One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed, C. A. Bogardus [reader novel txt] 📗

contest the pulpit of a Quaker church, and the subject: "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of heaven," don't you think Sullivan would be quite out of place and Christ would be the victor on that occasion? Suppose a fine pasture, bountiful with grass and water should be well stocked with a few hundred sheep and lambs and lurking around in hidden nooks of the field were a dozen or more Norway wolves; the sheep and the wolves are in the same pasture, I want to ask you, my friend, what kind of stock do you think the farmer will have in that pasture in a few days if he says to himself the law of the survival of the fittest will protect those sheep if they are fit to live, and if they can't survive then I will shear the wolves for my winter's wool. My friends, if that farmer ever got any wool from those wolves he would have to get it from their stomachs; he couldn't shear it from their backs, because it don't grow on that class of animals. What would you think of the farmer's good wife if after the wolves had killed and sucked the warm blood of the last lamb she would in her supreme recognition of the law of the survival of the fittest take from her child's grave the tombstone that had carved thereon the image of a little lamb at rest under the weeping willow and place in its stead a statue of marble with the life-sized image of a wolf with the blood of a lamb streaming from his teeth? No, that would not be the act of a sane mother, nor would the farmer willingly leave the sheep in the pasture with no other protection but the wolves.

Under laws recognizing viciousness the most vicious will survive best.

Our country and her people are industrious and willing, but we are in debt, having promised to pay American dollars that by the vicious system of contracting the money under the gold standard which makes dollars harder and harder to get, which is only another way of expressing the fact that wages and produce will go lower year by year under the system of greed that is accompanying the gold standard in all countries. But one thing can help the masses of our people out of the bondage of debt, and that thing is higher prices for labor and produce.

Higher prices in America will follow either of two causes—foreign famine and war or bimetallism and an increased volume of money. The latter is within our control, the former method no one should desire.

Let us not disclaim against the wolves, for scientists tell us that the shepherd dog that so kindly protects the sheep is a direct descendant of the wolf, but he has been domesticated by the law of man. So we see that under the vicious law of the survival of the fittest the wolf as a master was a sheep destroyer, but under the civilized law of the survival of the fittest, the descendant of the vicious wolf as we know, the shepherd dog is a servant of the sheep. Gold is good money, but as a master it is a tyrant. Let us hitch it side by side with silver and paper money, put it all under direct control of the government, and the wealth of this nation will be our servant, but with gold in control our nation's wealth becomes a hard master.

The other day, while on the train, in conversation with a rich banker, the subject of the rich and poor came up. He said "there was nothing in the law that tended to make people rich or poor." His idea was that individual prosperity came from each man's ability as a financier. "Why," said he, "don't you know that if the property was all equally divided among the people, the same people who now have it would get it again in a very short time?" I asked him if he was willing to change certain laws about the banking business, then divide the property and money of the United States equally among the people? He said "he did not want to have any such thing done." When I asked him to specifically name his objections to such a transaction, he replied "that it would not be fair to take what he made and give it to some one who had not made it." Then when I reminded him that he had said he would have it all back in a short time, he said that "if the law was changed about banking he would not have the same chance to get it back that he now had to keep it." I told him that I agreed with him on his last statement, but if I should agree with him in his first statement I could not see how the changed law and division of property would affect his ability, and if it did affect it, then I said the banking law must be a part of his ability. Then he replied that "banking laws were something that our congressmen would attend to." At this part of the conversation the train stopped and the banker bade me good-by and with a pleasant smile greeted a crowd that was waiting at the depot to escort him to the opera house, where he was to make a speech in favor of a law allowing the banks to issue all the money and retire the government from the banking business. The fellow was a candidate for congress.

As the train left the station I took from my valise a little book of statistics and found that 79 per cent of our Congressmen and 63 per cent of our Senators were either bankers or bank directors, then I thought his last remark was true, that our Congressmen would attend to the banking laws all right, especially from a banker's point of view. I then thought of a path up the mountain side that was so crooked a traveler going up would meet himself coming back.

Thanks for your attention.

 

SPEECH DELIVERED AT JACKSONVILLE, ILLINOIS, DECEMBER 15, 1897,
BY C. A. BOGARDUS.

