The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-02-21
Prohibition as q Remedy
 For All the Ills of Hunannity

reaction which is going to effect peculiarly what Ia called the middle class.) It is no longer . question merely for the poor and uneducated. what they are to do with their work; but for the educated and well-to-jo, also. where they are to lind business to do and business to make. This difncufty cannot fail constantly to in- crease. as one tract after another of the formerly free field of competition is included by new syndicate. The
 middle class, the business class Is be- ing turned ints a proietarian class. It is not dificult to forecast the ultimate Issue of the concentration of industry If carried out on the lines
 at present indicated. Eventually, and
 at no very remote period. of not al-
 ready SOL society must be divided in- to a few hundred families of pro- digious wealth on one hand, a profess
 sional class dependent upon their ia vor but excluded from equality with them and reduced to the state of lackeys and underneath a vast pop
 uiation of working men and women. absolutely without hope of betterinr condition which would year by wear sink more and more hopelessly into serfdom.
 This Is not pleasant picture. but I am sure 1t fs not an exaggerated
 statement of the social consequences Of the syndicate system.(we now reach the point of arugmentl
 therefore allow me to urge that In seeking to account for large fortunes
 and low wages three principal mat
 ,ers should be carefully studied: tl)
 land and other natural bounties upon
 which man exercises his faculties; fe)
 the means of transporation; and, (s)
 money. the medium which facilitates
 the exchange of products. It will be found that the people have been indifferent to these points to which money-makers have been exceeding ly attentive. So to take possession of these natural bounties, to monopolize them under cover of the law and cus- tom. and to make all men who would vilege. have been the aim of the money makers since time began. A
 It is an easy matter to run m A fortune of one hundred millions when you can tax for two or three decades the millions who must buy bread and meat, timber and coal, cotton and wool, which all come from the land. This
 Is what has been done directly in
 European countries. where, as in BrI-
 tlsh nation and in Ireland millions
 or acres have been seized by the few
 under cover of the law. and the people have been compelled to pay first for permission to get the land, then for permission to continue their labor on It. (get this point before you read further.)
 The same thing happened indiectly Tn this country when millions of acres
 were given to the great railroads. and capitalists were permitted to ret hold or millions more by various subter- fuges. all to be held with a tight grin untii the itde of immigration had
 sweiled these properties to untold val
 ues' when they were sold of at rates mat made mfllionaires as comman in
 this country and in Europe. as
 Knights" in England. The readers os newspapers are we'll acquainted with the career and methods of the coal barons ofsPennsy1vania and eleswh ere.
 who got hold of the great coaI.pro- ducing districts under cover of law
 ana Tor forty years have levied tri- bute on consumers and miners alike by every device that human ingenuity tice. Just as the few get control. taImos, absolute controD of the natural bou,, : ties. so they also get control of the
 means. or transportation in a country. what this means Is best compreh ended oy the statement that society makes no advance without a. proper ,excha nse Of commodities. for Sivilisations t6 i'm prove on every side, men must have the greatest facilities for excansine