The Iowa plain dealer. [volume] (New Oregon, Howard County, Iowa) 1867-1895, 1881-06-16

Of limitation. The debt was outlawcd.
It had been standing 80 many years
the jeweler had waited so long and so
patiently for his wealthy customer to
get ready to pay for TINT diamond ring,
that the bill could not now be collected
by law. And Cornelius Vanderbilt,
whose name is not 4 synonym for pov.
crty, says fatty he will not pay it. And
lie hasn't paid il and he won't
And yet people wonder that there are
Communists and Nihilists and Socialists
in the land. There are people who say,
and who honestly believe, perhaps, that
the seeds vf communism. and oil its at
tendant evils and villainics, are sown in
this country by few miserable gallows-
birds who escape hanging in Russia and
get over here, and by few bcsottcd
fools who grow eloquent on slop beer,
and discuss social and political questions
in the grocery corners md disreputable
beer dives and rum holes, and whose
sodden brains are incapable Of receiving
or retaining an idea on any subject OK
cept beer. As though these fellows were
capable of originating or preaching com
munism or nihilism, or any other "ism. \
These vicious ideas have their creation
in. and are sustained by, nm intelligence
vastly higher than the rum shop. 1t is
not the lower intelligence that fosters
these things.
Why, here see how and what the in
telligent people, the people who read
newspapers are taught. Here is man
whose family name glitters in splendor
. man who has never known q day Of
want and never did an honest days work
IN his life: . man (which was clothed
in purple and fne linen, and Jared
snmptuously every day. the man who
spent, or promised to pay, the whole
years pay O. common laborer for a
bauble to wear on his finger man
who pays more for suit Of clothes than
one of his brothers section hands can
earn, to pay rent and support family
for three months; this man, earning
no, not earning, but receiving more
money in year than an honest man
confcsses that lie owes an honest debt,
and fatty says he will not pay the money
because the law cant compel him to,
and he Keeps the ring, forces the trades
man to divide his property, earned by
honest hands and honest work, with this
drone, this aristocratic cheat, this gilt.
edged, kid-gloved Communist, and then
we wonder that there should he Com
munists in this country.
There is where they are taught it, in
good society. By the savings-bank
President who closes the doors of the
bank, pays depositors 10 per cent. or
nothing Of their deposits, and thus
compels them to divide their little saw.
ings with him. BY the cashier who
skips out for Europe and carries his de-
posits with him, and compels the depos-
itors and the President and directors to
divide with him. BY the insurance COM
pany that fails promptly the day after il
hears Of the fire. BY the county official
who empties the county treasury into
his pockets. BY the statesman in broad.
cloth who manufactures star-route
schemes and plunges his arms up to his
very elbows into the State Golfers that
are filed with the peoples money. BY
every defaulter. by every aristocratic
thief, by Cornelius Vanderbilt.
You see, there are men lower down in
society who cannot organize insurance
companies and hanks, and thus get hold
Of other peoples money. There arc
men down in the lower strata Of social
life who cannot obtain Cabinet positions,
who cannot lie elected to Office, who can
not prey upon the tradesmen with the
powerful and wealthy name Of Wander
bilt. These men see that other men.
who are far above them and are their
leaders anu teachers, lay unjust, disllon-
.st, thievish hands upon other mems
nney, and usually upon the money oi
nrer men. What is right for the
teacher and leader is right for the fol
lower, and, ~. these men in the lower
strata Of society cannot employ the same
means for compelling distribution u
other mems money and property Ms are
employed by their teachers, they resort
to other means that are within their
reach; they rush into the street viii,
the naked knife and the flaming brand,
society is tramp!ed under foot, anarchy
rides upon the ruins Of law and order,
the Commune triumphs over Govern.
ment, and the torch and the bludgeon
only complete what the defaulter and
the swindlcr in high life began.