Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-04-16

laboring men in the United States than can
be found anywhere else in the world. We
assert it as fact that nowhere and at no
time has there been so small proportion
of acute poverty and real suffering as there
is to-day in this country. Aud we say
that this proves the utter fallacy Of all such
assertions as that of Colonel Conkling that
the enrichment of one man involves the
impoverishment of others.
The truth is that the principles con-
tended for by this Autobiography League,
and all similar organizations, are subver-
sive of civilization and liberty, however
little men like Colonel Conkling appear to
suspect the direction of their arguments.
To bring us all down to one monotonous
dead.leve of possessions is what these
persons are really aiming at !; and to do
this would be to stop progress, to destroy
enterprise, to put an end to Improvement,
to expel capital, and to emasculate and
paralyze the nation. Prosperity would be
impossible under such a system. There IS
only one tolerable condition. and that is
absolute freedom. We must be free to Ia
Dor, free to acquire whatever our labor
will bring, free to accumulate capital, free
to invest it, free to extend our enterprises,
free to cooperate, free to combine our cap
ital for all manner of purposes, free to plan
and project and realize the national aspira-
lions in all imaginable ways. And as for
these great private fortunes, even if
they were as dangerous as the Anti
Monopoly Leaguers profess to think
them, the method they are pursuing
could never obviate the danger. For the
League is fighting against the one great
safeguard against the possible arrogance of
individual fortunes at present possessed by
the country. Cooperation is this safe
guard. BY it any number of poor men
may club together and undertake large
enterprises. By it they can at any time
oppose private capital with aggregated
capital. This principle affords certain
protection against any possible evil to arise
from individual wealth, and yet the League
are organizing to break it down if they
can.
Cooperation of capital has hitherto been
misunderstood in this country because Oh
the stupidity of the lawyers, who had not
inventive powers or common sense enough
to devise a new name for such associa-
lions, but proceeded to dub them 'corpo-
I" rations 5" name which recalled obso-
lete conditions, and which has rendered
the things themselves distasteful to the
community. As matter OF fact, however,
the corporation, or cooperation system, is
peculiarly in the interest of the poor 1t Is
a system by which they can at all times pit
themselves freely and successfully against
the greatest accumulation of money in in.
dividual hands. No Vanderbilts or Astors
or Goulds can compete with cooperative
enterprise rightly managed. Yet the
Anti Monopoly League proposes to abolish
Or paralyze this potent and indispensable
instrumentality. If corporations were
once muzzled, if the cooperative principle
were fettered and made unavailable, then
indeed it might be apprehended that
great private fortunes would be welded
adversely to the general interest, For in
that event there would be no check upon
them. No private enterprise could COM
pete with them, and no corporate enter
prise would be possible. The truth is
that the Anti Monopoly League is blindly
assaulting the very pillars of modern com
mercial society, and that its success would
be the most calamitous event which could
possibly happen.