The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-10-19
THAT CAPITAL HOWL.

for arousing the prejudices of the
unthinking and ignorant is, ''capital!'
Organized and aggregated money has
they claim, more than any one other
thing, caused all the woes and been re-
sponsble for all the wrongs which have
afflicted humanity.
But the truth is that all the triumphs
of our later civilization, and the multi
tudous comforts for which this age Is
distinctive would have been impossible
but for aggregated capitol, as found repre-
sented in those very companies and cor
porations against which it is SO fashion
able to howl. To aggregated capital are
We indebted not only for our great trans
portation lines, by land and sea. but for
every character of municipal conven-
fence. This is an age in which the labor
ing classes have the same kinds of food
and of clothing, and enjoy all the thous-
and and one little comforts, and even
the superfuities and fashions that were
formerly only within the reach Of the
independent. Aggregated capital not
only constructs the railroads but
builds the factory which pro-
duces the thousand and one articles
of fashion and convenience, SO cheaply
as to be within the reach of all, and at
the same time which gives employment
directly and indirectly, to millions of
men, women and children in their pro-
duction. Capital in the aggregate can
not be calamity any more than can
money be in the concrete, for which all
the world is struggling.
But. says one, aggregated capital often
leads to monopoly. True enough, but
better monopoly for a season than to re-
main destitute of its products which are
only blessings to civilization. Besides,
monopolies universally and always
end in competition and disap-
pear. The sewing machine or
agricultural implement which is the
result and product of incorporated capt.
tai today, are manufactured by any body
and everybody tomorrow. And further,
monopolies and joint stock corporations
are not conducted one time in a hundred
by the owner of the money, but by hired
managers and salaried officials and paid
workmen. Look around you, every
where, in the home, in the kitchen, in
the shop and in the Office. on the farm;
look to your very backs and note the
convenlences supplied by concentrated
and aggregated capital, and at
what cheapness, all of which
would be impossible through individual
exertion and individual capital. The
greatest monopoly on this continent, and
one against which all of the American
people are continually crying out, and
which in peculiar sense is controlled by
a single head, is that of the Standard Oil
company. But where is the man SO ig-
norant as to deny that coal oil, through
the magnitude of this corporation, has
become almost as cheap as water, so
cheap that it has not only become uni
versal lighting material but is used for
fuel. But for this gigantic system
oil would have been four times
its present price with the
most of the present supply lying undis-
turbed, and undiscovered in the bowels |
of the earth, with tank lines all I'M
dreamed of.
Individual capital could not span con-
tinents and tunnel mountains with trans |
portation lines, nor do anything else
where peoples, communities and states
are to be served and rendered more COM
Portable by the thousand and one appli- |
ances and the thousand and one things |
which go for the comfort and conven-
fence of humanity, individually and col
lectively.
Without aggregated and modified cap
ital one half of all that is produced
and furnished so cheaply would not be
manufactured at all. while individual
labor would remain unremunerative and
confined to the simplest modes and
hardest methods. In the absence of a
possibility to centralize capital there
might be no opportunity for monopolies,
but labor, under such conditions, would
suffer more for the lack of easy and
profitable employment than it does now
with all the multifarious avenues which
capital opens I'D for it.
The howl, therefore, of the average
Alliance writer and Peoples party
stumper against capital is but
the wall of demogogy and an appeal
TO ignorance. The ultimate aim of indi-
viduai comforts, and no people in the
world are SO rich, Individually. as the
American people, nor do any other peo-
pie enjoy SO many of the comforts
which wealth has produced, and it is
little better than idiocy to denounce that
for which every one is struggling to
possess.
Do YOU want your own home to have
a bad name abroad? Do you want your
own town reviled abroad? Do you want
your state referred to in terms of con-
timely and disgrace If you do, there
is a way to do il, by supporting the Peo-