Elmore bulletin. [volume] (Rocky Bar, Idaho) 1889-1906, 1894-03-17
UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION.

or three millionaires In this country;
then they we're . very awe-inspiring
set Of fellows; now they are 80 COM
mon that there are none TO do thcmi
reverence, remarks the Prove Dis
patch. Yes; but while short on
millionaircs there were few bread
riots, no starving poor, Few suicides,
and our bank officials lived and
died at good old age at honie--not
in Canada or in Paris. In those
good old days a man with s25, 900
was rich man; now man with
only that pitiful sum can not hold
up his head in society, and life in
surance men, before they would take
risk on him, would want TO bar
suicide. Note the difference in NOR
ais between the old days and the
new. We have q hundred robberies
and burglaries to one then. Then
a lewd woman was a rare avis, es-
pecially in domestic or private life.
Now how many gilded and painted
ghosts sit at numerous hearth
stones In every city's gilded and
painted society? How many v omen,
seeing he power of money among
the leaders Of society, are willing 10
sell soul and body 10 procure it2
How many men who would other
wise be reasonably honest, are now
embezzlers or defaulters2 One inn
AGNES ''if / had ten thousand in
ready cash / would speculate and
soon possess a million. 1t won't
hurt the bank or the business If |
use the ten thousand short time
Thus are thieves made, and we as
sert fearlessly that it is the accursed
and unnatural power given TO money
these latter days, which lie at the
bottom of nearly all this species of
crime. If, instead Of falling down
and worshipping the rich. or rat her
their too often lily gotten thousands,
we were to investigate the means
used in their accumulation we
would rate the rich more nearly
upon reasonable basis, and riches
would have far fewer charms for us.
We must set up other idols than
riches. Fifty years ago, honesty.
integrity, cleanliness Of living, utter
trustworthiness and kindred noble
qualities were rated Of more worth
than money. Money without honor
had little value. Now men steal,
overreach, and cheat all the early
part of their lives, to acquire riches,
build churches. endow hospitals and
universities all the latter part in
their vain efforts to atone by such
means for the sins committed in
early life in their too ardent pursuit
of riches. II must be but a sorry
sort of happiness the millionaire en-
joys when he recalls the expressions
of the poor, his dishonesty and
cheating in the requirement of
riches. The great founder of the
christian religion knocked the black
out Of this subject in the brief con-
trast he gives us in the tale of Dives
and Lazarus. That is very forei-
BILE lesson, yet how few of us take it
TO our hearts while in pursuit of
gold.
Our. government has sinned in
this thing most grieyously in adopt
ing policies designed to favor the
rich while they serve to grind the
faces of the poor--to lift the burdens
from the shoulders of the strong and
place them upon those of the weak.
All the legislation we have had
since the war, 80 far, has been in
favor of the rich and powerful and
against the interest of the poor and
the weak. We are reaping the fruits
of this sin now in the general up
growth of anarchy and lawlessness
of all kinds. This Ii only history
repeating itself, and the overturning
of Rome will. If change is not
speedily made. have its counterpart
in the destruction Of this the latest
and greatest Republic with which
humanity has experienced.