The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1890-02-14
WISCONSIN.
Wis. Agricultural: g 81
= OUR PRODUCING CLASSES.
Their Danger as Outlined by Ignatius
DonnellY. -. ---...--.-

1AAO oAAO producing C1Ooo VI uAAAo
country drifting to destruction? If
they are it is time to call halt. It
is not wise to wait until we hear the
thunder of the cataract, and are
caught in the wild swirl just above
Niagara. Let us look at q few facts j:
alluded in my last to the efforts
of the New England states to import
foreigners, and colonize them on the
abandoned farms OF that section.
Farm mortgages of United States now
run up into billions of dollars. In
New York City out of 100000
inhabitants, 1, 100000 live in ten
ement houses. OF the 800. 900 voters
of that city, only $4,000, or less
than five per cent, are tax payers
on real estate. Thomas G. Shearman
has recently asserted that in thirty
years 100, 1000 persons will own three
fifths of the wealth of the United
States. The American Economist
recently stated that twenty-five years
ago five-eighths of the people of this
country lived in their own houses,
but that to-day this number is
reduced to three eighths. We have
but to carry this movement forward
twenty-five years more, and the num-
Der inhabiting their own homes will
be about one-eighth or, in other
words seven-eighths of the people of
this Republic in less than a genera
ton. will be tenants.
What has caused this? The in
ordinate greed and cunning of a
minority of our population, and the
Indifference, stupidity and lack of
capacity, of cooperation and organ
ization of the remainder. Combina-
tons of capitalists have taken posses
sion of the country, and are subject
ing thepeople to a degradation more
crushing and destructive than the
feudal system in it's worst eras. The
result is already "a 900 persons in
the United States are worth thirty
one and q half billion of dollars, or
one and a half billions more than
half the estimated wealth of the en-
tire nation.
If this thing was to stop here it
would be awful enough. But what
is to make it stop? Willgreed stop?
Will the demands of luxury stop I?
Can you arrest this terrible develop
ment by whistling at it? Is it not
well understood by every man to-day
that the honors of life belong to the
great fortunes,-however obtained?
The world to-day is like a theatre
afire. The struggle is to escape from
the advancing poverty, and to do so
men will walk over the upturned faces
OF their struggling brethren. What
do the men on top care for the
suffering or outcries of those below?
1t is "devil take the hindmost," in
the reckless and brutal struggle for
wealth.
Look at the condition of the farm
ers: A single villainous firm stands
between the cattle raiser of this coun-
try and the consumers of meat.
They break down the price of cattle,
and keep up the price of meat. The
money that should be distributed
among millions of human beings, to
make them prosperous yeomen, goes
to make half q dozen aristocrats,
dangerous to the safety of republican
institutions. Millionaires ought to
be legislated against as we legislate
against wild mustard and Canada
tl,:stles. Whenever you permit the
great mass of people to be impover-
ished, you unfit them to maintain
republic; and there is no alternative
but standing armies and a despotism.
Look at the price OF wheat. The
GREAT WEST, the Alliance newspaper
of st. Paul, claims that Minnesota
wheat is worth to-day $1.1S per
bushel in Liverpool. It costs two
or two and half cents per bushel to
carryitacross the ocean and six cents
to carryit from Duluth to New York.
This ought to leave wheat worth
at Duluth $1.1O. 1t is worth about
70 cents? One hundred and fifty