p ' v
Coneervatw.
Nebraska City , TlinrKtlttyitli / JJSV8. , .
IMC i IKS AND Some years ago Wil-
CAPITAL. liniu Graham Stunner ,
professor of political and social science
in Yale college , published a small vol
ume entitled "What Social Classes Owe
to each Other. " There never has been
liny volume of its size printed during
. the last ten years which contains so
( much of the essence of economic truth
f \ as it contains.
On page 44 of the Sumner book re-
H ferrod to is found the following :
"A good father believes that he does
syisely to oncoiirngo enterprise , produc
tive skill , prudent self-denial and judi
cious expenditure on the part of his son.
The object is to teach the boy to accumulate -
ulate capital. If , however , the boy
should read many of the diatribes
against 'the rich' which are afloat in our
literature ; if ho should read or hear
some of the current discussion about
'capital ; ' and if , with the ingenuousness
of youth , he should take these produc
tions at their literal sense , instead of
discounting them , as lu's father does , he
would bo forced to believe that he was
on the path of infamy when he was
earning and saving capital. It is worth
while to consider which we mean or
what we mean. Is it wicked to be rich ?
Is it mean to be a capitalist ? If the
question is one of degree only and it is
right to bo rich up to a certain point and
wrong to be richer , how shall we iind
the point. Certainly for practical pur
poses wo ought to define the point nearer
than between one and five millions of
dollars.
*
There is an old ecclesiastical prejudice
in favor of the poor and against the rich.
In days when men acted by ecclesiasti
cal rules those prejudices produced waste
of capital , and helped mightily to re-
plunge Europe into barbarism. The
prejudices are not yet dead but they sur
vive in our society as ludicrous contra
dictions and inconsistencies. One thing
must bo granted to the rich : they are
good-natured. Perhaps they do not rec
ognize themselves , for a rich man is
oven harder to define than a poor one.
It is not uncommon to hoar a clergyman
utter from the pulpit all the old preju
dice in favor of the poor and against the
rich , while asking the rich ( p do some
thing for the poor ; and the rich comply
without apparently having their feelings
hurt at all by the comparison. We all
agree that heis a good member of soci
ety who works his way up from poverty
to wealth , but as soon as ho has worked
his way up wo begin to regard him with
suspicion , as a dangerous member of so
ciety. A newspaper starts the silly fal-
lary that 'the rich are rich because the
poor are industrious' and it is copied
from one end of the country to the other
as if it were a brilliant apothegm. 'Cap
ital' is denounced by writers and speak
ers who have never taken the trouble to
iind out what capital is , and who use the
word in two or three different senses in
as many pages. Labor organizations are
formed , not to employ combined effort
for a common object , but to indulge in
declamation and denunciation , and es
pecially to furnish an easy living to
some officers who do not want to work.
People who have rejected dogmatic re
ligion , and retained only a residuum of
religious sentimentalism , find a special
field in the discussion of the rights of
the poor and the duties of the rich. We
have denunciations of banks , corpora
tions , and monopolies , which denuncia
tions encourage only helpless rage and
animosity , because they are not con
trolled by any definitions or limitations ,
or by any distinctions between what is
indispensably necessary and what is
abuse , between what is established in
the order of nature and what is legisla
tive error. Think , for instance , of a
journal which makes it its special busi
ness to denounce monopolies , yet favors
a protective tariff , and has not a word to
say against trades-unions or patents !
Think of public teachers who say that
the farmer is ruined by the cost of trans
portation , when they mean that ho can
not make any profits because liis farm is
too far from the market , and who de
nounce the railroad because it does not
correct for the farmer , at the expense of
its stockholders , the disadvantage which
lies in the physical situation of the farm !
Think of that construction of this situa
tion which attributes all the trouble to
the greed of moneyed corporations !
Think of the piles of rubbish that one
has read about corners , and watering
stocks , and selling futures !
