Better days; or, A Millionaire of To-morrowFitch, Thomas
Philosophy
Better days; or, A Millionaire of To-morrow
Fitch, Thomas
Utopias -- Fiction; West (U.S.) -- Fiction
“I suppose so,” replied that gentleman, “or men would not pursue it; but
it is a cultivated and not a natural taste. Every man for instance,
requires a pair of trousers and a hat, but after he has acquired enough
of such articles for the use of himself and his family for life, and a
generous supply for his descendants, why work the balance of his days to
fill warehouses with trousers and hats? I do not know,” continued Mr.
Morning—and our reporter thought that there was a deeper shade in his
sea-gray eyes—“I do not know that I shall ever marry, but if I had boys
I would leave them no fortunes larger than would suffice for a generous
support.”
“Will you, then,” queried our reporter, “expend in your own lifetime all
the great revenues of the Morning mine?”
“All that I can find time, strength, and opportunity to expend in ways
that will help the world,” rejoined the Arizona Gold King.
[From the _New York Times_, July 17, 1895.]
Mr. David Morning is engaged in works of apparent charity, which to many
thoughtful men will seem an injury rather than a benefit to the world.
Capitalists are entitled to receive interest upon their investments, and
if inducement to accumulation be taken away by the competition of such
Utopians as Mr. Morning, then frugality may cease to be accounted a
virtue.
On the whole, wouldn’t it be better for the business world, and the
stability of property and property rights, if the tenants of the Morning
Blocks were compelled to pay the full rental value of their apartments?
[From the _New York Socialist_, July 19, 1895.]
Dave Morning is endeavoring to throw dust in the eyes of the working
masses of the country, by erecting seventeen-story palaces for boodle
bookkeepers, and twenty-story tenement houses for mechanics. He has
filled San Francisco, Chicago, and several other cities with his humbug
Co-operative Labor Aid Societies. He is evidently plotting for the
presidency in 1896, and expects to reach the White House by a golden
path.
“The poor of this country should accept no employment as a boon, nor
consent to engage in any wage-saving and profit-sharing corporation that
will force them to accumulate, and they should take no such favors from
the rich as cheap rents or free homes. Let the unnatural accumulations
of rich scoundrels be distributed among the people. No man is honestly
entitled to have or hold anything except the fruits of his own labor. It
would be better for the world, and for the great cause of socialism
which the pseudo philanthropy of Morning delays and obstructs, if this
Arizona Gold King could be tumbled head first down one of his own
shafts, and his seventeen-story marble-paved Edens be dynamited out of
existence.”
CHAPTER XVII.
“Plans of mice and men gang aft aglee.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account