The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-01-22

than in any other land or age. the poor are
steadily growing poorer and the rich richer;
that there is wide, yawning gulf between
poverty and wealth, which is ever widening;
and that the laboring man and his family
cannot live so we'll on his earnings now as
they could in 1860. And the gentleman
added that, II this were so, "Lhen the oOuu-
try is on the eve of arstocracy and of social
condition such as the world has never seen."
Yet he did not contradict the terrible facts Of
the repOrt-nor could he do 40. His Obieo-
tion was to the conclusions drawn from them
by the Commissioner, and his opposition to
printing the report was that it would throw
discredit UPON the country and upon Con-
gress.
This is very much like physicians refus-
ing to warn man who is threatened with
severe illness because it would show the man
to have been careless and his medical adviser
not altogether wise. 1t would be simply con-
tinuing and perpetuating the maltreatment.
There can be no doubt that, since the ne
cessities OF the war enabled men of strong
executive ability and sagaoity to accumulate
huge fortunes, the tendency of capital has
chance, to concentrate, to agglomerate, to
gather more and more largely t0gsther, like
rolling snow. Nor can it be denied that the
abnormal condition of commerce and manu-
factures, and particularly the loose and expan-
sive nature of our circulating msdium-all
disturbed the regular workings of labor and
production, have inflated prices, and by max
ing it harder for persons of limited means to
get on, have tended to "make the poor
poorer" And why should we iguore the
factl To assert that nation which has spent
millions of property, millions of money, and
hundreds OF thousands of lives is as rich as
before, is supreme nonsense. We are as a
nation poorer, and must bravely look the fact
in the face.
The tendency to concentration of riches
and an increase of poverty ID no less true than
portentous of trouble ahead. Let us take the
unwelcome fact home and study it. Let us
not stop to criminate each other as to whose
fault it is, but calmly look for the remedy.
Doesit bear hard upon Congress? Let Congress-
men be doubly anxious to retrieve past
errors, to unite in measures of judicious eco
nomy in public expenditure, to provide a
way for the funding of our huge debt at lower
interest rates, to raise our currency to the
value expressed upon its face. Let them
learn not to pass demagogic and meaningless
laws, attempting to regulate the relations
between capital and labor, not to tax the
whole country by high importduties and tariffs
for the benefit of single sections of the land.
Let them take a new start in their modes of
legislation, working less under the pressure
OF Influence" more after the guidance of in
dependent reason.
Congress cannot be blamed for the whole
evil under which we labor; on the contrary,
it has done much that is eminently praise
worthy. But let its members not shirk their
share of responsibility. Above all, let them
not ignore unpleasant facts nor think of keep
ing them from the country. The worse things
are, the more we all ought to know about
them.
The report was ordered printed, but Mr..
Kelley's attempt to smother it was of such
decided and rank heresy to all the traditions
and necessities of our national life, our COM
monwealth, that we cannot forbear an earnest
protest against his doctrines.