Declaration of Independence was not signed by any one on the Fourth of July, 1776 except by John Hancock as President, and by Charles Thompson as secretary; that the engrossed copy which bad been made on the Fourth of July was, by a happy afterthought, signed generally August 2; Jthat the approving vote was not unanimous on July 4, but was approved by several; that One of those who was present Jaly 4 and lip proved is not among the signers enrolled, that at least one-eighth of the signers were not. even members of Congress on July 4, 1776. So history gets pulled to pieces and facts displace Borne very pleasant and romantic fictions. A recent photograph from Hawaii shows a street scene in Hilo, the only important town on the largest islands. Amid the wealth of tropical verdure that almost hides the houses lining the roadway one is surprised to see a line of poles with cross arms well loaded with telegraph wires. So many wires would be adequate to the needs of a rushing business in a lively American town; bat Hilo has no electrical communication with any other island, and there is hardly another white settlement worth noticing on the island. The fact is these numorons wires are the telephone system of Hilo. This instrument is proving very acceptable to the rather indolent residents of warm climates, who are glad to be able to talk with their neighbors without going oat of doors. Mr. Hugh R. Mill says: Honolulu has a more complete telephone system than any town of the same sise in Great Britain.

The sober-minded thinking people of this country have no feelings of envy or covetousness towards the millionaires. There is no communism in their hearts. They applaud the honest accumulations of riches and they commend the capitalists who invest in large enterprises that give employment to labor and pay just wages that will enable the laborer to live in comfort. But there 13 something wrong about any system of political economy that will not do more than this for labor. It should be so rewarded that something could be accumulated and laid by for misfortune. Every man who faithfully toils for a living is entitled to food aud clothing and a home —not a shelter but a home. He i 3 entitled to something for sickness and the accidents of life—something to provide against the perils of fire and flood and pestilonoa and famine and war-something for the education of his children and something for old age. The rich have all these, and they got them mainly from the labor of the poor. They got them by fair means or foul. When the yellow fever; visited Jacksonville what could the poor do butstay and suffer and die?— Bill Am.