The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1895-01-10
A MAuMEE DEMocRAr.

II
Henry T. Niles, a Big Farmer of Lucas
Gives His Views on Existing Condi-
tions and the Remedy--He Endorses
John McBride's Theory.
| EDITOR NEws-DEMoCRAT: The wise
man of old who prayed that he might
neither be given poverty or riches asked
for the only condition consistent with
the highest personal comfort and the
highest national prosperity.
Yet anyone who ventures to suggest
that the present vast accumulatons of
individual and corporate wealth and the
necessary dependence and poverty
which are their invariable accompani.
ments are national peril, and must be
checked by all the legitimate powers of
government, is met with the cry of com.
munism from a bribed or ignorant press.
What besotted stupidity to charge
to hostility to the public peace
and welfare sentiment held by
every man whose wisdom has
been applauded through the ages and
which has been proved by the history of
| every nation whose ruins strew the path
| of history.
Moses, the inspired law giver of the
Hebrews, provided against this condi.
ton in many ways, and finally by max.
ing every seventh year year of jubilee,
when oil debts were cancelled.
When Athens was on the brink of ruin
from this same cause her people called
upon Solon, pronounced by the oracle of
Delphi and by the voice of his age and
posterity one of the seven wise men, to
deliver them, from themselves, and he,
after binding them by the most solemn
oaths to change none of his laws, among
the first released every Athenian from
every debt and set the example Of obedi.
ence by discharging the many debts due
to himself.
Plato, whose name even these news
paper scribblers, if they ever heard of
him, would probably treat with respect,
in his code of laws after showing that the
extremes of wealth and poverty were in.
consistent with the permanence and
prosperity of a community, gave the
poorest an inalienable minimum and
then fixed maximum, and most care
fully provided that any amount received
by any citizen above this maximum
should be seized by the public authori-
ties and distributed to the needy or used
for public purposes.
Napoleon, in his life Of Cesar, demon.
strates to an absolute certainty that the |
consolidation Of all the wealth of the |
country in the hands of the patricians
destroyed the republic and rendered
Marius possibility and Caesar a relief to |
the Roman people, yet the Roman patri- |
clans with provinces to plunder never
acquired such fortunes as our million.
aires.
Any one at all conversant with the
history of the founders of our govern.
ment and our early legislators, knows
that the establishment and preservation
of this condition, of neither very poor
or very rich, was one of their most cher.
ished objects, and grave suspicion that
the Federalists were not in hearty SYM
pathy with this purpose, destroyed that
Il
party and made its name odious. Presi-
dent Hayes, one of our most modest
but most thoughtful statesmen, told the
writer that the enormous accumula.
tons of wealth must be stopped, or
the days of our institutions were mum.
Dered. He further said that if he were
'orty instead of an old man,
and cut off by his position from
public activity, he would never
allow an occasion to pass without de-
louncing them. One mode, he suggested
If stopping these accumuations was by
Uniting inheritences to not more than
lalf million. 1t is we'll known that
lincoln looked upon these great accum.
llations as one of the most dangerous
results of the war.
That this tendency will be checked is
me Of the absolute certainties of the fu.
ure, let us all hope by peaceable and
awful means, for nothing is more Ger.
ain than that the alternative is revolu-
ion. HENRY I, NILES.
Near Toledo, Jan. t. 1895.
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