The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-04-12

is slave. baptise thee in the name of
the Golden Eagle, the Silver Dollar and
the Copper Cent" The god of that time
was business" The mob that put
rope around the neckof William Lloyd
Garrison was a brOadclOth mob. The
best people were in that mob.
Harold Rogers says that in the four
teenth century fat OK could be bought
by six days wages of an Ordinary me-
chanic. Wages have gone down or else
beef has gone UP.
Men in Chicago are running over one
another to get a chance to cut ice a t a
dollar day and board themselves. That
is hard work and cold work, and the
people who want the job are thinly clad
and poorly fed.
To show how we have made progress
IN poverty, let me read to you some
gems from speech of John D. Rookie
Teller, made in the Fifth Avenue Bap-
tlst church to young mems Bible
class. He said:"I hope you young men
are careful. I believe that i is a re-
Hgious duty to get all the money you
can. get it fairly, relfgiously honestlv'
He had in his hand a pocket ledger. He
said: 1t reports what I received and
paid out for several years.
The oily king then said here is an
item; Income from December 26, 1855,
to January rs, 1857, $50. And I lived
within my income. Out of that I paid
my washerwoman, the lady whom I
boarded with, and 1 saved a little I
see that I paid in the Sunday school
every Sunday one cent"
There is not a Chinaman or an i'm
ported monkey who can live today as
cheaply as that. The average cost of a
Chinaman's year in San Francisco is
$83 Only 50 a year for Mr.. RockefeI-
ler's clothes 40 years ago!
Now if you desire to read PROGRESS
and Crime" read Henry D. LIoyd's
Wealth versus Commonwealth That
is a comprehensive statement of Mr.
ROckefeller'S life later on. It is a his
tory of the Standard Oil company.
There is nothing in the annals of living
and bribery, perjury, plumber and
planned assassination that equals it.
It is classic. Mr.. Lloyd, the author of
the book, lives in Chicago, and Har-
per Brothers, the publishers of the
book, live in New York. They are rich
people, but Mr. Rockefeller has never
had them in court. Smitten on one
cheek, he meekly turns the other, and
goes on raising the price of oil, endow-
ing churches and telling the young men
estly.
Mr.. Rockefeller ought to have been
born earlier or Dickens ought to have
lived longer. They should have met
Pecksniff is not in it with this Rookie
Teller Nature has produced what gem
ius failed in.
Wealth Versus Commonwealth us a
book with covers on, been but now
some three years and been read by the
thoughtful people of these states No
body has answered it. I conclude that
the only answer to the book is the fact
that the person who lived on $50 a wear
now has several hundred millions
Nothing succeeds like success The
explanation of how he got his money
is as Dick Turpin, about to be hung
remarked: '-Insidious and Irrelevant
OF course this society that permits
such deadly parallels as we see the
gorged few and the hungry many, can
not last AS a nation we have already
taken steps in socialism. The common
school with the United States flag over
1t is long step from the old motto of
Cain, Every man for himself" Some
children could have gone to private
schools, but it was felt that a vast
number would have no opportunity and
so the state stepped in, and now makes
the rich childless man help to educate
the children of his poor neighbOr Not
only a school house is built by the com
munity and teachers hired, but the
child, If necessary, is provided with
books. Paris provides him with a din
ner. In some states the child is COM
PEELED to attend school. In his book
on Liberty" John Stuart Mill makes
an only exception to his wide liberty
of the individual this, that the state, in
order to preserve itself, must have in
telligent citizens, and therefore has
right to compel a child to go to school.
Now, after all our experience with
common schools, who would go back
TO the old private school for pupils,
depending on the ability and choice of
the individual2 Some, but not many.
There are objections to The public
ScnCOl. II Is possible mat The
young men who worked out in haying
and harvesting to earn money to at
tend the old fashioned private academy
studied more faithfully priced his
earned privilege more, and made more
of it; but it is generally conceded that
the reasons for the free school are more
than those against il.
The common school has made its own
argument-giVen a reason for being
and today is the pride of the United
States.
The postofFIce is another step in So
cialism. Who wishes to go back to