The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1885-08-28
Bill Nye to a Communist.

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 1 dislike to
appear 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, l nus de-
cline your kind offer to whack up.
You had not heard, very likely, that
l am not now & communist. l used to
be, l admit, and the society no doubt
neglected to strike my name off the
role of active members. For a num-
Der of years l was quite active as a
communist. l would have been more
active, but l had conscientious scru-
Piles against being active in anything
then. IL
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
demur, and delay, and hem, and haw,
and procrastinate, until finally they
will get out of it in some way. Still l
do not wish to throw cold water on
your enterprise. If the other capital-
lists look favorably on the plan, l will
cheerfully cooperate with them. You
90 and see what you can do with Mr..
Vanderbilt, and then come to me-.
You 90 on at some length to tell me
how most of the wealth is in the hands
of Il few men and then you attack
those men and refer to them in a way
that makes my blood run cold. You
tell the ~millionaires of America to be-
ware. for the hot breath of a bloody
handed Nemesis is already in the air.
You may say to Nemesis, if you
please, that l have a double-barrel
shotgun standing at the head of my
bed every night, and that am in che
Nemesis business. You also refer to
the fact that the sleuth-hounds of cter-
nal justice are camped on the trail of
the pampered millionaire, and you ask
us to avaunt Ii you see the other
s.euth-hounds of your society within a
week or two, wish you would say to
them that at a regular meeting of the
millionaires of this country, after the
minutes of the previous meeting had
been read and approved, we voted al
luVSt uudIlLuouolS w oiSSoul w any
sleuth-hound that we found camped
on II trail after 10 O'Clock p. III.
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 purposes. No man
wants to 60 to the great expense of
maintaining 4 trail winter and sum-
mer, and then leave it out nights for
other people to use ard return it when
they get ready.
l do o censure you, however. If
you could convince every one of the
utility of communism, it would GER.
tainly be a great boon to you. To
those who are now engaged in feeding
themselves with flat beer out of 4 to-.
mato can, such a change as you sug-
gest would fall like 4 ray of sunshine
in a rat hole; but alas! 1t may never be.
| tried it a while, but my efforts were
futile. The effect of my great strug.
gle seemed to be that mems hearts
grew more and more stony. and my
pantaloons got thinner and thinner on
the seat till it seemed to me that the
world never was so cold. Then ]
made some experiments in manual la.
Dor. AS | began to work harder and
sit down less, | found that the world
was not so cold. 1t was only when |
sat down q long time that felt how
cold aud rough the world really was.
Perhaps it is so with you. Sedent-
airy habits and stale beer are apt to
make us morbid. Sitting on the stone
door sills Of Railways and public
buildings during cold weather is apt
to give you al erroneous impression of
life.
Of course, l am willing to put my
money into a common fund if | can
be convinced that it is best. | was an
outside passenger ona Leadville coach
some years ago, when u few of our
friends suggested that we all put our
money into II common fund, and | was
almost the first one to see that thew
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.--New York
Mercury.