MONEY AND THE MAN ON HORSEBACK. 379 means discover it, the cashier literally depleting the bank of almost its last cent. It is a fact, too, that the depositor placing his money in bank so becomes no longer the bona fide owner of his money; but the banker does own it outright and may at will refuse to return it, or any part of it, to the depositor, except as the banker sees fit, it being no more the depositor's money than is the dole of corn given out to dumb beasts the property of the beasts while still in the farmer's crib. When what was mine has passed beyond my control it has ceased to be mine. A man said to me yesterday that a few days before the New York banks locked their coffers he had placed four hundred dollars on deposit in a Des Moines bank and within a fortnight he was refused its return or of any considerable part of it. "It is tied up in the bank" he says. Now could this condition of things occur if governmental savingsbanks held the deposits of the American people? Not at all. "But ought the government go into the banking business" is it asked? The government is already in that business. "Oh, it only comes forward to help the banks" do you say? It helps the banks as the father comes in to help his boys; but "dad" is really the principal. Who is responsible for the existence of national banks? Uncle Sam They are his own creation. But he lets them squander the people's money-yes, steal their money. Those banks are the quail traps made by Uncle Sam and given to favorites of his. Good for the favorites, but bad for the quails. Who are the quails? The fool depositors. They see at this moment that they are "caught." There is no safety to the people's money except in governmental savings-banks supplemented with governmental loan-offices as were set up in Pennsylvania in the Colonial period. It was through the influence of Benjamin Franklin that the Colony issued scrip-legal tender paper money-loaned it to the people on realty security. It never depreciated below gold. And with governmental savingsbanks the American government might issue billions of greenbacks and there could be no inflation or depreciation of that money; for the surplus, beyond the actual needs of business would return to Uncle Sam's coffers through the deposits made in his savings banks. Precisely as the rivers carry the surplus waters to the ocean of waters would the savings banks of the government carry the surplus money back to the treasury of the government-assuredly so if the government paid for deposits the per cent it pays on bonds. We pay interest on a billion of dollars of bonds today and those bonds are placed on deposit in the safe of Uncle Sam. Now Uncle Sam gives back to the depositors of the bonds (national bankers) dollar for dollar of their face value in currency declared by him "receivable" which means "not refusable" that is to say legal tender. National bank bills are quasi legal-tenders-a loan from government at onehalf of one per cent; and I am not quite certain that it is an annual interest either. Why have we so rotten a system of finance? It is because the governing power of the nation has been centered in Wall street, New York ever since before the close of the Civil War. YE 289TH LESSON. Money and the Man on Horseback. The whole fabric of artificial wealth is falling to the ground like a balloon exhausted of its gas. With fourteen billions of deposits in the banks of the United States there is not today a single depositor that knows positively that he will ever get his money. The banks have all suspended money payment and it may be they will never resume; and if they do resume no more than a tithe of the deposits can be repaid, or will be. There are fourteen billions of dollars of debt-paying money in the world; panic is on and confidence gone. And there is not in sight a billion of dollars of debt-paying money in the United States. When one-tenth of the sum of deposit is withdrawn from the banks by depositors there will be no more money (except what is hidden out of reach of gods and men) to do business with or pay off debts, extant in our country, as at the beginning of the Civil War all the money went out of reach and postage stamps were all we had to circulate as money before greenbacks came in. So is the entire worthlessness of the monetary system based on "confidence" again revealed-the national banks being no more reliable than were the wild-cat banks of 1837-based on "confidence." When it is seen that all is lost of money, will not the whole outfit of stocks, bonds, mortgages, insurance policies, and every other arti ficial representative of wealth, be worthless? But the people, will they submit always to be the prey of sharks-and lose even the roofs that shelter them? It will be said: "The old order is dead!" What will follow? Anarchy and the man on horseback? The American Napoleon? God forbid! If Theodore Roosevelt reach a third term will he ever surrender the presidential chair? It is clear and transparent to any mind that we are on the eve of a great upheaval socially and politically as the result of our present false and rotten system of finance when as Chauncey Depew has said, as quoted previously: "There are fifty men in New York City who can in twenty-four hours stop every wheel on our railroads, close every door of all our manufactories, lock every switch on every telegraph line and shut down every coal and iron mine in the United States. They can do so because they control the money which this country produces." Not a soul in America will scoff at this saying now, when a few