People's party paper. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1891-1898, 1892-12-09
JAY GOULD.

the poor house.
Yesterday he stood among the
social Notifications of the king,
and no law could touch him.
To-day he is as helpless as the least
of us; he has not dollar.
This man was a type of what our
modern system can do. He was a
living illustration of its awful injus-
tice. At different periods of his life
he put into successful practice every
species of that peculiar rascality
which the world condemns, and which
the courts cannot punish. He wrecked
railroads and then gobbled them; he
wrung tribute from labor upon fraud
ulent issues of stock; he silenced the
protests of those who suffered with
Pinkerton assassins; he bribed news
papers, politicians, courts and legis-
latures; he manipulated panics like
that of 1878 in order that the "Black
Friday" which carried ruin and des-
olation to a million fresides in Amer
lea might bring the robbers booty
to his.
There was none Of the rough bru-
tality of Rob Roy about this man
all social forms he strictly observed.
A more gentlemanly villain never sat
high up in church. A more polished
scoundrel never offered bride. No
man in all the worlds history ever
filed the streets with beggars and
broken-hearted outcasts with more
decorous cruelty than he.
Vanderbilt, with his coarser nature,
might say, "Tne public be damned ;"
Mr.. Gould was too well bred to do
SO. His contempt for the people who
crouched before him he restrained
himself from expressing. There can
be no doubt that he felt it. How
could he fail to despise public which
allowed him to trample on it's laws,
despoil its laborers and levy illegal
tribute upon its every field of in
dustry.
This man will live in history as
one of the great oppressors Of the
human race. By his control of the
stock market, by his compelling labor
to pay profits upon fraudulent and
fictitious issues of stock, by his con-
solicitations of competing railways into
vast monopolies with irresistible
power over freights, he has put out
the light in thousands of happy homes,
beggared millions Of men and brought
distress to the freside Of nearly one
half of the people of America.
This man loved his wife and his
children. But it was love which
did not throw open the doors of his
heart to others. No thought ever
seemed to enter his mind about the
wife or child of his neighbor. The
cry of the hungry or the homeless
did not reach his ear. The love of
his home was not of that noble kind
which took in all mems homes. The
love Of his wife was not of that lofty
type which created kindly considera-
alton for all good wives. The love
for his children was not of that hu-
manizing kind which kindled afec-
ton for children everywhere. It did
not mar the pleasure of his * evening
at home" to reflect that thousand
men had lost their homes by his
" Black Friday" deal. In the smiles
of his own children it did not come
home to him that some other mans
children would smile no more; but
would give their youth and health
and strength to the terrible task
which he had brought upon them
the task of giving two dollars in
labor for one Of money.
The system which he grew rich on
does not die with him. It lives all
the more vigorously because he has
shown how unlimited are its posi-
bilities. His imitators are to be
found On every hand. He has
taught the world again the old les
son that the claw is made for the
weak; 1t does not punish the
strong" His lie is but another ex-
ample of the fact that the great rob-
Der, like Alexander or Napoleon, has
nothing to fear in this world. It's
only the poor devil who steals a pig
that we can handle.
Before the great white throne Of
the Just God, Jay Gould may come
to repent himself bitterly that he