The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1891-04-03
FINANCE DISCUSSED.
THE RESULTS OF THE MONEY
POWERS CONTROL.

Present and Futurs-Cause ana ri.
fect-Great Work Of the FARMERS, Ant
ance-col. @. Q. Post Reviews the situa-
ito Ably and At Length.
At q recent mass meeting Of the farm
ers In Georgia, Col. G. G. Post, formerly
editor Of the Chicago Express delivered
an excellent address, Of which we give q
synopsis:
ut is not necessary that I take much
of my time or Of yours with efforts to
show you the condition of the country.
In q general way at least the facts are
pretty well known to you already. We
are near the close Of the 10th century in
q country rich In all the natural elements
from which labor can create wealth. A
country SO large and a climate so diver
sifed that somewhere within its borders
. be produced almost every fruit and
flower, almost every vegetable and grain
known to civilized men. Abundant tim
Der, q rich soil, limitless stores of metal.
long lines of sea coast, g%reatlakes, broad
bays, mighty rivers, the natural high
ways Of cOmmerce-these are q part OF
the heritage.
The genius of the race has made q SER
want of steam, o slave Of electricity. a
companion Of the waves Of sound. Over
all the known forces of nature we are
sovereigns-masters.
A century ago the continent from the
Blue ridge of hills whose outlines can be
seen from the upper windows OF this
building clear on to the Kaw river was
an unbrOken wilderness, the home of the
panther and the bear, the deer, the wolf
and the Indian. From the Kaw to the
Rocky mountains was q prairie unbroken
by a single plow share. A country so
little known that for the first half of the
century and ever considerably later it
was represented upon all the
maps IS a barren desert Of
worthless sand, while from
the Rocky mountains on the Pacific
ocean in all that vast country from
which we have since carved q half dozen
mighty states and territories, no white
man had ever set foot save only a few
Spanish monks who had built missions
in what is now Southern California.
In a century the continent has been
conquered. The bear, the deer, the
wolf, the buffalo and the Indian are
virtually extinct. The forests have
been cut down. The prairie put under
cultivation. The streams hridged. The
mountains tunneled, the lightning that
played about the mountain tops has been
tanned. Steam has been harnessed to
the car of progress and every portion of
our continent bound to every other por-
tion with bands of iron and steel. Towns
and cities have been built and on every
hand is heard the clatter and jar Of
machinery that with iron fingers and
nerves Of steel and feet that never tire
transforms into a thousand different
forms of wealth, the products of the
forest, the plantation and the mine.
I do not know what the man power
Of all the machinery in the United States
is, but it is vastly greater than the power
of all the men themselves. There are
perhaps rs, DOC, 900 men and women, the
heads of families, in the country, and
these, with some aid from the children,
produce all the wealth there is. What
the power of the machinery which they
bring to their aids 1 have no way of esti-
mating. One might guess it to be 100 or
1000 times the power Of all the men and
women themselves and still be below
rather than above the limit of the truth.
Think Of it. How many men would it
require to draw a loaded freight train
across the continent? How many to
draw all the trains that go? Supposing
1000 men could draw a loaded freight
train up grade and down grade across the
continent. 1t used to be q six months
journey ~ OK team from st. Louis to
San Francisco, but suppose 1000 men
could draw a freight train from New
York to San Francisco in six months.
Then in order that a single train might
enter San Francisco from New York
daily and another start on its return trip
would require the labor Of 365, $50 men,
or one-thirtieth or thirty-ffth OF all the
able-bodied men in the nation. Now,
how many trains enter San Francisco
daily? How many enter or leave New
York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washing
ton, Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago, St.
Louis, Kansas City, New Orleans, Mo
bile, Atlanta and all other cities and
towns Of the country? How many men
would it take to draw all these trains
and enough more trains so that the diff
ference in speed between man power and
steam would be made up?
What I am at is an endeavor to con-
vey some idea or the increased power
Of production due to machinery. Iwant
to approximate in some slight degree to
the added power Of the people to pro-
duce wealth derived from their inven-
tions and machinery so that we may gain
some better ider of how wealthy the
wealth producers ought to be.
Our mothers carded the cotton and the
wool by hand, and walked back and
forth and turned the wheel with the
hand drew out 3 single thread at a time
and then sitting at the loom and fur
nished the power to run it with their
feet they wove the thread into cloth.
How many women would it take to card
and spin and by hand all the cot
ton and wool manufactured into cloth in
the country? How many would 1T take
to pick by hand all the seed out of all
the cotton raised and ginned in Douglas
county, in the state, in the south? How
many men and m to run by hand
all the machinery of all kinds in all the
cities in all the country?
What becomes of ell the wealth Gre
ated by use of all this machinery? Who
has got it? How did they come by it?
What are they doing whit? These are
the questions the people have a right to
ask and also to have answered.
Jay Gould is said to have 5000, 600, 900
OF it. Seven thousand other men and
dIo odiu W nave %lsOOOsVUU VI MOTo eGcQ.
How much have you got?
I know that If you begin to ask ques-
tions you will be told that these things
were necessary for the development of
the country and that you had better not
meddie with politics, but just stick to
your farms, as You can't understand
political economy anyway, snd II that
don't stop you you will be called COM
munists or any other insulting epithets
that 1t is thought may brighten you into
keeping still, but I reckon the time has
come when you can stand some abuse
snd Misrepresentation better than you
can stand the present unfair distribu-
tion Of the wealth you help to create.
1.-THE manipnlations of stock, corners
In the necessities of life, the gift or pur-
chase from congress Of special privileges
and immense bodies of land, the wreck
ing Of railroads, watering of stocks,
freight and passenger rates based upon
fictitious values-these, and then the use
of the money and power thus gained to
elect men to Office who will grant them
still further privileges and immunities-