The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1885-05-21
COMMUNISM.
Bill Nys Writes Courteous Letter on the
Subject.

Subject.
DEAR SIR: Your courteous letter of
the 1st inst, in which You cordially
consent to share my wealth and dwell
together with me in fraternal sunshine.
is duly received. While | dislike to ap-
pear cold and distant to one who seems
so yearnful and SO clinging. and while
L do not wish to be regarded as purse
proud or arrogant, | must decline your
kind offer to whack up.
You had not heard. very likely, that
l am not now a communist. l used to
| be | admit. and the society no doubt
neglected to strike my name off the roll
OF active membership. For a number
OF years 1 was quite active as u COM
munist. l would have been more act
i've, but l had conscientious scruples
against being active in anything then.
While you may be perfectly sincere
in your belief that the great capitalists
like Mr.. Gould and Mr.. Vanderbilt
should divide with you, you will have
great difficulty in making it perfectly
clear to them. They will probably de-
mur and delay, and hem and haw, and
procrastinate, till finally they will get
out of it some way. Still, l do not
wish to throw cold water on your enter
prise. If the other capitalists look
favorably on the plan, will cheerfully
cooperate with them. You go and see
what you can do with Mr.. Vanderbilt,
and then come to me.
You go on at some length to tell me
how the most of the wealth is in the
hands of a few men, and then YOU at
tack those men and refer to them in a
hot IL
You tell the millionaires of America to
beware, for the hot breath of bloody
Nemesis is already in the air.
You may say TO Nemesis, If YOU
please, that l have a double-barreled
shotgun standing at the head of my
bed every night, and that / am in the
Nemesis business. You also refer TO
the fact that the sleuth-hounds of eter-
nal justice are camped on the trail of
the pampcrcd millionaire, and you ask
us to avaunt. If you see the other
| sleuth-hounds of your society within a
week or two, l wish you would say to
them that at Il regular meeting of the
millionaires OF the country, after the
minutes Of the previous meeting had
been read and approved, we voted al
most unanimously to discourage any
| sleuth-hound we found on our trail
after 10 o clock Z. Nj. Sleuth-hounds
who want to ramble over our trails
during office hours may do so with the
utmost impunity, but after 10 o clock
| we want to use our trails for other pur-
poses.
l do not censure you, however. II
| you could convince everyone of the
utility of communism it would certain
| ly be great boon to you. To those
who are now engaged in feeding them
| selves with fiat beer out of tomato
can such change as you suggest would
fall like ray of sunshine in rat hole,
but, alas! it may never be. l tried
it a while, but my efforts were futile.
The effect OF my great struggle seemed
| to be that mems hearts grew more and
more stony, and my pantaloons
| got thinner on the seat till it seemed to
me that the world never was so cold.
| Then L made some experiments in man
ual labor. As began to work harder
and sit down less 1 found that the
world was not so cold. 1t was only
when sat down a long time that felt
how cold and rough the world really
| Mas.
Perhaps it is so with you. Sedentary
habits and stale beer are apt to make
US morbid. Sitting on the stone door
sills of Railways of public buildings
during cold weather is apt to give you
an erroneous impression OF life.
OF course l am willing to put my
money into a common fund if 1 can be
| convinced that it is best. | was an in
side passenger On a Leadville coach
some years ago when few of your
friends suggested that We all put our
money into common fund and | was
almost the first one to see that they
were right. They went away into the
mountains to apportion the money they
got from our party, but l never got my
dividend. Probably they lost my post
Office address. York Mercurg.