Confiscation | Page 7

our national life, and if it does not make justice more

even-handed for all, and the people of this country as prosperous as any
on earth, then the fault must be in the plan itself, and not in the
resources which we possess, for of those we have enough to empty
every poorhouse in the land, and eighty-five per cent. of the jails and
penitentiaries.
Let our wrongs be righted without physical force, by all means. History,
however, has no encouragement for such a hope. The contentions with
those on top have ever been of the blood-red order. Power once
obtained has never been surrendered only through conquest. The ballot
should do much, and had it been in use in the past history might have
had less of blood in it, as it should have less of it in the future. But the
ballot for a long number of years has, like a great many stomachs of
late, been working on wind - the wind of the Protectionist, the wind of
the Free Trader, and the wind of the latest cure-all, the fellow who is
hunting a market for his silver.
If something substantial to work on is not soon given to this man with
the ballot, he will drop it - and then let the blame of it rest with the
fools and rascals who have been deluding him so long.
The average man makes a better soldier than he does a voter. He can
get the range of an object easier than he can comprehend an economic
truth - this one, for instance: If the capitalists have obtained possession
of the money issued in the past, what is to prevent them from getting
possession of all that will be issued in the future? His answer will be to
issue more. He has been told so by his political mentor. When the man
with the ballot loses confidence in this mentor, he will start a game of
his own, and then the jig will be up with that idiot. We use the word
idiot advisedly here. When a tax was assessed against the incomes of
the rich, this driveler would score a point gained in favor of the people.
This claim of itself shows the institution to which he should be
consigned.
Victoria, Empress and Queen, rules a country where, pauperism is
steadily on the increase, and the potter's field received the bodies of
eighty of her subjects that were frozen to death in London in four days
of January last. Yet the rich have been paying an income tax in that
country for generations past.
When the rich merchant, or rich anything else, insures what he is
dealing in, he adds the cost of his policy to the thing he sells. The

income tax is but another premium, and he tags that on where he
pinned the other. The laborer has always paid the expenses of the rich,
and always will. The laborer can never dictate terms to the rich. The
labor leaders even have come to recognize the hopelessness of the
unequal contest. The power of the rich to do as they like can never be
destroyed while they are allowed to retain the riches that gives them
this power. A readjustment and a limit set to the amount an individual
can own is the only remedy. And the sooner that unassailable truth is
recognized and acted upon, the sooner will you get rid of the lobbiest
and the pauper.

II.
We need more money per capita: say some more would-be leaders,
who have found the only way out of the land of bondage. Increase the
currency to $50 per capita, and business and prosperity will once more
fill the land. Money has become scarcer, they continue, and therefore
dearer. Those who contracted monetary obligations last week find that
they are now paying more for the use of that money than it was worth
when the debt was made.
This is a hardship on the borrower, and can be prevented by increasing
the amount of money in circulation.
This is the very essence of what is claimed by those who are for
increasing the volume of money in circulation. Money has changed in
value, and those who are mortgaged, or otherwise under interest-paying
obligations, have found that money is scarcer, in this instance through
contraction of the currency, and therefore harder to get.
There should certainly be enough money issued for the smooth carrying
on of the country's business, and when they determine the amount
necessary, it should be put in circulation at once. But stopping money
from fluctuating value is another thing.
The man who buys a barrel of flour one day for $4.00 may find that it
is worth only $3.50 the day after. The man