The Bottineau pioneer. (Bottineau, N.D.) 1885-1895, 1889-06-06
THE FARMERS COLUMN.
Edited by the Pioneers Agricultural
Correspondent.
BAsHAW FORTUNES.

On Sunday, MArch IL, the ChicHgo III
bune published list of II very rich men.
Opposite each mans name was placed the
number of millions of dollars he was worth.
The estimates Of wealth were not as large |
in many instances as the men are generally |
credited with; hence it may safely be
assumed that the amounts assigned to them |
are rather under than over the facts.
Yet, these II gentlemen have an aggre- |
gate of money that reaches the astounding |
total of 81 ,43S, 900 600.
There are to-day in this country u million
farmers who have toiled and saved for years,
who would jumb at the chance Of selling out
their acres and stand before the world debt
free, with this sum among them. which
would give $l,43s to each farmer.
We won't even mention the hundreds of
thousands of farmers who have somehow
worked themselves into hopeless bankruptcy
in this wonderfully prosperous time, when
the country is said to be growing richer at
the rate of one hundred million dollars q
month.
It is queer anomaly, but facts are facts,
and we know that while a few hundred
thousand Western farmers are carrying four
billion dollars in mortgages. seventy-two
men are worth 81 ,433, ,0O0, 900.
No reasonable man objects to another man
because he has made a fortune by care,
economy and business skill. Fortunes of
that character bless a country, for they are
honestly created and do not represent
robbery.
But we do object to fortunes acquired on
the plan used by oriental Bashaws, who
send around qua? l., and r;ibly take away
the property of humble folks, who cannot
defend themselves.
A man who suddenly scoops in millions
by reason of his connection with trust or
monopoly has in effect q .Bashaw fortune
He is not the creator of his wealth. but by
trick fraud and device, gains it by muking
his neighbors poorer. He is an impov
erisher of the people among whom he lives,
| for he subtracts from their power of Great
Ling wealth, while robbing them Of what they
fhave.
fall the producing classes Of our land
had come into more of comfort and ease
while these II favored individuals we're
gobbling in this $l,433, 100000, no one
could complain but such has not been the
case, for millions of producers are not only
burdened with volumn of debt that is
terrible to contemplate. bat find the strug-
gle for existence harder and fiercer every
year.-Farmers' Voice.
The trouble lies in the fact that through
some diabolical system of evolution, we
have among us q crew of sharpers who, by
scientific methods divert wealth from the
hands that create it, and absorb 1t them
| selves.
They do this by money monopoly, railway
monopoly, and trust combines, and it these
all potent machines for popular spoliation
remain in their hands for another twenty
five years, Americas producing masses will
be reduced to practical serfdom, while our
present sclf-satisfcd, comfortable middle
class will have become an extinct species.
In the presence of the hard toll and
scrimped lives that has come to many, the
Bashaw fortunes ofthe Vanderbilts, Goulds,
Rockafellers, Huntingtons and Stanfords,
are hideous moral monstrosities, that are
self-indicted. self-convicted crimes.
Their very existence is their owe con-
demnation, for they could not be under
financial and commercial systems founded
on universal equity,
They are jibe at Gods law, and a bitter
scott ut a government which pretentiously
claims to be of the people, by the people and
for the people.
Those Bashaw fortunes carry with them
confirmation strong as holy writ that our
republican masses have lost their high
} franchise of self-government through sloth
in civil duties and lack Of interest in the
ruling of the Nation, which they yet
> foolishly COLL their own.
Farmers of America! The supreme hour
of our country draws nigh, and if syou
would save her from night and chaos, de-
mand at once Popular Money, Government
ownership Of Railways, and the destruction
Of oil trusts.-Farmers' Voice.
Mulhall, in bis Balance Sheet of the World,
gives the average wealth of prominent
European countries in 1880 rs follows:
Holland, $l,4l5; England, 300; France,
5,O05 Germany, 1915, per capital. The
United States census for the same year
showed the rates to be about $3.50, lnclud-
ing all our purely fictitious wealth, the
possession of which is peculiar to this
country. 1t may be of interest to note the
coincidence that the richest nations are
those which obstruct their commerce least
with the world-Farm, Stock and Home:
Now is Dakota's opportunity by adopting
good constitution and sending patriots,
not partisans, to make our laws, to set an
example that will encourage farmers in
sister states to put stop to our highest
Offices being filed by money grubbers and
robbers of tho sons and daughters of toll.
"Let us strive to make men free since
God is marching on"