Los Angeles herald., 1891-12-01
MUST NOT BE IGNORED.

the way fortunes are being piled up in
the United States, both by individuals
and corporations. There are men yet
in middle age in this country who can
remember when Commodore Vanderbilt
possessed very modest fortune. He
was wont to say of himself that when he
was so years of age he could not have
cleaned up over $50, 900 if he had been
called upon for square showdown of
hands. At 60 he was worth $4,000, 1000.
When he died he was worth by universal
concession at least $100,000,000. No
better evidence of the way money make s
money could possibly be adduced than
the fact that when William H. Wander
bilt died the riches of the old commo-
dore had increased to quite three hun
dred millions. The period embraced in
this modern miracle, which surpasses
that of the multiplication OF the loaves
and fishes in scriptural story, was
scarcely dozen years.
OF course the masses sit by in stupe-
faction and have no limit to their as
tonishment at these marvels. They
have no idea OF how it is done, but
they realize, in a dumb way,
that the financial processes are under
way that are really making them hew-
ers of wood and drawers OF water to the
capitalist classes. If it were not for the
unlimited room for expansion in the
United States, the virgin richness OF the
Ala Inya,, tive of o,,r r,oo-
pie, the masses would find themselves
wearing gives. The old bold days of
brigandage have passed, when sturdy
robbers issued from mountain Businesses
and sprang upon caravans and looted
them. A much more effective scheme
has been devised, however, and it COM
pares with the old system as the smoke
less and noiseless powder of today with
the clouds and rattlebang of the days
when the Turk with cannon and petard
drove the last OF the Paleologi out OF
Constantinople.
The men who have conspired to give
plutocracy its last and saddest signif
canoes in this so-called free country have
overdone their work. If they had per-
mitted the people to have an abun-
dant currency the length OF the
rope would have duped the peo-
pie into thinking that they were
free. If they had been sagacious enough
to do this, the abundant circulating me-
dunn would have made times so brisk
that the masses would not have felt their
burden for years to come.
The same influences that converted
Commodore Vanderbilt's $100, 900
into $500, 10000 in a dozen years de-
creed that the circulating medium should
be restricted. To make this enormous
aggregation of wealth all the resources
of the national and state governments
were called into play, including profit
gate parting with the right of eminent
domain by the state authorities and the
unstinted squandering of the national
domain by the government OF the United
States. One would have thought that,
in return for such unlimited concessions
by the people, they would have been al
lowed to play with little money. But
no. That did not suit the purpose of the
eonspirators. Silver was demonetized
in order that the people of fixed in
come should absorb, practically, the
whole substance of the masses.
No adequate provision was made
for supplying the place of the rapidly
curtailed circulation of the national
banks. Thus, while the volume Of
securities upon which interest had to be
paid in 1891 was quite twice as large as
in 1865, the volume of the currency
available for that purpose in 1891 was,
to state the case mildly, not half that
which was in circulation in 1866.
Such is true statement of the most
extraordinary scheme of finance that
ever disgraced and debilitated any ma
tion. We are told, by Mr.. Carlisle and
the only issue in the coming great
national contest, and that the free coin
age of silver must be postponed to some
later date, in Difference to the gold bugs
OF New York; that the Democracy is
united on the tariff issue and divided
ON the silver question, and more to the
same purport.
For the abilities of the Messrs. Car
isle and Mills the HERALD has the
most unlimited respect, but we do not
believe that even those gentlemen
are strong enough to arrest the
tendency amongst the masses
,f the Democratic party to see the great
wrong Of 1873 rigbted. The Democrats.