The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-01-07
PLUT0CRACY IS HIT HARD
SOCIALIST MANSFEELD W4xESSA R. CASTIO AGAINST "FINANCIERS,,s X

CAc1IC AGAINST "FINANCIERS.0 X Interesting Meeting of the Social Science
 ing-Interesting Remarks by Attorney
 Arvine and Others-Are Our Finapciers
 Unpatrlotfc or Incompetent?
 At the meeting of the Social Science association last evening the following officers were elected: President, A. E. Rowland; vice presidents, E. F. Arvine and Robert Hunter; secretary, M. E. Lewis; treasurer. 1T. H. Guernsey; ex ecutive committe, J. H. Townshend. Frederick H. Clark and Harry O,Neil.
 The paper of the evening was on ssPlu- tocracy and It's Creation,'' by George Mansfield. MT. Mansfield approached his subject from the socialist standpoint and in his usual frank and vigorous manner 'chawed up'' the existing order of things. The rapid increase in the number of the immensely rich in this country he attributed to several causes. the principle of which was the passage of legislation for the benefit of the brutal, grasping, insatiate plutocracy. :" As instances of this he mentioned the vast land grants and large subsi- dies made to the Union Pacific railroad and the authority given by the govern ment to the national bank to issue pa- per money. The speaker also reviewed at length the financial history Of the country from the period of greenbaok infatiVn down through the constantly exposed "crine of '73, and to the pres- ent time. The action of the government in all these financial measures was characterized as dishonest and unpatri- otic. As showing the unsatisfactorw manner in which the national finances
 were managed at the time of the war
 he cited the rapid payment by France
 of the German indemnity at the close Of the Franco-German war by way Of
 comparison. As to the Wall street
 "fnanciers," MT. Mansfield could not find adjectives plentiful enough in
 which to express his contempt of them.
 Attorney E. F. Aryine was. called ups
 on for his views regarding the subject
 before the meeting. He said he had
 been impressed with the truth of many
 of the statements made so plainly and frankly by the previous speaker, though
 not in all instances agreeing with the
 conclusions the latter had reached. He had lived through the trying period of the civil war and had been impressed by
 the blundering management of the ma
 tion's financiers at that time. These
 blunders he attributed, however, to tlies
 incompetency of public officials and not to their dishonesty, as the previous speaker had done. This was the La t- ura1 outcome of our system of electing
 public officers under which the ablest'
 men are not selected, Attorney Ar vine said he had never been a green
 packer or silver man, but nevertheless
 he felt that many of the country s
 financial troubles were due to the de-
 preciation of the currency. Tn the war
 period there had been a big boom in
 real estate values. He remembered having acted as commissioner on one estate in which land appraised at $2S, 900 AlcAd cILlSA VI 1l0S SCiu lOl PtyUVU. VII Gtlss other hand, he had admired the spler- did manner in which the finances of France had been managed during the war with Germany and the rapidity with which the large war indemnity had been paid. In closing, he said there is undoubtedly a tendency towards plu- tocracy. The desire to belong to the hereditary nobility has given place to the desire to belong to the class of the very rich. There were other tenden- cies, however, which would indicate that many of the inequalities and injus tices attaching to the present order of things would in time be lighted MT. Baldwin, though not endorsing. l the radical views advanced by the first speaker (Mr. Mansfeld) agreed with Attorney Arvine that there had been
 some serious blunders in the conduct of the nations financial affairs The ease with which France paid the war indenl-3 nifty he attributed to the wealth of the l nation, the economy of her people and their wonderful recuperative power, As to the conduct of our own finances he
 thought that patriotism had ruled the | roost even among the financiers. The discussion was carried on at still further length by Messrs. ToWnshend, Hunter, Stodel and others.
 Attorney Kleiner thought that per- haps too much vituperation had been | indulged in by some of the speakers to be of assistance in establishing their arguments.
 Mr. Mansfield thought no names were | sufficiently severe to describe the class
 of men he had been attempting to de- scribe.