Weekly Chillicothe crisis. (Chillicothe, Livingston Co., Mo.) 1878-19??, 1882-05-11

The Outrages of Monopoly, the
Wrongs OF Corporations and the
Expressions Of Universal ConsoI
idation.
George Alfred Townsend in Tie Cincinnati ENQUIRER.
The leading question in the public
mind is whether our prosperity is to
end very soon, and if there are any
causes tending toward a collapse
which might be affected by a change
of conduct. l talked to wealthy
man who has made a large fortune
since'the war in New York, but who
was in the south during the Confed-
eracy and has kept a conservative out
look while proliting by the extraOrdi-
nary developments and speculations
in the country. Being seated with
him at q social board, led the con-
versation up to the question, whether
he expected q crash, and, if 50, how
long it would be postponed. After
hesitating moment, he said:
"fou perceive that it would not do
for me to be quoted as saying any.
thing about business reckoning day.
On this condition l will give you
some OF my views. l think we are
liable within four Or five years, unless
some craftsmanship intervenes of
which | now see but slight probability,
to have a series of troubles in this
country hardly less m0mentods than
the great rebellion. | look FOR a di.
rect outbreak between the laboring
class and the speculative class, There
are only those two classes in America,
strange as it may appear to YOU" said
this wealthy man. "There is one
class, and by far the larger and more
powerful, which has no idea of specu-
lations, of combinations, of consolida-
tions and of the one hundred and one
ways through which vast amounts Of
wealth are being accumulated in the
hands of a smaller yet considerable
class of men. The class which accu.
maates that wealth by other means
than labor, whether by patents, by
railroads, by stock gambling, by real
estate operations, by lobbying, or in
any way | may name, is the Specula-
tive element of the country. 1t has
its mind fixed only upon one thing,
and can SEQ nothing else. That oh.
iect is the gaining of wealth rap
idly, and there is no limit to the
amount Of wealth it desires. Success.
full in one thing, it undertakes a larger
thing, and that leads 10 another. The
daring character of the American
mind, whenever you present TO it a
chance to make money, blinds it to all
cautious and incidental cOnsidera.
tions. There is no longer any conf.
dence between the great laboring
class and the small speculative class.
The majority of our business men
have turned spectators and they do
not pay that same heed to the comfort
and pride of their employees that they
did twenty years ago. Hence the
merchant, the rich man, is uncon.
scious of the fact that the man he en-
ploys no longer has any love for him,
beholding him with a dispropOrtioned |
success:n life, derived from the exer-
tions OF labor and with increasing in
difference to the condition of his la
borers.
"But do you mean." said !, "that the
mercantile class is also the speculative
CLASP"
"Why, sir, there is hardly a business
man in the country who is not leaving
his stool every hour or 10 to go and
look at the telegraph ticker and find
how he can make a turn. Almost
every hamlet in the United States has
one or more men of that speculative
The support of such a
has increased the facilities
for speculation. Before the war, if a
man would corner grain for the pur-
pose of preventing its shipment, to
work an entire change in the price of
bread, he would not have been asso-
ciated with and might have been
Now there is not a single
article of consumption, from bread to
light, from transportation to luxuries,
that is not subject to being cornered
and traded in byagreat multitude that
never expect to handle the real property.
In all this speculative maneuvering
your laborer has no hand whatever
He stands beneath with his implement
in his hand, and observes that he has
fewer rights every year and less privi-
leges to change his employer than
formerly. He sees that the tendency
Of this speculative wealth is to make
i'm a mere cipher in the ideas of
capital and almost to limit his free
DOM"
"Give me an instance Of that change
Of feeling among the laborersp ?" said /.
"Well, take up any Of the big
railroad consultations. We will take
The Louisville and Nashville company,
for that comes Immediately under my
observation, as l knew the railroads
into that system when they
we're first devised, and from the moment
they were built"
Here the gentleman took out of his
pocket an annual pass, and turning to
the back of it read of the names of [
fifteen different railroads, besides sew ,
,ral branches, which composed the
Louisville and Nashville. s
"Now, SIR said he, "there was a {
lime when an engineer, a conductor, a J
brakeman or road laborer on each of !
.hese lfteen components of this great
could find work, il he
was discharged from one Of them on
my ofthe other fourteen. If they out
his wages sdpwnbetwpen IpVisVills end i