The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1898-12-30

Mr.. Day with 100000 for three
months work will feel prosperous.
and thus answer you. Not one If
them has caused single blade of
grass to grow where there was none
before-they produce nothing! They
are mO.ey changers, and handle
only that which is produced by
others. They are prosperous!
Ask the producers, the business
men, the farmers, the manufactur-
ers, the tradesmen, the bone and
sinew of the country who pillow the
ground and sow and reap our har-
vests; those who make that which
we wear and that which adOrns our
homes; who quarry the stones that
pave our streets; the actors who
make our people laugh, or instill
great lessons on their minds; the
ministers, lawyers, doctors and
others. If prosperity has returned
and the answer is discOuraging.
But" asked, "will not these
men who are making so much
money spend it with the people?"
"Ah there is the rub" he replied.
Their actual necessities are few.
Only a 1.-THE of their income is need.
ed to supply their actual wants.
The purchasing power of these
enormous dividends is very great.
Each dollar therefor will buy double
as much of most ANYTHING, as it
would when you and | were young
men. Mr.. Days $l0C 600 is a prince
ly fortune when you consider what
1t will buy. The dividends Of 100
and 100 per cent of the New York
banks and of the trusts and corpora
tiOns amount to hundreds of millions
of dollars, ana what it means.
fear, is that all the property Of the
nation will soon pass into their pos
sessiOn-that is, they will hold the
title of our vast domain. The peO-
pie, those who are useful, who pro.
duce and adOrn the earth, will not
know what it is to own home and
will be beseeching the more favored
for an opportunity to make bare
liviag-and next, a little later. they
will crave the crumbs that fall from
the tables OF rich men. as 1900 of
them did the other day. No, the
money Of the favored class will not
90 back among the people, but +"
the mortgages of their class, in
buying mortgaged real estate and
bankrupt stocks of merchants and
manufacturers. Next Christmas it
will mean 30 600 instead OF $1,000 to
be fed by this humane society"
~ is, however, a patent fact |
said, "that there are not so many
idle people as few years ago, when
the unemployed rolled across the
country like great inundatiOn, and
does it not indicate more prosper
Gus time now as compared with that
periOd?"
"Five years ago" he replied,
"there was more independence o:
character. Hence the protests
against the gravitatiOn of events,
bearing them to lower level, was
more pronounced and defiant. The
strait. was on and someone touched
the buttOD-the inundation came.
But not so now. The independence
of character | refer to Ia measurably
lowered. AS people approach de.
graded state thew bear their burdens
more meekly. They accept employ
ment they would have spurned five
years ago. In the winter of 50 81
YOU could not have pursuaded TO-
600 people, or near that number, TO
have accepted an aims dinner at the
Waverly Theater. But with their
spirits broken and pride gone, they
take what they can get in the way
Of mental employment or crumbs
from the table Of Dives and GO off
to their wretched tenements. They
have ceased, in measure, to pro-
test. This is the way they have
acted in other nations as they came
down to the level of Spain
"Then your conclusions are
"That there can be no such thing
as prosperity when more than 80 per
cent of our families in the large
cities are tenants" he replied.
"But will not the fact that the
people think the country is prosper
Gus, though it may not be so, aid in
restoring prosperity" asked him.
at will aid them to deceive them
selves while sinking to the level of
Europe. The slaves of old, boosted
of the riches of their masters !"
And then he turned to his desk and
l walked out of his office.
GRETTS.