New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-04-28
HALF TRUTH. a WHOLE FALSEHOOD.

4 HALF TRUTH, n WHOLE FALSEHOOD.
making the rich richer and the poor poorer"
must be an effective phrase. There must be
something that encourages its eternal repetition.
Demagogues, who have purposes TO serve and
drivelers, who can serve no purpose, alike use
it as a pivot, spring, salient point, and cllncher
of all their arguments against principles and
policies of business affairs which they oppose.
One set of these compliments seems to regard
the UNEQUAL distribution of wealth among the
various agents of its production as sufficient
proof plain demonstration, of the charge
against the ordinary system of things. The
cry is raised in conditions of rapidly advancing
aggregate prosperity, in which it never is, and,
in the nature of things, never can be true;
and, curiOusy enough, is seldom objected to by
those states of business affairs to which alone
it can and does apply-a general decline of
public prosperity. In no country in the world,
| and at no time, where and when the aggregate
wealth of a people increases faster than It's
| population, is the enhanced wealth of the capt.
talists attended by an absolute diminution in
| the means of the poor. The rich can get richer
when the general stock and profits provide
| for the increase, without deduction from
\ the resources of the poor. But when
the aggregate fund declines, the capitalists
can prosper only by deriving their gains from
| the customary share of the less fortunate If
| the rate of increment of whole people be, for
| instance eight per cent per annum, as 1t usu-
ally is in the United States, the wealthy may
take even six per cent of the profits without
leaving the poor any poorer; on the contrary,
they get the remaining two per cent in some
form of benefit When general prosperity de-
clnes when general embarrassment prevails,
the opportunity Of the wealthy comes for des-
polling the poor. The creditor, when the COM
munity is making nothing, begins to eat up the
fat of the land; the debtor and the borrower
must then render up whatever their necessities
compel. Currency mutations, business specula-
tions, enterprises springing from abundant CAPT
tai and enlarged credit must yield their shares
of advantage to the whole people. The natural
Law of distribution takes care of that. Those
who have the largest stock or stake will make
most, indeed, but the partnership divides also
q share to the smallest holders There is
surplus to distribute, and it must be divided
among all the active parties. 1t is simply i'm
possible that any of the agents shall be
losers. The rich cannot make the poor
poorer while employing them In a general
advancement of prosperity All history attests
the truth of this doctrine however difficult it
might be to demonstrate the theory that would
explain it. Ireland was decimated between the
years 1910 and 1850 by famine, disease, and
emigration, but all Ireland was the subject Of
decline. 1t was poorer in men and money at
the end than at the beginning of that decade
of disaster and whatever was left of property
and prosperity in the island had fallen into
the hands of the few. The rich had grown
richer and the poor poorer then and there.
Turkey has similar history; the whole people
has fallen into misfortune, and the rich have
swallowed up the majority. Only when indus
try is slackened and enterprise is paralyzed, is
the saying which we have quoted true.
Whenever the rich are getting richer amid an
aggregate enhancement of the nations wealth,
the saying is not only false in fact, but worse
than false in spirit, for it insinuates spcliation
of the helpless, and wantonness and wicked
ness in the motives and purposes of the party
impeached. When neither credit nor work
can be had, and when the sheriff is selling
out the small properties of the masses,
the rich are growing at the expense of the
poor, in the manner which this saying implies,
but never in the opposite. condition OF things.
If the business of a country could be con-
ceived Of as confined to stock dealings, and
traffic in real estate, and in commodities of the
market, the rich might and would derive their
gains by absorbing the resources of the COM
paratively poor; but stock jobbing and trading
are not productive Occupatons-a eountry's
wealth does not grow by them or either of
them. Wealth is something made, produced,
system, men can only plumber each othor or
more properly, one party must make its gains
by preying upon another The cry may at any
time be justly raised against such branches of
business as these. They are all near enough
akin to gambling, or tending to fall into that
category, to stand liable to charges of such
Hostility to even justice md general welfare.
But no policy employed to promote industrial