Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1901-09-13
Our Boast of Prosperity.
From The Pilgrim.

From The Pilgrim
For several years, the newspapers and the
public men of the United States have been
boasting of our national prosperity in way
that, if initiated by any individual in celebrat'
ing his own good fortune, would brand him as
braegart cad. The bigness of our crops, the
prodigious increase of our exports, our deter
mined invasion of foreign markets, our phe-
nominally Favorable balance of trade" the
increase in our per capita circulation, the rise
in prices of our stocks and bonds in Wall
streets daily gamble, the huge proportions OF
our trusts, and the near approach of the billion
aire as figure in America simple democracy,
have all been proclaimed in Thousand noisy
ways, and all the world asked to marvel ct our
richness In the face of such clamorous
celebration of the national wealth, it has been
difficult for individuals to secure hearing long
enough to say they are not getting their share
of it. If Kansas or Nebraska farmer can
see his corn shriveling under the hot winds,
he has only to pick up the paper to read
that Secretary Wilson, ex-Secretary Vanderip-
every office. holder and supporter of the admin
istration-says that the damage to corn has
been greatly exaggerated. If farmer in
Ohio, Michigan or the far Northwest notes
that the operations of the wooen trust have
forced down the price of wool to a point
at which it is scarce worth clipping, he can
still read in the newspapers OF farmers
'brying automobiles with their surplus gains
and deserting Populism as all rich men should
0>Y.. f,,11 DoI
that it makes many man ashamed to speak of
his empty cupboard, while with the biggest
per capita circulation of money the country has
ever seen, man is obviously himself alone to
blame if his share has not correspondingly in
creased. 1t is SO hattering to know that Mr.
Rockefeller and you made over 10000, 600
last year, YOU naturally hesitate to identify
your share as the 5000.
Probably never in the history of the world
has so much money been made by few men
as in the last year. Perhaps never did the men
who made so much money give so little useful
service in return. In earlier ages of our indus.
trial life, man has worked lifetime to create
a business, adding little to his plant events
justified it, extending his trade and heartily
content if, after enjoying comfortable income
as the fruits of his industry himself, he
able to leave sound remunerative business to
his family. But that is not the ideal of bust
ness lif. to-day. The men who are making Tie
most money and notoriety out of the steel bns
ness, for example, never saw the inside OF a
mill. Where the old time manufacturer butt
up his own mill or factory working i'll it and
understanding its every detail, these mel, t>
Juggling slips of paper called stocks and bonds,
consolidate number of mills and elect th, III
selves to positions of enormous profit and power.
True, they select as managers few men of
experience, risen from the industrial ranks,
whom they put in positions of ostensbe
troll, and whose salaries are widely heralded as
evidences of the great rewards which may be
enioyed by the servants of trust. But the Sc
men are only cstensibly managers. In all the
negotiations which have preceded the steel
strike, Mr. Schwab, the widely advertised mil
lion dollar president of the billon-dollar trust,
has been simply the Office boy who conducted
the strikers committee to Mr.. Pierpont Nor