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
ThE PEOPLE ARE eRoSPERoUSY
Did the Administration Fool tho Pluto
Gratis and Fill tho Poor Mems Pockets?
What Would It Signify IL Men of Small
Means Did Buy Bonds?

What Would 1t Signify II Men of Small
Means Did Boy Bonds?
The Cleveland Citizen says that when
it was announced that the total sub
scriptions to the 5000, 900, 900 war loan,
including syndicate offers, had reached
81, 325, 600, 600 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
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 sanity man, bless him |
He fooled" the plutes, fellow country
ment OF course here and there we find
toifer 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 workingmen 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 brokers} 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 Thousand
Worklngmen secured a bohd, for the
good reason that they had no money to
purchase the same, and that where
few of these evidences of indebtedness,
and consequently prosperity, fell into
the possession Of the middle class capi-
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 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 its 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 the many with small means
that he despairingly puts his little mon
ey into a bond which pays him plea
yune interest as an alternative to saw
lngs bank, which may fail, or an old
stocking, which may be stolen.
Not SO many years ago a man with
So, 600 or So, 900 was fit to make start
in business for himself-to become his
own master. Now in 900 cases out Of
1,O0Ohe is almost as badly off as if pen
niless. Great aggregations of capital
control every branch OF industry. Rookie.
feller 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
he who would try to carry passengers to
Staten Island today has monopoly to
fight. The original Astor, with his real
estate purchases; the Armours, with
their magnifed butcher shops; Marshall
Field. who now conducts the greatest
dry goods business in the world; the
Arbuckles, with their great coffee busi-
ness; the Havemeyers, dominant spirits