People's voice. [volume] (Wellington, Sumner County, Kansas) 1890-1917, 1892-09-30

functions and sustained by no power but
the invisible majesty of law. With swift
and constant communication by lines of
steam transportation, by land, and lake,
and sea, with telegraphs extending their
nervous REGULATIONS from State to State,
the remotest members of this gigantic
republic are animated by a vitality as
vigorous as that which thrObs at its
mighty heart, and it is through the quick
ened intelligence that has been communi-
Gated by those ideas that these conditions,
which have been fatal to other nations,
have become the pillars of our strength
and bulwarks of our safety.
PowEBLEss TO ENsLAyE.
We have become, Mr.. President, the
wealthiest nation upon the face of this
earth, and the greater part of these enor-
nous accumulations has been piled up dur
ing the past 20 years from 1860 to 1880
Notwithstanding the losses incurred by
the most destructive war of modern times,
the emancipation of four billions of slave
property, the expense of feeding the best
fed, of clothing the best clothed, and of
sheltering the best sheltered people in the
world Notwithstanding all the losses by
fire and flood. During that period of 20
years the wealth of the country increased
at the rate of $25OOOO for every hour.
Every time that the clock licked above the
portal of this chamber the aggregated,
accumulated, permanent wealth of this
country increased more than $40. Sir, it
rivals, it exceeds the fctions of the Ara
bian Nights. There is nothing in the
story of the lamp of Aladdin that sur
passes it. tits without parallel or prece-
dent; and the national ledger now shows
a balance to our credit, after all that has
been wasted, and squandered, and ex-
pended, and lost, and thrown away, of be-
tween sixty and seventy thousand million
dollars. believe, myself, that upon fair
cash market valuation the aggregate wealth
OF this country to-day is not less than one
hundred thousand millions of dollars. This
lsenough, Mr.. President, to make every man
and every woman and every child beneath
the flag comfortable, to keep the wolf away
from the door; it is enough to give to every
family a competence. And yet we are
told that there are thousands of people
who never have enough to eat in any one
day In the year. We are told by the stat
lsticians of the Department of Labor of
the United States that, Notwithstanding
this stupendous aggregation, there are a
million American citizens, able bodied and
willing to work, who tramp the streets of
our cities and the country highways and
byways in search of labor with which to
buy their daily bread in vain.
Mr.. President, is it any wonder that this
condition of things can exist without ex-
citing profound apprehension? l heard,
or saw, rather, for did not hear it saw
IN the morning papers that in his speech
yesterday the Senator from Ohio Mr..
SHERMAN devoted a considerable part of
his remarks to the defense of millionaires;
that ne declared that they were the froth
OF the beer of our political system.
Mr. SHERMAN. l said spectators.
Mr.. INGALLS,. Spectators? They
are very nearly the same, for the million.
aires of this country, Mr.. President. are
not the producers and the laborers. They
are arrayed like Solomon in all his glory,
but "they toll not, neither do they spin" y
yes, they do spin. This class, Mr.. Presi.
dent, | am glad to say, is not confined to
this country alone. These gigantic &C.
foundations have not been the result of
industry and economy. There would be
no protest against them if they we're.
The people are beginning to INQUIRE
whether, under "a government of the
people, by the people, and for the people
under a system in which the bounty of
nature Is supplemented by the labor of
all, any citizen can show moral-yes, or
a legal-title to S2OOOOOOOO.
Some have the temerity to ask whether
or not any man can show clear title to
SlOO,OOO,O00. There have been men rash
enough to doubt whether, under a system
SO constituted, by speculation or other.
wise, any citizen can show a fair title to
SlO,OOO,OOO, when the distribution per
capita would be less than $1,000. If |
were put upon my rCir dire, should hest
tate before admitting that, in the sense of
giving just compensation and equivalent.
any man in this country or any other
country ever absolutely earned a million
dollars. | do not believe he ever did.
What is the condition to day, Mr.. Presi-
dent, by the statistics! Irepeat that the
people are not anarchists; they are not
socialists; they are not communists: but
they have suddenly walked to the concep-
ton of the fact that the bulk of the prop.
erty OF this country is passing into the
hands OF what the Senator from Ohio, by
a euphemism, calls the spectators of
the world.
WEALTH DISTRIBUTION.
A table has been completed for the mr..
pose of showing how wealth in this coun.
try is distributed, and it is full of the
most startling admonition. 1t has an
peared in the magazines; it has been
commented upon in this chamber. II
has been the theme of editorial discus
sion. 1t appears from this that there are
in the United States 200 persons who
have an aggregate of more than s2O,OOO..
600 each, and there has been one man. the
Midas of the century, at whose touch
everything seemed to turn to gold, who
has acquired, within less than the lifetime
of single individual out of the aggregate
of the national wealth that was earned by
the labor of all apnlied tn tho cor,r,,s