The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1898-07-15
American Ideals.


In moralizing on the Letter wheat
IDEAL" the New York V0ice-whose par
ticular province is to view the moral
aspect of things-remarks
at is great pity when a young man
with fortune and a good education can
find no more attractive career for his
energies than the one Letter has chosen.
There is something wrong with American
ideals"
The Voice is wrong in its selection of
terms. The "ideal" is right and it is the
perverted business system that is wrong.
A gambling system has grown up which
has been made possible by bribery to
secure laws that protect and encourage
what is called Speculation" Power has
been given into the hands of corporations
to monopolize all business. A half dozen
men are given charter by State or
Nation, and that charter grants almost
unlimited power to do as the corporation
pleases, which is TO do wrong when it
pleases. The corporation proceeds to
attack the business OF the individual who
is pursuing a vocation the corporation
covets. He is driven out and the corpora
ton appropriates his business and its
profits. Another and another fall victims
to the corporation whose power constantly
auginents while that of the individual
diminishes. The man, the citizen, be-
comes Of less importance while the power
of money is steadily magnified, for the
corporation represents money or property
only. AS its strength increases it de-
mands more consideration i'll shaping
and interpreting the law, which is always
i'll the interest of money or property and
against the rights of persons or the people.
In order to secure these advantages the
corporation enters politics as an active
factor, and bribery and corruption mark
its course, like serpent's trail over our
whole body polite. American ideals are
pure and right, but this great conquering
power, the American corporation, is tread
ing them under foot, and holding up a
new model which is to pervert American
thought and corrupt public morals. The
Letters, the Keens, the Morgans, ct. al.
that fill the public eye and show up on
the boards of trade, chambers of COM
merce and bourses are the adventures
which spring up from the corporation
like poison fungus from the dung heap.
The banking power is on the side of the
corporation and its fungi The money Of
the entire country is collected into the
'centers of population and business by
a system of reserves of the country banks
deposited with the great moneyed insti-
tutions of the Wall street class, and
small rate of interest paid to country
banks for all the deposits they can spare.
These accumulated masses of money are
used in the large cities where the boards
changes are established by such wholesale
gamblers as Letter, who borrow con call"
and use stocks of various kinds as collat-
eral. These stocks are manufactured by
the corporations who have invaded and
ravaged the business of individuals, and
issued watered stock on the spoils oftheir
conquests. American ideals are alive but
are under foot of the corporation
brigands, who represent the war barons
of medieval ages, who plundered the in
dustrial classes with bands of free hooters
and appropriated the spoil.
These corporation brigands are school
ing the people to believe this is "busi-
ness" and represents the wealth, the
pride and greatness of America and
Americans. 1t shines as phosphoreous
("lox fre') shines in the darkness and is
false light and false greatness and false
wealth. True American ideals are under
the feet of the corporation barons, await
ing their day of delverance by the Amer
lean people. They, the corporations,
have bribed political parties into their
interest and are using them as their
satraps to drum the people into obedience
and submission to their tyrannical sway.
American ideal" await their deliverance.
The corporation, the trust and the great
banking spectators are corrupting the
morals, public and private, of the Amer
lean people as they steadily press the
masses down.