The Globe-republican. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1889-1910, 1891-01-21


There Is nothing in the story Of the lamp OF
Aladdin that surpasses it. 1t is without par
aliel or precedent; and the national ledger
now shows q balance to our credit, after all
that has been wasted, and sQuandercd, and
expended, and lost, and thrown away, OF De-
tween sixty and seventy thousand million
dollara Ibelieve myself that upon fair cash
market valuation the aggregate wealth OF this
country to-day is not less than one hundred
thousand millions of dollars. This Is enough,
Mr.. President, to make every man and every
woman and every child beneath the nag com.
Portable to keep the wolf away from the
door 1t is enough to give to every family a
competence, and yet we are told that there
are thousands of people who never have
enough to eat in any one day in the year.
We are told by the statisticians OF the De-
partment of Labor of the United States that,
Notwithstanding this stupendous aggrega-
ton there are a million American citizens,
able bodied and willing to work, who tramp
the streets of our cities and the country
highways and byways in search of labor
with which to buy their daily bread in vain.
Mr. President, is it any wonder that this
condit ion of things can exist without excit-
ing profound apprehension: l heard, or
saw, rather, for did not hear i'll saw in
the morning papers that, in his speech yes
terday, the Senator from Ohio (Mr. sherman)
devoted a considerable part of his remarks
10 the OelenSc OI SuOt uC uC
clared that they were the froth of the beer OF
our political system
Mr. Sherman-I said SPECTATORS.
Mr.. neutrality-suspicious.? They are very
nearly the same, for the milliOnaires OF this
country, Mr.. President, are not the producers
and the laborers. They are arrayed like
Solomon in all his glory, but "they toll not,
neither do they spin"-yes, they do spin.
This class, Mr.. President, am glad to say, is
not confined to this country alone. These
gigantic accumulatons have not been the re-
suit of industry and economy. There would
be no protest against them il they were.
There is an anecdote floating around the pa
pers. speaking about beer. That some gen.
tleman said to the keeper OF a saloon that
he would give him a recipe for selling more
beer, and when he inquired what 1t was, he
said: "Sell less froth." Laughter. If the
millionaires and spectators of this country
are the frOth upon the beer of our system,
the time has come when we should sell more
beer by selling less froth. [Laughter.l
The people are beginning to inquire
whether, under ga government Of the people,
by the people and Tor the people," under a
system in which the bounty of nature is sup
plemented by the labor of all, any citizen
can show a moral-yes, or a legal-ttle to
$500, 0OO, 900.
Some have the temerity to ask whether or
not any man can show clear title to $780,.
10000. There have been men rash enough to
doubt whether, under a system so cOnsti-
tuted, by speculation or otherwise, any citi
zen can show fair title to $4,000, 900, when
the distribution per capita would be less
than 81 900. If were put upon my roir dire
1 should hesitate before admitting that in
the sense of giving just compensation and
equivalent, any man in this country or any
other country ever absolutely earned u mil
lion dollars. / do not believe ne ever did
What is the condition to-day, Mr.. President,
by the statistics? l repeat that the people
are not Anarchists; they are not Socialists;
they are Communists; but they have sud
denly walked to the conception of the fact
that the bulk of the property of this country
is passing into the hands of what the Senator
from Ohio, by a euphemism, calls the "spec-
ulators' of the world.
WEALTH DISTRIBUTION.
A table has been completed for the pur
pose of showing how wealth in this country
is distributed, and it Is full of the most
startling admonition. 1t has appeared in
the magazines; it has been commented
upon in this chamber. 1t has been the
theme of editorial discussion. 1t. appears
from this that there are in the United States
POO persons who have an aggregate of more
than $50 100000 each, and there has been one
man. the Midas of the century, at whose
touch every thing seemed to turn to gold,
WHO ndu u. Wituln less imam the llIe-
time of a single individual, out of the aggre
gate of the National wealth that was earned
by the labor of all, applied to the common
bounty of nature, an aggregate that exceeded
the assessed value of four of the smallest
States in this Union.
Mr.. Hoar. And more than the whole
country had when the Constitution was
framed.
Mr.. Ingalls,. Yes-and as the Senator from
NlsS nn,,-a 90 obs
him for the suggeston-much more, many
times more than the entire wealth of the
country when it was established and
founded. Four hundred persons possess S1O,-
100000 each, l.GO0 possesses s5,OOO,OOO EACH
1900 possesses S2,OOO.OOO each, 500 people
sI,oO' 900 each making total of u coo people
who possess $50 2S0, ,OOO
Mr.. President, it is the most appalling
statement that ever fell upon mortal ears
1t is, so far as the results of democracy as a
social and political experiment are con-
cerned, the most terrible commentary that
ever was recorded in the book of time-and
Nero fiddles while Rome burns. 1t is thrown
off with laugh and sneer, "as the froth
upon the beer of our political and social
system. As said. the assessed valuation
recorded in the great National ledger, stand
ing to our credit is about s65 900, 200.
Our population is 62,5OO,OOO, and by some
means, by some device, by some machina-
ton, by some incantaton, honest or other
wise, by some process that can not be de-
fined, less than twO-thousandth part of our
population have obtained possession (and
have kept out of the penitentiary, in spite of
the means they adopted to acquire it) of
more than one half of the entire accumulated
wealth of the country.
NOT THE WORST.
That is not the worst, Mr. President. 1t
has been largely acquired by men who have
contributed little to the material welfare of
the country, and by processes that 1 do not
care in appropriate terms to describe. By
the wreckng of the fortunes of innocent
men. women and children, by jugelery, by
bookkeeping, by financiering, by what the
Senator from Ohio calls Speculation" and
this process is going on with frightful and
constantly accelerating rapidity. The entire
industry of this country is passing under the
control of organized and confederated cap
ital. More than fifty of the necessaries of
life to day, without which the cabin of the
farmer and the miner can not be lighted or
his children fed or clothed, have passed alb
solutely under the control of syndicates and
trusts. and corporations composed of specu-
latOrs, and by means of these combna-
tiOns and considerations competition is
destroyed; small dealings are rendered
impossible; competence can no longer be
acquired for il is suOprfinOns and unnacoS.