The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1883-04-25
"BILL ARP"
The Genial Southern HumOrist ON the
Spirit of Monopoly.
,1,ut A -, In the Atlanta ConstftutfonN

The Genial Southern HumOrist ON the
Spirit of Monopoly.
tBIlI Arp in the Atlanta Constitution)
What the people want and ought to
have are homes and chance-hOmes
and living chance. Give family a
home of their own and it Is the best
safeguard for the perpetuity Of agOv-
ernment and the happiness of a people.
was always sorry for family who had
no home, but had to dodge about from
house to house and place to Dlaee-no
orchard to improve, no flowers TO love
aud nurse, no sacred spot, no castle, as
Blackstone calls il. don't know how
other people prize it, hut my home is
the dearest spot on earth to me and my
family There is no place like home
not rented home, forever wanting re
pairs, but home to live and die in,
which the boys who have found work
afar off can look back to with affection
and revisit with pure delight, and
where the good wife and daughter can
plant the vine and rOsebush' and SOW the
flower seed, and the orchard and the
grapeyines bring their fruit i'll due sea
son. 1t wont do to say that the poor are
too lazy to work and buy land and have
a home. They haven't been tried. They
don't get enough for their labor to lay
up ANYTHING. They are not encouraged.
Vanderbilt and company get all they
make over and above poor living, and
Vanderbilt must be protected. The
trouble is our people have got hardened
to fixing minimum price upon labor,
lust enough to feed and clOthe the fam
lily stingily, with no margin for Old age
and sickness, much less house. What
does all this mean that three syndicates
are buying up all the land of the great
west, 100000 acres and 300,OO00OO acres
in Texas, and large tracts in Arkansas?
Nhy'dOn't the United States govern
ment buy it up and save it for homes for
our peOplep The government gave away
10OOOO,0 900 acres i'll Texas at one time to
"a wealthy corporation to hire 'em to
build a railrOad-mOre land than is OBJ
tainable in any four States in the union
except Texas, and our statesmen made
no protest. The money is all going into
the hands of a few, and so Is the land.
There Is way to stop all this, but
when named the rich and powerful cry
out tagrarianism and robbery, ,and hire the
press and bribe the big men and scare
off the little ones, and so il goes. What
we need are statesmen, not hirelings.
We want fearless men who can't be
tampered with. Let all this surplus
wealth, these blOated fortunes, be taxed
to support the government. After a
man has accumulated 100000, begin to
tax the excess, and the more he accumu-
lates the heavier the rate; and when he
gets it up TO million take all the eX-
cess, if necessary, to equallze IN some
measure the burdens and the comforts
of life, and provide hOmes-humble
hOmes-fOr the people. A man with ten
acres and house Of his own is a good
citizen in peace and a tower of strength
to his government in time of war, A
million of dollars is enough for any one
man. He ought not to hunger and
thirst for more, for he can't need 1t, and
it makes a dog of him to hoard it up.
Who has any respect fOT-such men as
Vanderbilt, or Gould, or Senator Sharon,
or even for the memory of Stephen
Girard or A. T. Stewart? Nobody.