The Commonwealth. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1911-1914, 1913-12-11
SOME HITHERTO SUPPRESS
ED INFORMATION
The Methods of the oligarchy.
(By ]. E. SINCLAIR)

(By J. e. SINCLAIR.)
Today I received a letter from a
near relative who is very religious.
He chides me for troubling my head
about the suffering and pain that
see here on earth and closes his let
ter with these words: 1--WE are pass
ing through this world for the last
time so we might as well live quietly
and be subject to the powers that be-"
Could the powers that prey upon
the lives of the workers wish a finer
state of mind? Whose breath blew
out the light within this brain? When
Markham wrote his powerful poem,
The Man With Hoe; he should have
written another, an infinitely more
terrible one, The Man Without a
Mind.
And by what process has capitalism
/ blighted thousands of minds? By re-
kindling the altar fires of perishing
creeds. In answer to imperative eco
nomic needs the masters have been
W duNduCS SClSnIlllC lS-
search, and with every new scientific
discovery they have been undermin-
! ing religion. In order that human
minds might not be entirely free of
the kind of ideas expressed in the first
paragraph, revivalism has been re-
sorted to. These great revivals have
every one been financed by the capi-
talists from the days of Moody and
Sankey to the latest mems forward
movement which our good old dead
rascal Morgan paid for.
That this method of giving the
workers something to play with is
| by no means confined to the religious
field is proven by the following clip
pings which Comrade G. G. Severance,
! of Everson, Wash, has put into my
hands.
The traitorous cunning of the dig
archy is shown in this first document
written when blood was flowing red
on the fields of the Civil War by
financial agent from London then in
New York (1S62):
Slavery is likely to be abolished
by the war power and chattel slavery
destroyed This I and my European
| friends are in favor of, for slavery is
but the owning of labor and carries
with it the care for the laborers;
while the European plan, led on by
England, is for capital to control la
Dor by controlling wages. This can
be done by controlling money The
great debt that capitalists will see to
it is made out of the war must be
used as a measure to control the
volume of money. To accomplish this,
the bonds must be used as banking
basis. We are now waiting to get the
secretary of the treasury to make this
recommendation to congress. 1t will
not do to allow the greenback, as it
is called, to circulate as money for
any length of time, as we cannot con-
troll that"
Can you beat that for a plot to pill
age a nation? The worst of it is that
the plot was carried out to the letter.
There can be no doubt but that the
! Civil War was purposely prolonged so
that a great debt would be placed up
on the American people as banking
basis"
Then we see the wires being pulled
in the following circular letter issued
to bankers soon afterwards:
Dear Sir: 1t is advisable to do all
in your power to sustain such promin-
ent daily and weekly newspapers,
especially the agricultural and religi-
GUS press, as viii oppose the issuing
of greenback paper money, and that
you also will hold patronage or favor
from all applicants who are not will
ing to oppose the government issue Of
money. Let the government issue the
coin and the banks issue the paper
money Of the country, for then we
can better protect each other. To re-
peal the law creating national bank
notes or to restore to circulation the
government issue Of money will be TO
provide the people with money. and
win therefore seriously affect your In
dlyidual profit as bankers and lenders.
See your congressman at once and en-
gage him 10 support our interests that
we may control legislation"
I'm 1893 the bankers again started
something iu the interests Of the "peo-
pie" m the Bankers Magazine OF
March OF that year OF the bis panic
In which thousands starved we see
the full directions given for bringing
on the panic. OF course, students Of
economies know that industrial crises
are inevitable under capitalist produc-
ton: but they also know that these