Undoubtedly there are , in connection
with each of these things , cases of fraud ,
swindling , and other financial crimes ;
that is to say , the greed and selfishness
of men are perpetual. They put on now
phases , they adjust themselves to new
forms of business , and constantly de
vise new methods of fraud and robbery ,
just as burglars devise now artifices to
circumvent every now precaution of the
lock-makers. The criminal law needs
to bo improved to meet new forms of
crime , but to denounce financial devices
which are useful and legitimate becaxiso
use is made of them for fraud , is ridicu
lous and unworthy of the ago in which
wo live. Fifty years ago good old Eng
lish Tories used to denounce all joint-
stock companies in the same way , and
for similar reasons.
All the denunciations and declama
tions \ylrich have boon referred to are
made in the interest of'the poor man. '
His name never ceases to echo in the
halls of legislation , and he is the excuse
and reason for all the acts which are
passed. Ho is never forgotten in poetry ,
sermon or essay. His interest is invoked
to defend every doubtful procedure and
every questionable institution. Yet
where is ho ? Who is ho ? Who ever
saw him ? When did ho over got the
benefit of any of the numberless efforts
in his behalf ? When , rather , was his
name and interest over invoked , when ,
upon examination , it did not plainly ap
pear that somebody else was to win
somebody who was far to 'smart' over
to bo poor , far too lazy ever to bo rich
by industry and economy ? "
In view of the foregoing from Professor
ser Sumner , the reader is asked to ima
gine 250 citizens of Otoo county each
having in the bank a thousand surplus dollars
lars for which ho has no immediate use.
The possession of this money finally bo-
conies known to all of the 250. To
gether they are the masters of a quarter
of a million of dollars. Separately they
are unable to establish a banker to build
a needed railway to connect the Nebras
ka City stock yards and packing houses
with the Rock-Island railroad to the
southwest of us. But , incorporating
themselves as a railway company , in
stead of turning their attention to the
banking business ( which is vastly overdone -
done in Otoo county , where money is
begging to be borrowed at (5 ( per cent per
annum on good farms ) , these 250 citizens
become a moneyed corporation and-are
competent to build the line of railroad.
Prior to their combining their capital
as private citizens they were gener
ally regarded as superior types of self-
reliant and self-denying men. All their
neighbors spoke well of them and of
their accumulations. But the moment
their money becomes corporate capital
it is assailed by small-bore politicians ,
demagogues , communists and walking
delegates of every shade and variety.
Every day newspapers in Nebraska and
eructatory orators denounce capital ; and
yet capital is as essential to the develop
ment of Otoo countyto the upbuilding of
Nebraska City and for the advancement
and exaltation of the productive capabil
ities of the whole commonwealth , as
steam or water is to run machinery.
Millionaires are singled out for special
anathemas every day and yet the incom
ing and settling at Nebraska City of a
couple of dozen millionaries with the in
tention of building up the tile works ,
erecting great fkmring mills , construct
ing beet-sugar manufactories , building a
vast glucose establishment and project
ing numerous other enterprises , would
bo hailed with great acclaim and satis
faction by all of the intelligent members
of this community.
On the other hand , if we may believe
their vaporings , there is another class of
professional millionaire-denouncers and
vilifiers , who would organize a military
company for the purpose of keeping
them all on the other side of the Mis
souri river. These assailants of capital ,
these condemners of thrift , are , as a rule ,
not gifted with any intense desire for
productive employment. As a rule , they
sit at street corners and whittle and
damn everybody Avho does not also
whittle and condemn thrift wherever it
appears.
There never has boon any internation
al legal tender since commerce first
made its exchanges across seas and
oceans. Balances between Europe and
the United States are not settled by any
international , legal tender money. If
the commerce of the world and the in
terchanges of all the nations thereof can
bo conducted without a universal legal
tender , why can not the business of the
United States also bo conducted by a
currency which shall have no legal ten
der quality.
