The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-04-11
LETTER TO A COMMUNIST.
[Bm Nye, in New York Mercury.l

lDlt NyC, III NcH 1OIk MCICuEy.l
 DEAR SIR-Your courteous letter of the Ist instant, in which you cordially consent to share my wealth and dwell to- gether with me in fraternal sunshine, is duly received. While dislike to appear cold and distant to one who seems so clinging, and while do not wish to be regarded as purse-proud or arrogant, must decline youB kind offer to whack up
 You had not heard, very likely, that l am not now Communist. used to be, l admit, and the society no doubt neglected to strike my name off the roll of active members. For a number of years l was quite active as Communist. would have been more active, but had conscientious scruples against being ac- tive in anything then.
 While you may be perfectly sincere in your belief that the great capitalists like MT. Gould and MT. Vanderbilt should divide with you, you will have great diff culty in making it perfectly clear to them. They will probably demur and delay, and procrastinate, till finally they will get out of it in some way. Still do not wish to throw cold water On your enterprise. If the other capitalists look favorably on the plan will cheerfully cooperate with them. You go and see what you can do with Mir. 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 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 beware, 1o~ kLa hot Hxnnth nT h1anIx, hoN Ial T Nemesis is already in the air.
 You may say to Nemesis, if you please, that l have a double-barrel shot gun 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 eternal justice are camped on the trail of the pampered mill lionalre, and you ask us to avaunt, If you see the other uth-hounds of your society within week or two, wish you would say to them that at a regular meet ing of the millionaires of this country, after the minutes of the previous meet ing had been read and approved, we voted almost unanimously to discourage any sleuth-hound that we found camped on our trail after ten o'clock p. m. Sleuth- hounds who want to ramble over our trails during office hours may do so with the utmost impunity, but after ten o'clock we want to use our trails for other pur- poses. No man wants to go to the great expense of maintaining trail winter and summer, and then leave it out nights for other people to use and return it when they get ready.
 | do not censure you, however. If you could convince every one of the utility Of communism, 1t would certainly be a great boon to you. To those who are now engaged in feeding themselves with flat beer out Of tomato can, such a change as you suggest would fall like ray of sunshine in a rat hole, but alas it may never be- tried it awhile, but my ef- forts were futile. The effect of my great struggle 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 labor. As began to work harder and sit down less, found that the world was not so cold. It was only when sat down long time that felt how cold and rough the world really was.
 Perhaps it is so with you. Sedentary habits and stale beer are apt to make us morbid. Sitting on the stone door-sill of railways and public buildings during cold weather is apt to give you an erron- eous impression of life.
 Of course l am willing to put my money into common fund if can be convinced that it is best. was an in side passenger on Leadville coach some years ago, when few of your friends suggested that we all put our money into a common fund, and l was almost the first one to see that they were right. They went away into the mountains to appor- ton the money they got from our party, but never got my dividend. Probably they lost my post office address.
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 The Art of Conversation. Ralph Waldo Emerson.l
 | Tn this art woman. if not the queen and