Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-03-02
BELLAMY'S PANACEA,
The Author of Looking Back
ward" On NatiOnalism.
ITS PURPOSES AND PLANS.
Governmental Control of Railroads,
Etc, the First Step.
POLITICAL QUESTIONS OF THE DAY
ITS PURPOSES AND PLANS.
POLITICAL QUESTIONS OF THE DAY
rwRrTTEN FOR THE DTsrATcH.1

\ o TACT is better established bv experience
or more easily demonstrable by reason than
that no republic can long exist unless sub
stantial equality in the wealth of citizens
prevails. Wealth is power in its most con-
centrated, most efficient and most universally
applicable form. In the presence of great
disparities of wealth, social equality is at an
end, industrial Independence is destroyed,
while more constitutional stipulations as to
the equal rights of citizens politically or be-
fore the law becomes ridiculous.
One hundred years ago this Republic was
founded upon a substantial equality in the
condition of the people. 1t was not an
equality established by law, but condition
resulting from a general state of poverty.
For the first fifty years the increase in the
wealth of the country was gradual, but
within the last thirty years, owing to great
mechanical and commercial inventions, it
has multiplied by leaps and bounds, no
longer growing from decade to decade by
arithmetical, but by geometrical ratio. In
stead OF chiefly tending to enhance the gen.
eral welfare of the people, this wealth has
been mainly appropriated by small class
At the present time the property of 100 men
in the United States aggregates more than
the total possessions OF the rest of the people.
of New York city with its 1000, 900 popu-
1ation. The entire bonded debt of the United
States is held by Il, 900 persons only, AMI
over 60 per cent of it is in the hands OF
23, 900 persons.
A GIGANTIC FREEZE-oUT.
A volume of similar details might be fur
nished, but the situation may be summed up
in one OF the characteristic phrases of mod
ern business, as follows: Mainly within 80
years 100000 Americans have succeeded in
freezing OUT their 65, ,000 600 co-partners
as 10 more than half the assets OF the con-
cern, and at the rate of the last 80 years,
within 80 years more will have secured the
remainder.
That is the situation which has created
the need tor nationalism. Those are the
facts which account Tor the rapidity of its
spread among the people.
For the sake of clearness let us distinguish
the evil effects OF the concentration of wealth
in the hands of few as political, social and
industrial. First as to the political effects.
The great corporations and combinations OF
capital dwarf our municipalities, overtop
our States and are able to dictate to our Ma
tiona- Legislature. The extent to which in
tImidation and bribery are employsd to in
fuence popular elections taints with the
suspicion Of raud nearly all verdicts OF the
ballot when the majority is not large. Even
in the grand appeal 10 the nation the
money power, by judicious concentra-
tion of corruption funds upon close
States, is able to set at naught the
will Of the people. Tie titles of the
Presidents of the Republic are no longer
clear. What money cannot effect at the
polls, by intimidation or by bribery, it does
not hesitate to attempt by the corruption OF
individual Legislators. Our munlcipal
Council chambers are too often mere auction
rooms, where public franchises are sold to
the highest briber. The Legislatures of
some of our greatest States are commonly
said to be owned by particular corporations.
The United States Senate is known as a
''rich mems club, and in the Lower House
of Congress the schemes of capital have
only to meet the sham opposition OF the
denagogue.
SOCIAL DISPARITIES,
Socially the vast disparities of wealth
afford on every side inhUman contrasts of
cruel want and inordinate luxury. The !
dazzling illustrations OF pomp and power,
which are the prizes of wealth, have lent to
the pursuit OF gain, at all times sufficiently
keen, feveriSh intensity and desperation |
never seen before in this or any other coun-
try. The moderate rewards of persistent in !
dustry seem contemplate in the mids: OF a
universal speculative fever. In all direc- |
tions the old ways OF legitimate business |
and steady application are being abandoned |
for speculative projects, gambling opera
tons and all manner OF brigandage under |
forms OF law. The spectacle pre-
sented in many instances of great |
riches, notoriopsly won by corrupt |
methods, has undermined the foun- |
dations OF honesty. The epidemic of fraud |
and embezzlement which to-day renders |
wealth so insecure, results from the general i
recognition that the possession of property,
though it may have a legal title, is very |
commonly without moral one. This is the |
deplorable explanation OF the cynical toler- /
ance of fraud by public opinion. Property
will not, in the long ran, be respected which |
is without some reasonable basis in industry
or desert, and it is justly believed that much |
Of the wealth of to-day could not stand in
quiry into the means OF its getting.
1ndustrially, the consequences of the ap-
preparation of the nations wealth by few.
and its further concentration bv means of 1
corporations and syndicates, have made pos
slble policy Of monopolizing the control
and profits of the industries of the country
never before even imagined as among the
possible perils of society. Hitherto, when
oligarchies have usurped the political con-
troll of nations. they have iet the conduct of
business to the vulgar, but our new order of
by obtaining absolute mastery of the means
of support of the people.
EFFECT ON THE wAGE-EARNER,
The effect of the concentration and combi-
nation of capital in the conduct of business
has been directly to bring tine wage-earner
more completely than ever under the thumb
OF the employer. a chief object OF combi-
nation is to control prices by restricting pro-
ductlon-tbat is to say, employment. While
the competition among wage-earners tor
work is thus made more desperate, they are
placed at the mercy of employers bv the
fact that in so far as employers are consoli-
dated, they no longer compete with one an
other.
But there could be DO greater mistake
than to fancy that the manual worker is Pc
culiarly a victim of the present situation.
The business men, the small tradesmen and
and the professional classes
are suffering quite as much and have quite
as much TO dread from monopoly as has the
poorest class of laborers.
As one after another the different depart
ments of business, productive and distribu-
tive, pass into the single or syndicate con-
troll of the great capitalists, the so-caled
the business men with mod
crate capital and plenty Of wit, who used to
conduct the business OF the country, are
crowded out of their occupation and rem
dered superfuous. No doubt the substitu-
ton OF single for multiple control and the
OF middle-men represents an
Bat the economy does not benefit
the consumer, but goes to swell the profits
Of the capitalists Meanwhile fathers, who
were set up by their fathers in business find
it impossible to 10 the like for their sons.
There is now almost no opportunity lett Tor
starting in business in a moderate way;
none indeed, unless backed by large capital. |