The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-08-05
BETTER THAN THE GOLD.
Indirect Good Likely to Result from
the kIOndike Exodu

Detroit Tribune.
Not since the days of 40 and 80 has
mere psen such a setting out of argo-
nauts from the United States as at the
present time. Thousands of men are turn
ing their faces northward TO search for
the metal which rules the world of finance.
knowing that many of them must return
disappointed and that some will leave their
bones to bleach upon the frozen wastes Of
Alaska Most of these adventurous spirits
are idle men, who have found life a stern
struggle during the past four years. but
others are leaving their business and good
positions TO tempt fortune in the wilder
ness. Within the past week the local cloth
ing firms have sold more than $1,000 worth
OF winter clothing, heavy underwear, fUr
caps and other articles which the season
in this latitude does not demand for four
or five months yet, and the inference is that
these goods are to be carried TO the klon-
dixie gold fields.
Whatever may be the fortune of the gold
seekers, the discovery will be of great
benefit 10 the country. The reports OF
miners who have returned to civilization
have been supported by the gold they have
brought with them. and the moral effect
upon the people will tend to stimulate busl-
ness and encourage enterprise. The idea
has taken root in many minds that the
days of m~oney-making, the days when it is
possible for one man TO pile up a fortune
by his personal energy, skill and wisdom
Of mama cement, are over, and that all the
capital is rapidly gravitating 10 a few CEN
tiers, where, instead of being a general
blessing. 1t is becoming an instrument OF
oppression. Some of the more pessimistio
citizens look upon the present, and rather
alarming, aggregations of capital as a per-
manent tendency which is to grow stronger
until the working classes will be compelled
to rise in revolution and create a new order
of things. That is a most ungrounded fear.
There is nothing new in the social world,
nothing which has not existed since the
days of the Pharaohs. In all ages of the
past a few men have possessed the ouIk
OF the riches of the world, out a glance az
history will show that as nations become
more highly civilized the wealth has become
more generally distributed among the peo-
pie. SOcietV is no longer divided intO the
three ancient diYisions-princes, merchants
and slaves. In early times the men OF great
est fighting ability We're the rulers. Per-
sonal proWess gave them the supremacy
and their weaker fellows became serVle
menials. who did their work and fought
their battles. The wealth OF each nation
was parceled out TO men of greatest
strength and courage, and the common peo-
pie went with the feudal estates as If they
had been mere cattle. But the rise of the
common has never halted since the days
Of Runnymede.
in the United States. good fortune, coupled
with rare business sagacity, has enabled
certain men to obtain control of many of
the necessities of life, but the people-there
is no longer a class known as the common
p~eople-will presently discover the means
of meeting the difficulties when nave
grown up around them. The VIII OF the
people is law, and if they fail to declare
against the open purchasing Of legislatures
by the moneyed men. If they fail to punish
with severity the offenders on both sides,
they will deserve to be the slaves OF monop-
oily. as they surely will be. 1t is much
easier to obtain a fairly pure government
and maintain the dignity of the courts to-
day than it was to obtain the right of trial
by jury, the right of habeas corpus and pro-
lection from loss of property, liberty or lie
nearly seven hundred years ago.
When it is all summed up the gold nnds
of Alaska are not so tremendously impor-
tant as they seem. 1t is doubtful II all the
gold of the past finds in Alaska and all that
will be brought out of the frozen north
in the next fifty years will make a respect
able comparison with the value of the
wheat crop of the United States for the
season Of 1897.