weeks ago few believed it. Now all see it to be true. A worse tyrant rules America than is the czar of Russia, and that tyrant is the fifty of Wall street. What is in sight? Not a third term president. The people will be too wary for this trap-too foxy to be caught like quails. It is presumed that Roosevelt will accept a third term-presumed he will if offered-a life term for that matter. That is the only meaning of a third term. Hence, Washington refused the honor. Grant thought to obtain the crown. He failed. Roosevelt is a good president. Caesar was ambitious. And, too, Bryan has said that he will accept the nomination for a third time. Wonderful! But has he not been looking forward to this for four long years? Was not his trip around the world made just to keep his name before the people conspicuously, as was Grant's for the same end? Of course it was. We read that Augustus Caesar, every eight years of his term as Emperor of Rome, made a show of resigning his office. But every Senator knew well that not to beg Caesar on his knees to retain the office was death to himself, and all his family and kin and confiscation of all their property. This hypocracy was no more positive on Caesar's part his declining the office-than on Cleveland's when he gave out that he would not accept the office of president beyond one term, and is it the same with Roosevelt? But it does seem. from the lack of statesmenship of our Senators and Representatives at Washington for forty years past, shown by their imbecility in financial legislation-placing this great interest in the hands of enemies of our country-British and French agents of Rothchilds and Barings--located in Wall street, New York. to bankrupt the American people at will, that we are greatly lacking of presidential timber. Yet, possibly, out of eighty millions, we may find one man fit to fill the presidential office besides Theodore Roosevelt. It does, however, look from the readiness of unpatriotic men to let slip the form of government of cities democratic to accept "commissions,' ," that preparation is making for the man on horseback to come in. Dear sir: YE 290TH LESSON. An Open Letter. To the President of the United States. During the Civil War, when the life of the nation hung, as it were, on a single hair, the national banking system was enforced on our country by the unpatriotic denizens of Wall street, New York, in order to neutralize the effect, on the public mind, of the introduction of legal-tender government-scrip and to open a door for its retirement at the earliest possible moment and so to continue in the hands of irresponsible speculators, the control of the money of the whole people, which is no less than the control of the government, states and national; and this monetary control has ever since been continued in that class through the corrupt control of party leaders and the party press. Now, the money power is alien. Its seat is London and Paris. The Rothchilds are the men who by the click of the telegraph instrument may bankrupt America in a moment of time and plunge this people into the vortex of absolute anarchy and pocket every cent of the deposits, the surplus earnings of the American millions, by suspending money payment, which now has in a day been done, fourteen billions of deposits being at this moment in the possession of the banks and held by them out of reach of the depositors, it may be forever, the depositors being unprotected by any means and their money gone. What may be done? Let the government at Washington issue at once one billion dollars of legal-tender scrip, establish loan agencies in every county in the Union, convert every money-order postoffice into a savings bank, tax all national bank scrip ten per cent— yes, tax it out of existence-close every banking institution in America, demonetize both gold and silver, leaving them as commodities to be sold on the market as iron and other metals, hold the banking corporations and the stockholders of the banks, bound for the payment of all their debts to depositors, loans from government being advanced them for payment of deposits, and the loans secured by all the personal and realty property including railroads, mines, etc., etc., held by the banks and their stockholders. Then will the people be protected and the general welfare promoted. There can never be henceforward inflation nor contraction of the currency. All that the people may have use for in business they may secure from Washington on their lands, houses and other substantial wealth, and a system of deposits by the producers of wheat, corn, etc., and manufactured articles in depots of exchange be instituted, all articles being appraised by competent appraisers and prices fixed and exchange checks legal tender, given out for the commodities, and the checks when returned be cancelled as are car tickets. Artificial wealth non-perishable balancing the perishable wealth is a great wrong that must be abrogated along with the class known as "moneyed men" and no monopoly be permitted to exist under the aegis, and control of private corporations or private individuals, and all things belong in common to all the people, and to each distributed automatically his especial share "according as he has need." Then will the motive to "get rich" be withdrawn. And it ought to be annulled outright; it ought not exist. But what will come in as the superior motive of human activity? Altruism. Is that, indeed. a sufficiently powerful motive to lead to strenuous action? It is the motive that has impelled all the martyrs to surrender