The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1878-09-27
WHERE ARE THE RICH MExe

AAAA@ NUN GAAN
There has been great deal of COM
plant during the last few years that the
wealth of the country was being absorb
ed by few thousand men, who were be-
coming fabulously wealthy, while the
masses of the people were as steadily be-
coming Impoverished. The papers have
been crediting Vanderbilt, Gould, Scott,
Senator Jones, and some others, with
being worth $2O,OOO,OOO to 100000, 900
each, and as having such immense
incomes that they were entirely at a loss
how TO use their money. This grumbling
ought now to stop. There can't be any
rich men in the country, and the wealth
of the gentlemen in question must have
been entirely ovcrestimated We don't
believe there is rich man in the west
worth 100000 in available cash, and
the stories of this and that one possessing
enormous wealth are absurd exaggera-
tions. We come to this conclusion by
reading the daily Geographic reports of
subscriptions to the yellow fever relief
fund The bootblacks and newsboys
have all given five cents each, the ser
want girls and hotel walters % to so
cents each, the seamstresses and clerks
90 cents each, the day labOrers a dollar
each, the mechanics one to two dollars
each, the storekeepers, doctors, lawyers,
editors, etc, one to five dollars each, the
bank cashiers and average bondholders
five to fifty dollars each, and here and
there locally rich man may have she'll
ed out as much as one hundred dollars.
Everybody who has a cent to spare for
the welfare of humanity has contributed
something to aid the yellow fever suffer
ers. The very poorest have sent up at
least a nickel as an earnest of their good
desires, and as the poor are in a very
large majority "many nickels make a
muckle," and in the aggregate very
large sum of money is flowing toward
the scenes of anguish along the Missis-
sippi river. And more than money,
scores of noble men and women have
voluntarily gone to face death on his
own chosen ground, out of pity for suf-
fering men and women and children of
whom theypever heard before The very
depths of christian civilization have
been touched with sympathy, and the
nation shoulders every day as it reads
the pathetic appeals for help for the
helpless in their great agony. Amid
this grand national effort to afford
relief, among all the contributions
spared by the laboring masses from their
scanty earnings, who learns Of the mil.
lionaires? What has become of the mil
llonaires, the money kings, the magnates
who can command Il million of dollars
at word, whose wealth furnishes them
every conceivable luxury and induI-
gence, and who could spare millions of |
dollars and not sacrifice a single con-
or luxury that human ingenui. |
ty can provide? Where are the 800 900
contributions, the 100000 gifts, the
$l,OOO,OOO monuments to a country's
gratitude? Where are the rich men
where is any evidence now that thew
have dollar more than they absolutely
need to keep themselves and families
from starvation? The yellow fever fund
fails entirely to show that any man in |
this country is worth anything like
million dollars. The income tax collec- |
tor would evidently have nothing to do
If he were appointed. Such being as
an American citizen who has thousand
dollars to give in any emergency what
ever, evidently don't exist. His name
and post office address certainly cannot
be found in the yellow fever fund list.
No, all those tales about there being
rich men in this country, about men
who can command millions of dollars,
are fables. The money is in the peck |
cts of the boot blacks and working peo-
pie generally, and right royalty are they
Smelling it out, each man and woman
sacrificing oftheir needs, mourning some
additional privation, for the sake of the |
humanity that wealth has not pressed
out of their hearts. But the rich man,
the man we hear about, the wonderful |
man who can buy gold mines, and rail |
roads, and marble palaces and diamonds, |
who travels in regal magnificence,
and whose sneeze is heralded as an ex-
of financial import, they-well,
they have not heard of the yellow fever
yet, and will not be at home until after |
frost comes and the plague is past, and |
then they will appear again to dazzle an
admiring public with the lordly magnif- |
icence that millionaires alone are emit |
tied to shower around their pathway.