The Commonwealth. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1911-1914, 1912-08-09

sand people We find list of foreign
Landlords, gentlemen of tho aristocrucy
Tor spccuht0r4. who have reserved for
/ themselves the homes of two hundred
and eighty. seven thousand homeseckcrs
in this land. We find that the gentle
men who are alleged to represent the
American people in congress have, in
their broad bounty and patriotic ~
spirit of libcmIity, donated enough of
the peoples domain to the corporations
and combinations of the country to sup
Iply the needs of those who would like
TO settle ON an eighty-acre homestead to
the limited amount of three million three
hundred and fifteen thousand.
As matter of fact these generous
gifts, to the ever willing combinations
of organized wealth, by our friends in
congress, exceed the area of the French
republic and German empire combined,
with their more than one hundred mil
lions of population.
These vast holdings of land extend to
every state in the Union, by individuals
and companies, and account for the ex-
orbitant price of land in every nook of
the country.
This land monopoly extends to all the
wealth beneath the soil, such as the coal
monopoly, the oil monopoly, the iron
monopoly, the copper monopoly, and the
same power is reaching out for control
of the water power above the soil, real
izzing that our industries, in the future,
will be dependent upon that power.
But the restraint of opportunity for
the people is not limited to land and
its direct products. We find the same
iron hand of monopoly in control of the
machinery of production and distribu-
ton. 1t has been admitted, before con
gressional committees, that about ninety
five per cent of production is under com
troll of wealthy combinations and the
same percentage will soon be attained
in distribution.
Nor is there anything surprising in
such conditions when we consider that
seventy -two billions, of the one hundred
and fourteen billions of national wealth,
are controlled by the same aggregation.
The manufacturing interests of the
country have thirteen billions of dollars
invested, including water, and their an
hundred and fifty in. the country. But,
many of these gentlemen are not accused
of representing the people, who are sup
posed to have a representation of one
for every one hundred and ninety-four
thosuand. You also have a court of nine
supreme gentlemen who arrogate to
themselves the right to set aside what
the gentlemen in congress have done.
You may think it a somewhat extrava-
CANT method to pay one set of gentlemen
to undo what you have paid another set
of gentlemen for doing, but that is as
far as your right in the matter is con-
sidered, the right to think.
A bright people who have built up an
aristocracy of wealth and bowed down
in worship and a form of government
in which their voice is not heard, in
which they plead for what they may
take.
But the drums are rolling a reveille.
And what shall the awakening be ?
Shall it be a land where each shall have
the right to live, and the co-equal right
to a living, where opportunity shall be
equalized, where the wealth beneath the
soil and the water above shall be free
to all who are willing to delve and dip,
where injustice shall be done to none and
Equity shall be Monarch?
It will not be land of Utopia, but a
land where class stewardship shall be
swept away and all shall be stewards of
the collective wealth, land whose shib-
boleth shall be, The greatest good for
all, and all by the people and all for the
people.
Babolyn, Persia, Greece, Egypt, Rome,
all fell from their pinnacle of power and
pride when the wealth had concentrated
into the hands of from two to seven per
cent of the aristocracy.
If the people protested they were
crucified. The cross was the symbol of
poverty and slavery and the plain peo-
pie were crucified.
The oligarchies were always upheld by
the hired soldiery, powerful at times and
formed from the common people.
But centralized wealth begets arrog-
ance and usurpation and always they
lead to overthrow and change
We are dangerously near the condi-
lions that prevailed when the national
power of eminence of these republic and
empires crumbled. But history will not
repeat itself here.
Rapidly the nation is ripening for a
change. 1t will come sooner than many
desire
As for those who love their country,
it is their duty to make their country
lovable.