Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1903-11-27
10 McDILL'S MUSINGS.
THE HEARTLESSNESS OF WALL STREET.

- THE EARTLESSNESS OF WALL STREET.
Wall street papers have much . say of our
nations pension bill, and, as much As possible,
liberality in the granting of pensions to private
/ soldiers is discouraged.
The National Tribune, in taking up the
cudeel fer the soldiers, makes some compari
sons not Aattering to the money power. In
summary of the article referred to, we find
that private soldiers who served three years
during the Civil war received in pay, clothing,
food and bounties the enormous sum of 81
1895.
But few OF the private soldiers were able to
lay up cent with which to begin life at the
close of the war, because there were members
of families at home dependent for support.
People who know anything of prices in
times do not need to be told that three hundred
and seventv-four dollars year scarcely kept
family above want. After the war, the old
soldier entered the race for living, handicapped
by wounds or disease. Not one in thousand
r,,but was worse off, physically, if he was only
SAthrough one active campaign.
If il was merely cold offer of money, the
Angel Gabriel could not, to-day, hire men for
ten times the money to take the same risks and
endure the same hardships. The privates of
the Union army did not fight for money. They
are all old, now, broken in health, and gener
ally poor. l know old soldieis not ntemper-
ate who are barely one remove from want
and that one remove is due to the pittance
called "pension," and at which there is such
spiteful kicking in the upper circles of bloated
wealth -grabbers. There are tens of thousands
b Il. @1,a;~ JaH
were paid.
So much tor being private soldier and fight
ing for principle. The pay is not in money or
Wall street gratitude.
The able bodied men who staid at home
ceived from two to six dollars per day. But it
is not of the common wage-earner l wish to
speak. Surely, that class of people did not
get too much. comparison shows that the
"a soldier donated as much as he received. l
quote: eff we call the average price paid for
United States bonds 50 cents, we should find
that, in gold value, the bondholders lend the
government only 81, 9o,756,147, or less than
half the aggregate value of the donations to
the government by the men who served in the
army and navy" Not only did the soldier do
nate value in time, but he helped pay the
bOnd-nolder DOtn PIlnClpal ana Interest IN
other words, the soldier donated more than the
bond holder loaned, and still paid their full
share of the debt in the indirect taxes the gov
ernment saw fit to collect.
In further summarizing the Tribune's state
ments, we find that, up to the year l893 the
money-lenders, upon gold value of $4,000
900, had received the enormous of $5,-
344 4,57374o. From the foundation of the gov
ernment to tine present time, the government
has paid in pensions, the sum of $1,000 ,ooo,-
900, and the sum paid bend d-holders in interest,
not counting premiums or the advance in the
price of bonds, amounts to the enormous sum
of three billion dollars
~ The soldiers made it possible to have gov
" ernment The bond holders bled the govern
ment-.led as Rockefeller bleeds the lamp
burners, or as the coal barons bleed the miners
and coal burners Yet, the dirty, foul hyena
howl set up by certain newspapers and polit-
clans against the pension bill is inspired by