Confiscations; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918
The work of the world consists principally in raising food and
manufacturing the things we wear, and the forwarding of both to the
consumer. And the great inventions of the McCormicks, Howes, Fultons,
Stephensons, and rest have made this work so easy that the labor done in
two months now is equivalent to the labor done in twelve months a few
years ago. That is why they are great inventions. Yet our law-makers are
still legislating for conditions that disappeared with the ox-goad,
hand loom, lapstone, and sickle, and are continually trying to devise
ways and means by which the labor of the country can be kept employed
the year round. What doing? When they find out how to make you wear
twenty pairs of shoes at a time, they will have found out how to keep
the shoe factories running the year round, not before.
The natural philosopher can overcome physical difficulties; the
political philosopher cannot overcome economic ones.
We would reside on a certain hill were it not for the climb. A Hallidie
lays his cable, and puts us at the top without further trouble. We find
Egypt cutting into our cotton market, Argentine into our wheat market,
France and Germany have shut their doors against our meats, and
England will not approve of silver. Many throughout this country find
their very bread falling short through these conditions abroad, and the
sufferers call in our political economists to help them to at least keep
the
necessaries of life within their reach.
Of the various nostrums prescribed by these political quacks, two have
been thoroughly tried, but the aggravating results have only cut the
eye-teeth of the humbugged; and when they take the field themselves as
political economists they will have a preparation of their own that will
be bitter enough to the taste of those to whom they will apply it.
III.
What rainbow-chasers these McKinleys, Wilsons, and J. P. Joneses are!
Do they not see this country with its limitless resources? Do they not
see the surfeited millionaire, and the hungry laborer with his starving
dependents? Do they not see that they must break down the one if they
would build up the other? Do not these miserable bunglers see that this
noble ship of the fathers is foundering because of her uneven load?
See the imbeciles rushing hither and thither in frantic despair! This,
one with his wad of wool to stop a leak that does not exist; that one
with his tears and kisses falling on the silver charm that hangs about
his neck; this other at the masthead high shouting to foreign Shores for
help we do not need.
Never did the black flag of a Caesar or a Napoleon III. bear down on a
richer-laden prey than this helpless hulk and its jabbering crew.
-
Through Confiscation, and Confiscation alone, can we restore the
conditions that are necessary to the life of the Republic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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