Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-01-13
WEALTH NOT
PROSPERITY
DIR. BELL ADDRESSES CROWD ON
VITAL PROBLEMS
Optimistic Assurance That "AII Is
Welp Branded as an international
FaIsehood-Sees Salvation for
Future Generation

large congregation on rs Socialism Prac-
| ticable?" in Symphony hall. He said in
part:
IL have not come to your wonderful
country, with all It's resources, to make
political harangue. That is the business
| of willy, professional politicians who have
| for years made it their business to lull to
sleep the toiling millions of all nations
| "These wide mouthed. smooth tongued
politicians. belonging to all parties have
purposey deceived, dazZled and blinded
the plain, honest people-the mechanic,
| miner, farmer and the laborer-by point
| ing to the increase of trade, wealth and
population, especially In America.
But these politicians forget to point
out the fact that wealth can increase
within q country's borders without all the
people being prosperous. / have observed
that a great increase of wealth III the
handles of a few means increase OF want
to The many.
Friends, blind ourselves as we may,
we cannot shut out the solemn fact that
hundreds of thousands of our fellow be-
ings are born serfs, whose physical con-
dition is a hundred times worse than that
of The very beasts of the field. Can we
wrap the mantle of complacency around
us and shut out the bitter heart cry OF
this submerged serf element, whose de-
spalring famished, shoeless, homeless
misery sends up a moan from every CLINE
and nation?
political leaders are shouting at each
other, All is wellr thinking to lull the
voices of the thinking millions who are
reaching out for better conditions.
Heard in All Tongues
Yes, the lie that all is we'll is heard
from the old line leaders in all lands and
languages. America whose civilization Is
1, cd l,xyf ia of wealth and
its great land grants, trusts and giant mo-
nopolies cries out across the sea to Eng
land that All is we'll!
ENGLAND with gaunt, famine stricken
Ireland staring her in the face on the one
side, and the yagabond, despairlng mob
of East London with the desperate, starV-
ing, striking miners on the other, shouts
to military burdened Germany that All
is well! And Germany, with the flower
of its manhood compelled to serve In the
army during their best years to satisfy
a vain, pompous monarch, shouts across
the closely guarded fortress lined frontier
to Russia that All is well! And prison
cursed, ignorant, famine stricken, des-
potic Russia has the audacity to assume
the position that All is well!
80 [ repeat, the accumulation of great
wealth in any country does not neces-
sarily Indicate that the country is pros
porous Even the United States, on whom
the hopes of the freedom loving of the
earth rest, is not really prosperous. 1t is
easy to see that the rich are becoming
richer and the poor poorer
THE marvellous rapid increase of large
fortunes, such as Rockefellers, is largely
due to speculation and market manipu-
lation and not to productive enterprise,
hence add nothing to the countrys stock
| of wealth.
america prosperous, with labor ar
rayed in a hostile attitude against cap
/ ital? Prosperous, with that backbone of
any country, the great middle class, going
| down under the pressure of competition
| from giant trusts and monopolies in man.
ufacturing, merchandising and farming!
| prosperous, with millions toiling with
all hope and aspirations crushed out OF
them?
prosperous, with souls twisted and de-
formed just as toll twists and deforms
their bodies?
prosperous, with poverty, pauperism,
crime, insanity, murder and suicide year
ly on the increase?
Not Truly Prosperous
america prosperous? Surely no. Not
in the truest and best sense. The unrest
and discomfort generally pervading the
MASSES gives the lie to the assertion
that All is wellr And to my mind 1t is
not o..aicult to arrive at solution of
the matter.
"This discomfort ariser from the fact
that the Industrial masses are thinking
yes, daring to think.
1T know there are those who say a
worlingman has no business to think.
but they are thinking just the same, and
no longer are blind to the unjust condi-
tions that exist today. They are no
longer n piece of machinery minus brains.
"a few years ago II men were wanted
To do skilled labor so many hands were
asked for Further, L wish to say at no
time In the history of the world nave the
masses been intelligently ready to handle
the great social industrial ana economic
nrobIem as now. The best essayists.
noa+s novelists, lecturers and liberal
nreachers are on the side of the multi
tude of earth's toiling sons and daugn-
ters.
a,rhe time is ripe for reformative meas
ures. Wrongs are facing us on every
side. A crisis in the worlds history is
approaching. One CIVILIZATION a1ter an
other has gone down under the baneful
mower of wealth and tyranny, with its en-
forced voluptuous idleness Joined to de-
Graded. downtrodden, superstitious lower
class.
fully convinced that this great republic
is going to be saved. giant has awak-
ened from his slumoers ana Is reholhs
his letters at last.
''Do YOU ask who that giant Is? 1 will
tell YOU 1t is socialism, pure and Sim
ne In other words 1t Is the people VINO
are liberated from the narrow confines OF
Ignorance and superstition In time to
struggle for a better wiser and happier
civilization than the world has ever be-
fore known.
"Men with wives, mothers and sisters
are not going to sit idly by while the
night of poverty and despair settles down
like a pail over them
Ideals Becoming Fixed
"The high ideals of human brother
bood and sisterhood have taken possess
sion of the hearts of men and women
who have sacrificed everything to lift up
their submerged brothers and sisters, VINO
have fallen and are daily sinking lower
and lower from mans high estate.
I'm the past, men and women have
stood too much . zone In their efforts Tor
humanity, Look backward into the dark
and bloody centuries through which man
kind has struggled up to the measure OF
freedom we have today Can you not
see the noble men and women who have
walked this grand old earth with torn
and bleeding feet? Can you not see the
fair grass undel their feet crimsoned
with their hearts best blood?
why all this sorrow and suffering?
Can you not see tho human bonnres
that were made of men and women who
are striving to knock on the shackles of
superstition and despotism that have SO