The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1883-02-06
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'sBaEOO."
Thieves and Robbers.

takes by violence what belongs TO an
other is q robber The robber is pro-
perly supposed to disappear, with
other predatory animals, before the
progress of civilization but this is a
superficial judgment. The force that
unlawfulIy deprives men of their prop
erty passes through many ,ransforma-
tiens. but no force is more persistent.
Men are plundered no ~adays in A meri-
ca far more frequently and f,grantfv
than in England in the days of Rsbin
Hood; there are men among us beside
whose rebberies those Of the brigands
Of Italy and Greece and the BedouiDs
of the deser. are mere pleasantries-
OF all the triumphs of invention none
are more wonderful than those by
which the hsrd-earned gains of mil
lions are forcibly conveyed to the
vaults of the robber-princes. No bust
ness is more highly organized, more
strenuously pursued, more successfully
managed than the business of robbery.
Yet. under all this elaboration OF
method, it is robbery, nothing worse
nor better.
The REGULARITY of the modern meth
cd of robbery is the employment, by
the robbers, of the State as their en-
forced agent and accomplice. Some
times, but not often. they organize
their clients and retaiuers into armed
bands and seize the coveted booty,
combining to have the State confirm
possession. But the force on which
they prefer to rely is the quiet and
resistless force Of the laws aud the
courts. By srtfully centrived legal
schemes they censtrain courts to 10
their bidding. The judges may be
unwilling instruments, yet they are
bound to sanction. impartiallv, the
working of legal processes. But what
shall We say when weak or corrupt
Judge. hasten to legalize schemes by
which great corporations are wrecked
or rehabilitated as suits the purposes
Of the ceEspirators
OF the gigantic fortunes now held
in this country, not few have been
gotten by legal robbery. Twenty
wears ago our millionares could b.
counted almost on the fingers of your
hands. To-day their enumeration
would carry lis into thousands. Since
The new system of robbery was perfect
ed, about twenty men have amassed
fortunes, which. taken together, exceed
the debt of the nation. Twenty years
ago many of these men were poor.
Seine of the new millionaires Rave
grown rich honestly, but some Of them
have led q raid upon the the pro-
duction and the accumulated wealth
of the country. So Napeleonic in Its
boldness and success has been the
method of the master robbers, that
rich men of better instincts have been
dazzled by it, and have adopted it
openly and Independently, or have
lent indirect cooperation and social
credit to the robber chiefs and have
shared in the plumber. Men of hon
orable regulations, VINO have been
crowned with public honors, have
countenanced these crimes as afford
ing the sarest way of adding to their
unsatisfying fortunes of ten, twenty,
or even thirty millions 1t is by no
means our purpose to throw discredit
upon the pursuit of wealth. Honest
production and the honest gains of
wealth that is employed in the service
of society are the bulwarks Of civiliza-
ton. But we do say that examples
ofprivate greed are sapping the sources
of public honor; examples of gi
eantic and countenanced robbery are
undermining the foundations of public
morality and corrupting the national
character.
Our legislators have failed to see,
or, for private and currupt reasons,
have wiuked at the fact, that the laws
that were made to fit old-fashioned
ideas of honor and morality. instead of
protecting the public. ave the strength
and the protection of dishonest men.
The Old code of commercial honor is
lest sight of in the complex transac-
tons of stock jobbers. who remain out
OF sight while their work is being done
by constituencies factors; by lawyers
skilled in discovering loop-holes in
the law and in Juggling with the Law;
by Hobbies with msney at the doors
Of legislators; by paper shares and
paper promises to pay; by cipher
m sssages and spies. and by abusing
the facilities of stock exchanges.
1t is we'll that our Legislators are
making At least the show of inquiring
into the methods by which the public
is robbed in the interest Of steck-hold-
ers, and they, in turn, are robbed by