willingly their lives. It has moved the millions to give up their all for their country when popular rights and liberty were endangered. No one is remembered by posterity-no statue was ever erected in commemoration of any person from Socrates to Abraham Lincoln, who was not believed to have been controlled above all by this divine motive. It is the only motive commended by mankind. Then, O President of our great republic, cast tradition to the winds and with all your mind and strength move to lead the people out of the wilderness of Ancient wrong and oppression into the new order held in view by our brave forefathers the "good old cause"-the cause for which the Roundheads of old England battled and for which the Buckskins under Washington fought, and for which we should be willing to die. Des Moines, Iowa, Dec. 16, 1907. YE 291ST LESSON. The Final Summing Up. Finally, to sum up all in a few words, the whole contention of ye old schoolmaster of ye olden time: In every so-called civilized state society is made up of two classes which we term capitalists and laborers. Now the word capitalist as defined in "ye lessons" includes in its meaning all who are enriched by the labor of others of the toilers. Right here lies the whole kernel of the nut. Not a law has ever been passed, not a decision of a court has ever been rendered, that stands to-day recorded in the ponderous tomes of the laws and law books of the world that has not been made with but one and only one end, purpose and aim in view, viz.: to place the widest possible distance between the two orders of society and to hold the laboring class in the most abject dependence possible, on the capitalist class. Listen: It has all been done by design. And now the capitalistic, or speculative classsinking to its death beneath the waves of the advanced intelligence of the many-popular opinion-have in view the overthrow of free government here in the United States, knowing as they do that their day is done if the waves of progress be not turned back, which they. the capitalists, expect to sweep back with the same broom used by the Confederates of 1860-65, led by Jefferson Davis. What, in short, was the contention of the Confederates? It was the preservation of chattel slavery. What is the contention of the capitalists? It is the preservation of wage slavery. Why are regulars to-day (Dec. 9, 1907) on their way to Goldfield? To do the deeds of devils. The same end that Lee had in view-the same that George III. had in view-to derail the engine of human progress. "To put down violence"-Roosevelt says. No; the object is to break the strike in the interest of the capitalists who own stock in the gold and silver mines of Nevada. A different course would be taken if practicable here, as in the Transvaal. Chinese labor would be brought in. Coolies would be employed at $10 per month. The enslavement of labor is all that our regulars have been enlisted to continue (not to bring it about; for it already exists). Workingmen of America, join hands! Unite! Take the control of the American government out of the hands of the capitalistic class! You must vote for labor and not capital. Build a party pyramid upon a broad base-not on its apex for a foundation. Call a national convention of toilers. Let that convention speak the best word the toilers know. It may be but a word. The party of Lincoln when first organized spoke only these words: "Chattel slavery shall extend no farther." That was the point of the wedge. Let the toilers say: "Wage slavery shall die!" That is enough. That is a sharp wedge point. Elect the labor leader, Mitchell, president of the United States, or another as true and brave and good as he. Let the office seek the man. Let him, as was Lincoln, be a "son of toil." No matter if he be a lawyer, as was old Abe. Washington was a farmer; Jackson a soldier; Lincoln a lawyer. But all three were patriots. press. Let tradition now be wound up-wipe clean the slate. Pile the old law books in a heap and burn them. Melt all the brass guns into statu es of the good-so remember the past. Commemorate the martyrs to freedom. Be no longer hoodwinked by the capitalistic Know your friends and honor them. Abolish the speculative class. The rights of property we must uphold; but the wrongs of monopoly we must bring to an end. Who produce all the wealth? Toilers. Then it is rightfully theirs. The capitalistic class rightfully own nothing. Make all things common-so will all become the property of all-all common and equal stockholders of the all. Now this is the last word of "ye lessons." The day is now. Eat, drink and be merry and tomorrow you die. The "Commercial club”— have, of course, their dollar dinners; but, like the "Black-horse Cavalry," that made the scare at Bull Run, they are alert. Drop the beer mug, O ye toilers, and grasp the ballot-vote together as one -or ye are undone as were the undisciplined "Yanks" at Bull Run. Where is Dives? In perdition; and the toilers' God's the Lord; Truth is mightier than Mammon; Right is stronger than the sword. "Peace" inscribed upon our banner, "Love" our watchword and our boast, The United Sons of Freedom, an unconquerable host. Hear the thunders of our cannon voicing tidings to the free: Marshaled 'neath our star-lit colors, rule with righteousness the II. We unfurl the sky-born ensign, rally round the standard old, Swear the Stars and Stripes shall emblem rights of man, not power of gold; And we strike for home and hearthstone, only strike for God and Right Grandly strike for what is sacred in the van of every fight. |