Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1898-08-10
|:THE POPULAR LOAN.
DO BOND SUBSCRIPTIONS MEAN THAT
THE PEOPLE ARE PRosPERous1

DO BOND SUBSCRIPTIONS MEAN THAT
THE PEOPLE ARE PROSPEROUS,
Did the administration Fool the Pluto
crats ID Fill the Poor Mems Pockets?
VIVA. .'ould 1t Signify If Men of Small
Means bid Buy Bonds9
The Gle; Gland Citizen says that when
1t was announced that the total sub
scriptions to the $500, 900, 900 war loan,
including syndicate offers, had reached
1885, 900, 900 the subsidized capital
istic organs shouted for joy at this
''splendid evidence of patriotism among
the common people," The workingmen
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
lind themselves with bonds sticking
from their pockets! How happy they
must feel at their good fortune! It is
such 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 i'll luck. Nc
Kinley is such sanity man, bless him
He fooled" the plutes, fellow country
men! OF course here and there we find
q toller who was not in ON this "popu-
lar loan"-who couldn't help McKin-
ley fool 'em-but he is usually cock
sure that "some other wrkingmen" as
sisted in the fooling business.
Certain people are unpatriotic enough
to declare that the popular loan" was
delusion 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
gruntled and noisy copperheads 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-
positors and borrowers and had them
apply for bonds in their names, and
they (the bankers and brolzers) to ad-
vance 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 one in a thousand
workingmen secured bond, for the
ho t>oET
purchase the same, and that where q
few Of these evidences of Indebtedness,
and consequently prosperity, fell into
the possession of the middle class CAPT.
talists it will be only little while un-
til the strong suction Of the big whales
will have gulped them down and some
Of the little minnows with them.
Such talk is scandalo1ls. 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 go back to
where they or their fathers came from.
Down with everybody who dare hint
that our Mckinley did not fool the
plutes more effectually than Lincoln
ever did!
Writing on 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
sums of $500 or less shows that indus
trial and commercial conditions in the
United States are singularly hard 1t
shows that trade, business, farming, in
dustry Of any sort, offers so little
chance to tho many with small means
that he despairingly puts his little mon
ey into bond which pays him plea
yune interest as an alternative to say
ings bank, which may fail, or an old
stocking, which may be stolen.
Not SO many years ago man with
%, 900 or So, 900 was fit to make a start
in business for himself-to become his
own master. Now in 500 cases out OF
1000 he is almost as badly off as if pen.
niless. Great aggregations of capital
control every branch Of industry Rookie
Teller began with nothing, but woe tt
the man who puts few thousands into
an oil refinery today. Commodore Van
derbilt's ferry did not cost much, bu1
he who would try to carry passengers tc
Staten Island today has monopoly tc
fight. The original Aston, with his real
estate purchases; the Armours, with
their magni6ed butcher shops; Marshall
Field, who now conducts the greatest
dry goods business in the world; the
Arbuckles, with their great coffee bust
ness; the Havemeyers, dominant spirits
of the Sugar trust, began with but slen.
der capital earned by their own exer.
tions. Their success and the form in
which they have embodied it make
repetition of their achievement impossi-
BILE. Enormous capital scarcely sufices
now to do what they did without CAPT.
tai. Not even the village butcher car
| live If the ArmOurs saw nav. nor the