Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1894-07-04

Discover the New One.
The contest in this country is be-
tween the producers and the accumu-
lators. Between the men and women
who, by their labor produce the
wealth and those who, by mAnipula-
ton seek TO obtain possession
OF It, 3 Not many centuries ago pirates
laid tribute on commerce in some
countries. To day this tribute is laid
on commerce and sanctioned by law.
While this legalzes it it does not
make it right. 1t is as wrong as it
was when it was collected by the
booted and spurred brigands of old.
The law simply protects the thieves.
1T says in substance: You may steal
and not go TO the penitentiary for it."
in former times the brigauds pro-
tected themselves with arms; IN mod
ern times by securing immunity be-
forehand by law. One of the funda-
mental principles in law is that fraud
vitiates contracts. A law passed by
means of bribery is secured through
fraud. II the truth was known land
it is in many instances) most of the
class laws now on our statute books
were placed there through fraud. In
other words legislatures were bought
-bribed TO enact them. There is
plenty of evidence to show that the
act making bonds payable in coin was
thus secured. There is 10 doubt but
that John Sherman and others have
been in the employ of capitalists of
Europe and America. 1t is matter
OF record that the legislation scared
in favor of the Union Pacific, the
Southern Pacific and other railroads,
was through bribery. If the princi-
pie of fraud was applied to many of
the laws now on the statdte books
they would be set aside by the courts
and the property restored to the
people. These corporations are com
posed of men who do not produce, but
who accumulate property through the
enactment of special laws They thus
lay tribute on labor and take from it
that which is not their own. 1t is a
system of legalzed robbery. Another
class of men who accumulate money
without earning it are the usurers
This method of accommodating money
is not only sanctioned by the govern
ment, but it has become n partner of
the userer. 1t furnishes money TO the
banker at l per cent, and permits the
banker to loan it at 10 per cent and in
many cases more. Few people have
any adequate conception of the
power of interest If CHRISTOPHER
Columbus, instead of using the
money to furnish the outfit in
which he sailed to discover
America, had put that money on in
terest at per cent and compounded
it every year, in the 400 yelrs that
have elapsed since that time, it would
have amounted to a sum of money suf-
hcient to buy the aggregate wealth of
Europe and America 1t would have
been easier for him to have demon
strated this fact to the court of Ferdi.
nand and Isabella than it was to prove
even the probability of reaching the
eastern coast of Asia by sailing west
ward. The interest on the indebted
ness of the people of this country to-
gether with the tribute they nav To
the transportation companies amounts
to more than the entire agricultural
productions in the United States.
An article entitled THE Railway
Man." which recently appeared
in Vox Populi, complies figures from
the statistical abstract of the United
States, showing that for the twenty
two years from 1871 to 1892, the peo-
pie of this country paid to the rail-
roads the enormous sum of sixteen
thousand million dollars, or a sum
equal to the assessed value of the en-
tire property of thirty-one states in
1890.
The total increase in the assessed
value of the entire property in this
country, from 1850 to 1890, was less
than eight thousand million dollars,
or less than one-half the amount paid
the railroad companies in twenty-five
years. Yet it seems 10 be the object
of congress to ignore the demands of
the producers and continue to legis-
late in the interest of the bankers and
the corporations. 1t is high time that
every patriotic citizen was protesting
against these methods