The advocate., 1895-09-11

concentration of wealth in few
hands under this monopolistic system
is sufficient evidence of the absolute
falsehood of the statement. Justice
Brown cannot be ignorant of this.
His statement is evidently purposely
misleading. Take another quotation:
The census Of 1890 shows that IL the entire
property Of the country were equally divided,
each inhsbitant would have s1,0S6. Imagine
such division to be made, and by some legal
magic to become permanent,-everyon with
necesgaries Of life, but few OF its comforts and
none Of It's luxuries. With no reward for in
dustry, and no punishment for idleness what
would be the proportion of the industrious to
the idle? Where would be the incentive to
labor? What would become Of the hundreds
luxuries for the rich and ministering to their
pleasures?
A legal establishment of permanent
equality of possession is here supposed
without personal effort to secure or
preserve it; and then the justice exult-
ingly asks, "where would be the in
centive to labor?" under such condi-
tions. What sane person ever pro-
posed such division of property or
the legal maintenance of such equality
Of possessionP The idea is preposter-
GUS. 1t is the presumption Of a mere
political demagogue. Again: Justice
Brown imagines that condition under
which all would enjoy the necessities
of life is not to be favorably compared
with condition where hundreds and
thousands are engaged in providing
luxurles for the rich" while these hun
dreds and thousands of producers of
luxuries enjoy none of them, and are
seldom sure of even the bare necessi-
ties of existence. What magnificent
privilege it is, indeed, for hundreds
and thousands Of men and women to be
able to "provide luxuries for the rich"
and what an exquisite delight to them
to be able to administer to their
pleasure" How these hundreds and
thousands Of men and women must
enjoy looking on while few rich and
idle people revel in the luxuries which
their labor and their genious have Gre
ated, but Of which they are not per-
mitted to partskel
Speaking of the tyranny of labor"
as exhibited in strikes, the justice
says:
Men are harried assaulted and stoned sim.
ply because they are willing to work for less
than their assSilants, while property is burned
public travel arrested, and large cities re-
duced to hunger that great corporations may
be compelled to employ workmen at wages
fixed by themselves. This, too, in nominally
free country.
1t needs no argument to show that such
conditions are intolerable. The truth Is, that
labor, like every other marketable commodity,
will command such wages IS capital Is able to
pay: and II laborers do not themselves be-
come capitalists, by purchasing stock In their
own corporations, thus becoming profit
sharers, or laying aside their surplus earnings
in savings banks or elsewhere, 1t is because
they lack the qualities Of industry and thrift
out of which capitalists are made.
If workingmen. out of the paltry pit
tance conceded to ,hem by corpora
tions, do not themselves become capi-
talists by purchasing stock in their
own corporations, sit is because they
lack the qualities of industry and
thrift out of which capitalists are
made" Nothing short of profanity
can do instinA To such q statAmAnt. and