The farmers' union. (Memphis, Mo.) 1891-1895, 1891-04-30
THE CAUSE OF POVERTY.
Sermon by Rev. DIR. Horac, w. TildeH. Of
Des Moincs, Iowa
tConclnded from Las, Week

The second cause of poverty by name
is. the hcaping together of colossal for
tune by speculation and gambling"
Wall street is the headquarters of this
nefarouS business. The operators are
called
Bulls and Bears.
The commercial bull puts his horns uu-
der the price of some commodity and
lifts it up to a certain figure, and you
have to pay so much more for the article
when YOU come to buy it. So does every
body.
What was all this FORE The bull made
bet with the bear that prices on Sngar
or tea. for instance, would be 50 and so.
The one does not convey and the other
does not receive anything. They simply
bet. and then they make corners and
mani pulate the market. The bull lifts
with his horns the price the best he can
and the bear with his paws drags the
prices down and whichever succeeds
makes a million of money in a week. it
may be. And it comes out of the labor
er's pocketS-out of everybody pocket
and this dccor.ling to lar. The money
is simply stolen. '.AIl values are dis
turbcd. all honest trade is injured. It's
against all moral principle and all eco
nomic law" 1t sets every man against
every other man. 1t is a regular bull
and bear fight, a disgrace to a Spanish
amphitheater. And yet it is ''honora
ble.' The men who do it are looked up
to and fawned upon by a befooled public.
Kill one man and you are murderer.
Kill a thousand men and you are hero.
Steal loaf of bread to appease your
pinching hunger and you are thief.
I,;, \
a money king.
Out upon this cXecrable business. In
the language of another II" ,ambier>
are the tyrants of soci"t'l ~ ,'iinSt them
are summoned the hG,ger of labor the
Indignation of trade, the ban of society,
the penalties of legiSlation; and upon
them, and upon the righteousness of
this Impeachment is solcmnly invoked
the discerning Judgment of the just God.
Some one has learned what the in
come of four of these cXtortionists is
annually. The statement appeared in
a New York paper not long since:
jay Gould Observation-Disclosures 2.11o. 100
Cornelius Vanderbilt. t............. 5.Gs5.is5
John Rockefeller. icr................. h.-l5 90
Waldorf AStor... ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. s,5ll445
Total Observation-Disclosures spa is 800
The same person reports the annual
cost of four of the highest drones of
England:
The queen. 81, ,"29. 600
Prince of Wales. les................... 100000
Princess of Wales. eS................. 500, 900
Duke of Edinburg. Observation-Disclosures. l2l.n00
If you will look over these figures you
will see that this country pays Jay Gould
alone more than England pays to her
four highest lords. including the queen.
And yet we cry out against monarchy as
though it were something terrible.
Why. so far as the cost Of monarchy is
concerned. we had better have ten,
crowned heads to support than to have
four such men as Gould and Vanderbilt
and Rockefeller aud Astor to support:
for S24, 00O,0 900 is more than ten
times as much as 50, 3O4, 900. Nor is the
| amount of money-enormous though
it iS-of so great Importance:
! but their miserable methods are ssworsc
| for the country than the amount they
| snatch away from us. 1t Is such men
as have referred to that put the fights
| into business that make men try to bite
| and drvour one another-that make each
| try to dispiace and annihilate the other.
! 1t is they that make legitimate business
on the part of any impossible. They
| keep the markets worried and feverish.
| Honest business men are kept on the
| trembling edge of uncertainty, for they
| cannot know when a corner Will be made
on what they handle. We could well
| afford TO pay these men $4,000, 900 a
! year and let them keep still and let the
| markets alone, and suffer them to be
| regulated by the natural law of supply
| and demand. And yet the lesser thing
is bad enough, to take $4,000, 900 out of
| the pockets of the middle and lower
| classes every year.
Now there is great amount OF money
in the country. and when and in pro-
| portion as it is heaped up in one place,
/! it is not in other places.
If all the soil of Iowa was heaped up
in some one place in the state into a
| mountain, as the battlefield of Waterloo
| is heaped up in an artificial mound, there
would be no fruitful soil anywhere else
| and the state would be barren every.
where except in that spot whore the sol
| was deposited: and there would be small
| fruitfulncss, for soil heaped up thous
| and feet high could bear produce only
On its surface.
Suppose all the moisture of this state
was put together in one place, there
would be one deluge aud everywhere
else would be drouth. 1t is so with
| Money Heaped Into One Place.
1t overioads its pOssessors with power
and luxury. and subjects other localities
to destitutiOn. Excessive wealth anC
! luxury are as destroying as destitution
These insist are guilty extremes. Col
nrfp ti,,,n foly
gotten. The enormously wealthy mer
Of this country are such only by the
employment, to some extent of viciou!
methods. And one large part of the
| sin so committed consists il
snatching money and its equiv
alent, bread, from sucf
large numbers of their fellowmen. II
proportion as some have much, other:
must have little. l can say with Lee
Meriwether. There are two things
hate to see; the billionaire-a man with