The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1898-08-19
THE POPULAR LOAN.
90 BOND SUBSCRIPTIONS MEAN THAT
TnE PEOPLE ARE PROSPEROUS?
Did the Administration Fool the Pluto
Gratis and FIJI tho Poor Mems Pockets9
What Would It Signify IL Mon of Small
Means Did Buy Bends?

What Would It Signify If Men of Small
Means Did Buy Bonds?
The Cleveland Citizen says that when
it was announced that the total sub
scriptions to the 5000, 900, 900 wal loan,
including syndicate offers, had reached
81, 1916, DOC, 600 the subsidized capital
istic organs shouted for joy at this
splendid evidence Of patriotism among
the common people," The w%orkingmen
and farmers received endless encomiums
of praise, and good natured paragraphs
reminded us that the sharp eyed, bond
grabbing plutocrats ''have been fooled. !"
Lucky workingmen, lucky farmers, to
find themselves with bonds sticking
from their pockets! How happy they
must feel at their good fortune! 1t is
such a pretty picture to see the toilers
wearing grins of joy as they display big
wads Of bonds-in the comic papers
and the plutocrats stand by wearing
scowls and cursing their ill luck. Nc
Kinley is such a sanity man, bless him!
He fooled the plutes, fellow country
ment OF course here and there we find
a toifer who vas not in on this "popu-
lar loan who couldn't help McKin-
ley fool 'em-but he is usually cock
sure that ''some other workingmen" as
sisted in the fooling business.
Certain people are unpatriotic enough
to declare that the popular loan" was
a deluslon and a snare-that Mckinley
and congress have been humbugging
again. But such people should not be
needed. They are irresponsible agita-
tors. without money and with no stand
ing among the best people. The dis
granted and noisy c%opperheads make
the ridiculous claim that the bankers
and brokers fooled the people after all;
that the rich money kings merely sent
their trusted agents to certain poor de-
posltors and borrowers and had them
apply for bonds in their names, and
they 1.-THE bankers and brokers) to adj
n the money and take them off their
hands when issued; that families of as
high as ten members, head over heels
IN debt, subscribed for 5000 bonds for
every person, including the baby in the
cradle; that not n in a thousand
Worklngmen secured a bond, for the
good reason that they had no money to
purchase the same, and that where a
few of these evidences of Indebtedness,
and consequently prosperity, fell into
the possession Of the middle class CAPT
talists it will be only a little while I'M
til the strong suction of the big whales
will have gulped them down and some
OF the little minnows with them.
Such talk is scandalous. We have no
patience with it. People who declare
that the workingmen and farmers are
not becoming bloated bondholders are
enemies to this country and it's flag, and
they ought to be made to 20 back to
where they or their fathers came from.
Down with everybody who dare hint
that u Mckinley did no. fool the
plutes more effectually than Lincoln
ever didl
Writing o this subject, Willis J.
Abbott in the New York journal says:
Here is the other side of the popular
subscription for United States bonds,
which many newspapers are pointing to
as evidence OF the great prosperity and
thrift of the people of the United States
today:
The heavy subscription for bonds in
of $500 or less shows that indus
trial and commercial conditions in the
States are %singularly hard. 1t
shows that trade, business, farming, in.
OF any sort, offers so little
chance to the many with small means
he despairingly puts his little mon
ey into a bond which pays him plea
yune interest as an alternative to a saw
lngs bank, which may fail, or an old
stocking, which may be stolen.
Not SO many years ago a man with
~, 600 or So, 900 was fit to make a start
IN business for himself-to become his
master. Now in 900 cases out of
J, y he is almost as badly off as if pen
nlless. Great aggregations of capital
control every branch of industry. Rookie
teller began with nothing, but woe to
The man who puts a few thousands into
an oil refinery today. Commodore Van
derbilt's ferry did not cost much, but
ne who would try to carry passengers to
Island today has a monopoly to
light. The original Aston, with his real
estate purchases; the Armours, with
their magnified butcher shops; Marshall
Field, who now conducts the greatest
dry goods business in the world; the
A~rbuckles, with their great coffee bust
ness; the Havemeyers, dominant spirits