The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1893-12-15


gagged in the legitimate business of
transportation and exchange. When
labor produces its stores of wealth, the
unproductive classes come and exact
their toll; then the varied forms of ma
tionaI, state and municipal taxation "a
necessary burden when kept within
proper limits and restrained of its
present exhorbitant rayages) take a
considerable slice of its products and
( all these exactions must be met before
the actual producer can call anything
i his own.
Now, when you take from a man %
or 80 per cent of what he has honestly
earned, what is he to do? He cannot
!. consume as much as he has produced;
and this reduces consumption. If, as
so many do, he attempts to tide over
the deficit in his resources (for which
| he is not at fault by means of credit,
he is only postponing the evil day-the
Philistines will be upon him when the
bubble bursts in the crash of panic,
failure is inevitable, and poverty stares
him in the face. Go down into the
depths and see the thousands driven
from productive business by the I'M
productive; go into the dens of squalid
restitution and look upon other thous-
ands fostering in their Indebtedness,
the victims of robbery from their birth,
and the heart sickens at the horrors
into which an Ubiquitous economic sys-
tenn plunges human beings, whose
hearts were once as warm and whose
hopes as eager as any of ours. Con
sumption curtailed and labor anguish
ing in want, starving in sight of plenty!
Can nation be saved from panics?
Certainly, if it can establish an econo-
mic system under which no man can
thrive on the labor of others. Shall we
continue to copy the financial methods
of the old world? With all the fresh
ness and freedom we have found on
these western shores, can we make no
improvement on the old forms of Eu-
confess that we can do no better than
to accept the foul bequest of discord
and robbery, now affecting the mourn
ing millions of the lands beyond the
sea? There is no possible reason why
we should borrow our ideas and me-
thods of finance from the Rothchilds,
than that we should establish nation
al church or set up large standing
army.
Shall we remain blind to the facts of
our own history? In the midst of the
maddening contention over gold and
silver, shall we forget that within the
| knowledge of men now young we lived,
and manufactured, and transacted
business, without seeing silver dollar
of coin in the legitimate channels of
trade and industry; thut such period
continued for IL years; and that it en-
braced time of magnificent prosperi-
ty the most glorious ever experienced
in our commercial or financial history?
Shall we ever escape the humiliation
of seeing our national public servants,
in every stress of finance, going to
seek counsel or take orders from the
usurers of Wall street, whose interests
are antagonistic to those of the people?
The men over whom the panic has no
power; who can smile in the midst of
the general devastation, surely these
are not the men to whom we should
confne the direction of financial affairs
in a time like this.
Suppose that we, as a brotherhood of
65,OO0,OO0, bound to defend with our
| 1i1,Oe, ~ ] IL L,
management of our affairs into our
own hands, to administer them for the
common good, instead of leaving our
stores of wealth to be the spoil of those
who thrive on our misfortunes-w
would be the difference? It would be
all the difference there is between the
postoff1ce and the Western Union-the
one doing the peoples work without
profit, and the other extorting toll on
millions of watered stock For that is
the mighty distinction. The railways,
that gridiron the land and span the
continent, extort hundreds of millions
| from the people in the form of profit,
after taking pay for their labor It is
for the people, not for the railroad
wreckers to say how long this extortion
is to continue.
In every panic the fact is fearfully
revealed that the country is distressed
by the lack of circulating medium
sufficient for it's business needs. This
'arcity of money compels failures
which otherwise might be avoided. The
failures are so numerous and so alarm
ing that the most desperate expedients
are resorted to that they may be hid
den from the popular sight. In Chica-
go one day last summer the police
were sent about the streets on the sin
guIar duty of arresting every newsboy.
who was heard to cry, 1Another bank
failure!' The banks are Wanted as the
financial bulyark of the country. They
are the last resource in every time of
trouble. Yet how many are the banks
that have not already failed?
Whenaman in business cannot meet
his obligations, he must make an as
signment Not so with the banks. In
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