OUR FINANCIAL SYSTEM.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:—I am going to request my hearers this evening to be not possessed of party prejudice. If there is any one feature of the human mind that works more disaster to civilization and humanity, than another, that feature is political partyism made blind by prejudice. Prejudice blinds the eye to light and benumbs the mind until reason is shut out. The Bible says, "And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch."

In examining any proposition we should not proceed to change reasons and facts to suit our thoughts, but rather remove all prejudice from our mind and then change our thoughts to agree with the facts. For my part I would that all voters and their wives and children would form themselves into a party of political truthseekers. When that is done humanity, justice and a pure government of all the people, by all the people and for all the people, will form the armor of our civilization.

But as long as blind partyism prevails men will get into heated political discussions that only widen the gulf of misunderstanding. Misleading newspaper articles will make the gulf deeper, and the cunning hand of plutocracy and coercion will widen the waters of the gulf into a vast restless ocean, without even the signs of a rainbow to tell them that the great storm of poverty and human slavery to the money power, that knows no love, no mercy, no justice or Christianity, shall not continue forever and anon.

As we stand on a mountain crest and cast our eyes over the wide extent of country, it is the more prominent features that impress themselves on our vision. The lesser details, the waving field, the blooming bush, the evergreen moss, the singing bird and fragrant rose, which attract the attention and admiration of the immediate bystander, are lost to our view by the distance. But the range of forest-clad hills, the winding river, the crystal lake, the wide expanse of fertile plains and snow-capped mountain peaks, determine the landscape and claim our attention.

We of the United States are today surrounded by the Anglo-American civilization of the closing days of the 19th century. Let us from this height glance along the road of our nation's journey hither. We can at best only hope to notice the more prominent lines of advance. To carefully trace the growth of all the departments would not only greatly exceed the limited time at our command this evening, but would also confuse us by the multiplicity of subjects demanding our attention.

When God created man in his own image and placed him on earth, He gave man dominion over the earth and all the fullness thereof. There is an old maxim which teaches, that through respect for the giver, we should not give, barter or sell away a present. God gave the earth and all that is in it to mankind. May we not here ask, to what mankind was the earth given? And what is meant by man? It is plain to the student that by man is meant all mankind, for all time so long as he shall live, for we find in research of the scripture that "God is not God of the dead, but of the living." I want to ask you in the name of justice and humanity, should a great majority of mankind now, in the strongest and most highly civilized country, give the earth and its abundance to the money corporations, trusts and combines, that are in reality transforming our beloved republic into a "Den of Thieves;" or should we keep possession of the bountiful gift, that our children and the children of the generations to follow will inherit the land, that was so graciously presented to all mankind, by an all wise Providence?

One of the uppermost features in our civilization today is our national medium of exchange, called "money." Reasonable men of all parties agree that our money should be sound and honest, and limited only in amount by the necessities and requirements of the citizens of our country, in striving after a nobler and higher civilization in which the greatest good to the greatest number shall be the pinnacle of ultimate achievement.

In June of 1896, the representatives of a great party met in national convention in the city of St. Louis, Mo., and outlined a party platform in which we find a plank which says: "We are therefore opposed to the free coinage of silver, except by international agreement with the leading commercial nations of the world, which we pledge ourselves to promote, and until such agreement can be obtained, the existing gold standard must be preserved."

As we think of and discuss this or any other proposition, the question foremost in our mind should be: Is that proposition, if adopted, likely to promote the interest of an independent liberty loving, Democratic people, or will it, if adopted, work in an opposite direction?

In my judgment, a careful examination of that plank will reveal the fact that it is hypocritical in the extreme, and in itself makes by its own declaration, improbable the very thing it pretends to advocate and pledge itself to support, namely: Bimetallism, by an international agreement with the leading commercial nations of the world.

There is no business man, farmer or politician who has ever successfully accomplished any undertaking by adopting the idea most prominent in this plank, which is declaring bimetallism to be right, and then saying that we cannot and will not do anything to procure it if the leading commercial nations of the world do not consent to it.

Let us examine this plank in detail, and see if the general proposition