Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-08-08
LAW AND PRIVILEGE.

In recent address ex-senator ingalls,
referred to the unequal distribution of
wealth as one of the threatening evils of
the day. Having said this, he proceeded
to show how little he really knew of the
causes which produce the great inequali-
ties of wealth by the following utter
anceS:
have searched in vain to discover any
legislation that did not bear equally upon
jay Gould and myself and the other citizens
of the United States. All have equal claims,
so far as know, and the only reason know
why I am not a millionaire is because had
not brains enough to become one. >
The famous picture 1.-THE Ahgelus'' brought
500, ,0O0. No citizen was prevented from
painting it. 1t only required few tubes of
color, a camelshair brush, a small square of
canvas and brains. The paltry dauber who
paints pictures for 81 80 apiece thinks he is a
victim.
The New York Tribune, in quoting the
above from Senator ingalls, speech, re-
ferred to it as "a whole truth under the
half Jest" Yet the Tribune, in mo-
ment of unwonted frankness, not very
long ago, exposed in few lines one of the
abuses of railway management, by which
promoters of new lines load down the
companies with watered stock and try to
sell the inflated securities to investors
who, as the Tribune said, really pay for
the road If that journal had stopped to
remember its interval of outspoken truth
it would have realized that there is one
case in which the effort to make immense
fortunes is by hoodwinking the public
into investing in securities representing
two or three times the actual cost of Sc
curities.
1t is true the law-that is, the theory of
well considered and honestly admins
tered law-does not give one man advan-
tage over another. But to stop there is to
tell very small part of the truth. For
the notification and defiance of the law
have afforded too many opportunities to
pile up immense fortunes at the cost of
the people to permit that feature of the day
to be overloOkedin in considering the causes
of unequal distribution of wealth. 1t is
against the law for great corporations, or
individuals either, to combine in order to
suppress competition and enhance the
cost of staple productions; but fortunes
are made that way. 1t always has been
contrary to the law for railway corpora
tions to discriminate in favor of one ship
per and against another; but large share
of the great fortunes of the day have their
root in that abuse.
The Tribune remarks that claw does
not enable one man to project or to build
a railroad rather than another" 1t is
true but there are other influences than
law at work. 1t is not so many years ago
since the combined edict of the corpora
ton magnates went forth that a railroad
in process of construction through the
State of Pennsylvania should not be built
And although they had to defy the Con-
stitution of Pennsylvania, the corporation
edict proved stronger than the funda-
mental law of this State. This was fol-
lowed very shortly by compact between
the railroad magnates and the great bank
ers of New York, which decreed in effect
that no one should be permitted to build
new railroads in the trunk line territory
except the trunk lines themselves. With
these facts on record the plea, that law
does not prevent one man from building
railroads rather than another, is some
what pitiful evasion of the real record.
No sensible man objects to the wealth
gained by superior skill, intelligence, in
ventiveness or frugality in the legitimate
efforts of life. But it is the wealth gained
by devising means to hoodwink, deceive or
burden the public to which objection is