Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1898-05-12
Government by Bond Brokers.

Money does not make man Pluto
crat any more than the opportunity to
steal makes him thief, or the chance
to kill, a murderer. Plutocracy is the
employment of money for purposes of
oppression and fraud. 1t shows itself.
chiefly, in the use of money to buy
elections, as was done so fragrantly in
the campaign of 1896; but it exerts it.
self against the rights of business al
most as much as it does against the
political rights of the citizen. The
parasitic capitalist who thrives by any
form of usury, is the worst foe OF hon
est capital employed in manufacturing,
merchandising or any related business
dollar of profit which goes into the
Golfers of the Standard Oil Company,
the Sugar Trust or the Rothschild syn
dicate behind Morgan and Belmont, is
dollar withdraw from honest pro-
duction and converted to the purposes
of men who are mere parasites on busi-
ness, giving nothing at all for what
they get, and fattening on the necessi-
ties of those whom their control of the
visible supply of money compels to re-
sort to them for relief from the threat
of bankruptcy.
Under existing conditions, when a
man invests money in productive busi-
ness, in manufacturing, in merchandise
ing or in farming, the chances are at
least three in four, that at the end of
ten years ne will be worse off than
when he started. If, however. he lends
it out at interest and re-invests, so as
to compound the interest, the chances
are not one in four, that he will come
out the loser; while they are always in
his favor as against the merchant, the
farmer or the manufacturer from whose
profits, and finally from those of wage
earners, all usury must be drawn.
Where the men who understand the
science of compromising interest by re-
investment, are allowed to control the
money-supply of a country, they must
inevitably control the greater part of
its wealth. Any one who can work
out the rate at which a dollar will
double itself, when the interest is re-
invested and compounded, can see to
certainty, as mathematical as figures
can make it, that what has happened
in the United States since 1865 hap
been otherwise. The men who specu-
lated on the necessities of the country
during the war, and took advantage of
it's extremity to fix their usurious
talons in its vitals, have preyed upon
it ever since.
When men Of common sense acquire
determination, they will not hesitate
long in dealing with such situation
as this.
These people control the country be-
cause they have monopolized its money.
The most sensible aud effective way to
rid the country of their domination is
to issue money from the mints and the
treasury until their hold on the supply
is broken.
Nothing could be simpler. as moth
ing could be juster or more necessary,
than this.
1t is not question of the color of a
metal or of its weight or of its fine
ness, but of liberty and justice.
These men control the money sup
ply with which the products of labor
are exchanged. In SO doing they con-
troll labor and all legitimate business
which depend upon it.
If they are allowed to say whas mon
ey shall be issued from the mInts, how
much or how little of it shall be issued,
they will be masters of the country,
and that in perpetulty.
Nothing could be more fntolerable
than such domination. Nothing could
be simpler than the method by which