Bisbee daily review., 1912-02-23
CONTROL IS
 NOT OWNERSHIP.


 Referring to a recent remark attri. buted to Judge Gary. to the effect that present conditions resemble those preceding the French Revolution. % Professor Irving Fisher is quoted as ooncurring in that view and as saying that we are fast approaching a con dition in which our organization is plutocratie"
 Professor Fisher goes on to say that the power of the purse is in the hands Of the classes" while the political power is in the hands of the masses
 It is unfortunate that professors of economies should talk such rubbish, Lut they will do it There is no re- semblauce whatever between our present conditions and those which preceded the French Revolution.
 Setting aside the folly of minister ing to class hatred by any reference 10 a division between the classes classes" ard the "masses''-a division which does not exist now but did then-it is not true that the power oI  the purse lies anywhere but in the puititude, O. that before the French Revolution there was any political power in the masses"
 The power of the purse lies with the owners Of accumulated savings which then and now were and are in the hands of those whom the French call the "bourgOis," which may be freely translated as the middle class, although originally used to designate traders as distinguished from the landed aristocracy
 We have no landod or other "aris tocracy." We are all middle class, are all vested with political power and the taxable wealth of the small number of those who possess great individual fortune is as nothing com pared with that possessed and em ployed by the multitude
 It is true that there are some very large individual fortunes in this country. for the most part productive Iy invested in useful enterprises em ploying great numbers or people.
 But what it is common to call tn: money power is exercised only to very limited degree by the use O the capital Of those who wield it. Il is by the use of other folks money accumulated in banks. insurance com uanies and other dduciary concerns and controlled by those who can b' trusted to use it productiveiy. An for the most part they do so use it.
 Sometimes, as is the case of th' late Mir. Harriman-whO began with ont a cent-those men take great toi for the use of their brains, but wha Of it? It is all used to give employ ment to those without brains of tha kind What is fair pay for that hn' Of brsins2 It it going to pay us q knock our greatest fnanciers in tn head and turn over control of say ings to their interiors? Control i not ownership and the money viii which control is exercised can at an, time be withdrawn by refusal to de posit in banks or pay insurance pre- miums.
 In this country the money powe and political power are in the hand of the same people. who constitute great majority Of the whole.
 Besides. in France before the rev oJution there were in all French ell ies an enormous number of the SUI merged" who had neither money no political rights, That. is not true Wit us. There is very little real miser among us and a multitude Of agencie for relieving such as exists
 The agitators among us live m fashion which would have seemed iu' ury to those considered very-well-to-d in Paris in the days of Louis NV.