Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1888-09-08
COMPLAINT OF THE POOR"

The poor | wish to speak for are
the self.sustaining poor. Especially
do / wish to speak for the poor
farmer, and of his class / am one.
Now what is the "complaint " of
such farmerg Does he complain
that the estimate of society as II
whole on the services of flor instance)
Joseph Cook, is that Joseph Cooks
services for two or three nights are
worth more than his own are for
q yearf Such is not his complaint.
Or is it against the man who earns
$50, 900 o year. If there be rail.
road superintendent or any other
useful man who can by superior eff
ficiency do work worth $4,000 a
year, let him have it. The complaint
of the poor is not that superior tai.
ent gets higher wages, but their com
plant is precisely the reverse of
this; it is that income is not gagged
by talent.
Our complaint is against the pow
err of money to command or control,
not only money but men. The rich
who make no pretensions to superior
skill of hand or talent of brain, ex.
cept it be the ability to foretelI the
state of the markets, and so are able
to buy cheap and sell dear to their
own advantage, these are they of
whom we complain. Their talent
is not one whit more useful in socie
ty than was the talent of Jesse
James. Their incomes are not the
result OF " services to society. The
younger Vanderbilts, in maintain.
ing their immense fortune, may have
incidentally served society to some
extent but to say that their income
is wages received from society for
services is nonsense. Or take
the aforementioned individual, who
is supposed to earn $4,000 year;
we have no complaint to make
against him, but we do complain of
the fact with his money he can and
often does endow his inefficient and
incapable son with such an amount
in Z per cent. mortgage on improved
"Kansas farms that he can com.
mand in interest, without the use Of
any talent at all, the entire surplus
earnings of fifty small farmers, any
one of whom is more talented, more
efficient, more useful than himself;
so that he can send his daughters
flirting to the watering places, while
the daughters of his debtors grow
coarse and unwomanly with endless
drudgery.
Our complaint, then, is not that
efficiency makes money, but that
money makes money. Money counts
for more than brain or manhood in
the effort to win money. When we
see man in the possession OF wealth
we do not conclude that he has been
more than other men useful in serv-
ing society; but we conclude that
either he inherited ga good start"
or that he has embraced "salvatiOn
by means or salvation by rascaIlty.
The master evil of the present age
is the power OF mere money to accu.
mulate money. Usury INTEREST
was forbidden Jews by the laws OF
Moses. If it could be forbidden now
money would cease to win money,
and skill, brain, efficiency, would
have fair chance in the race and
would always win.
1t has been demonstrated that
the mortgaged indebtedness Of the
farming class is constantly increas.
ing. These mortgages are surely
and not very slowly sinking the class
of independent small farm owners
out of sight. This class, conseIva.
tive, moral, reliable, is doomed to
perish through the workings of the
power OF usury.-James Martin,
Rl0n41li31Hfos, Ind