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g moves great ships
across trackless waters and vast trains
across continents. When cither the
ship or the locomotive explodes and
kills people , damn steam power !
There is water power which turns
wheels and spindles , grinds grain into
Hour and irrigates vast stretches of
arid lands. When Hoods destroy crops ,
waves wreck fleets and the merciless
waters drown people , damn the water
power !
There is electric power which pro
pels cars , runs dynamos and lights up
square miles of space with its incan
descent and sun-like glow. But
when , by accident , electricity strikes
and kills animal and human organ
isms , damn electric power !
But does steam power or water or
electric power purposely and with
intent perpetrate wrongs ? Can
there be found a motive in either
power for doing either good or evil ?
The money power however is the
everlasting bogy by which the good
populists and
. the sixteen-to-
The Money Power. - -
* - , one friends of
' silver and the plain people are
made hysterical and tremulous all
of the time.
This money power is a very old
power. It began business in Nebras
ka in 1854. It first plowed and planted
these plains. Then the money power
built innumerable steamboats which
came snail-paced puffing and blowing
along the channels of the tawny Miss-
souri and bringing pioneers and all
the rudimentary necessities , imple
ments , utensils , lumber , glass , salt
and cereals , required for founding
a new commonwealth.
Then a steamboat , by the rates of
freight charged , could earn its cost in
a single summer.
But the money power soon loaded
steamboats with stoelrails for roads in
'
& - Nebraska. And the money power
$ / flung out into the plains its vast net
work of car-paths as easily as the
spider spins its gossamer threads and
floats them into space. Lands which
were valueless and desolate .solitudes
which were unpeopled and voiceless ,
sprang into value and beauty , became
& human homes and filled with the
y melodies of contented industry. The
money power , taking steam power and
water power and electricity into its
kindly and compensatory service , has
with a swift magic converted Nebras
ka from wilderness and wigwam into
fields , orchards , gardens and homes.
The money power is the monarch
under whoso banners all the power
agents of the earth enlist for the ad
vancement and elevation of the huj
man race. Even those who revile
and denounce the money power are iu-
"
i-
tent upon getting money. They would
rifle the pockets of industry with'tho
larcenous fingers of idleness while
denouncing the stuff they would steal.
These fanatics however are not an
alytical. They never dissect the al
leged money power bogy. They
never tell where , how and when it
lias arranged to kill off labor , squelch
industry and convert prosperity into
famine. They never have shown why
the money power could be advantaged
by breaking down all the industrial
and producing classes of the citizens of
the United States who work upon
farms , in factories , counting-houses
and banks.
But they tell bugaboo stories of
schemes concocted somehow , some
where , by somebody , for locking up
all the money in the country so as to
make panic , ruin and distress for the
money power to fatten upon.
But these portrait-painters never
give us a picture of the engineers of
the money power plotting ruin. They
never toll us why men who loan out
money at interest desire to destroy
the credit of those who borrow. They
never show how the moneyed man can
profit himself by crushing out the
man or the class that owes him.
They forget that money is the sole
tiling , in all this busy world , for
which men toil and scramble that can
never do its owner any good until it
leaves him. The money power as de
picted by the disordered imagination
of the communist would be the very
impersonation of powerlcssness. If
all the money in all the world should
be given the receiver of the political
assets of Jones , Allen & Teller , at
Chicago , upon the condition that Coin
Harvey should neve.r let go of a cent
of it , the propaganda of the money
fallacies would be bankrupt in the
midst of billions.
Money must leave its possessor be
fore it can confer upon him the slight
est benefit. Money must be exchanged
for some desired thing before any sat
isfaction comes from money. No
power exists in money except that
evolved from its constant activity
and use. That power is capital. Cap
ital is money uesd in business for the
purpose of bringing in more money.
Capital is money in its procreative
form. Let us have more power of
money in Nebraska.
But whenever money bribes a legislator
later , a juryman , a sheriff , or a court ,
damn the money power , just as when
we have a flood of rain you should
denounce water power.
Never credit to the power of money
the construction of churches , schools
railroads , mills , factories , and the
development of the material welfare
of the globe. Find only those in
stances whore money has been used
for corrupting mankindj and then
damn " the money power. Never
show by analysis , whore , when , hewer
or why men owning money have con
spired together to oppress and destroy
all those classes who might borrow
money.
Always prove that the owners of
money arc- like the old fellow who
kept tavern and wished everybody
else might die , perish from the earth
so that he could have all the custom ,
without competition. Populists are
particularly and prayerfully request
ed to give the plain people more and
plainer pictures of the money power
bogy.
Among The Con-
THE LOST servative's collec-
CAUSE. tion of antiques ,
there is nothing of
a more peculiar interest than a frag
mentary file of The Wyoming Tele
scope for the years 1857 and 1859.
Those wore the days when prosperity
was in the air , in a special sense ;
men knew that a metropolis , of
which their imaginations made a second
end London at the least , must soon begin -
gin to materialize somewhere 011 the
Missouri river , and as sudden and
easy wealth was the prize offered
to the owner of the fortunate town-
site , the eagerness with which they
sought to attract the shy fugitive to
this or that embryo settlement can eas
ily be understood. Of course only
one could bo supremely successful ; of
the others it was a fortunate commu
nity that survived Omaha's victory
with even a trace of the breath of
life ; the greater number have per
ished utterly from off the face of the
map. Wyoming is one of these , for
the station on the Missouri Pacific
road which now bears that name is
several miles distant from the river-
landing where once stood a hopeful
aspirant for the premiership of the
West , and was probably christened
only out of respect to the memories
of the vicinity.
The Wyoming of 1857 was , how
ever , as promising an infant as any the
territory boasted.
Old Wyoming. It was not until
the year following
that its nearest neighbor , Nebraska
City , scored the one point that it
gained in the great race by securing
the location of the Military Depot ,
whence army supplies , brought thus
far by steamboat , were forwarded
across the plains by the government
contractors ; the thing that infused
vitality into Nebraska City's veins
for a brief ton years , when the open
ing of the Union Pacific railroad
snuffed out her little light in the
twinkling of an eye. Wyoming , N. T. ,
in 1857 , was a lively place ; the issue
of The Telescope for Juno llth con
tains a half-a-column of "Arrivals at