Confiscations; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918
$1,000,000,000 was the war indemnity demanded of France by the Germans,
and so vast is this sum that the civilized world believed the Germans
wanted to retain possession of the conquered country and demanded what
the French could not pay. Yet the amount of American money it took to
buy those two hundred and eighty titles is far in excess of that war
indemnity. At four millions each it would exceed $1,000,000,000. But the
average cost must have been more than four millions. One of our
millionaire flour mill owners, who is a mere tallow candle in this
constellation, paid $7,000,000 for the title his daughter is now
wearing. And this $7,000,000 must have been a mere bagatelle compared to
what it cost Huntington to get the lively Hatzfeldt. The poor flour mill
man could not have paid that fellow's "debts of honor." This buying of
titles, however, is but one way by which the millionaires are beggaring
the American people. So much of their time is now spent over there that
they have come to look upon the United States as their rented farm, and
Europe as the place where they, in their high roller way, must get rid
of its income. Call to mind the millionaire families who live a large
part of their time in Europe. Call to mind those who have made Europe
their permanent home, with their income drawn from the United States.
Call to mind the great European estates, that have been first cleared of
their peasantry, and then leased by American millionaires, that they may
have the exclusive right to shoot at something. Call to mind the New
York City millionaire, who purchased an English estate, one to fit the
title he is lick-spittling after, and where he can rest, after airing
his mind in his great London Daily and Monthly; all three, estate and
periodicals, being a source of loss, that is made good by American
earned money. Call all these things to mind, and if we are poor in
capital have we not found the reason why?
Europe is the Broadway of these people, and they are there to squander
money, not to make it. And the European visitor to our shores does not
make up the loss. He comes, looks at some of our landscape, Niagara, the
Yosemite, etc., and is out of the country and home again. His is but a
drop to the ocean we lose.
Need we wonder at our gold disappearing? Our bonds and stocks,
Government and corporation, are scattered broadcast over the whole of
Europe, and those decrepit titles, that were dying out, have been put on
their feet again by American money, and are now living off the interest
of American bonds of one kind or another.
Nor should we have to borrow foreign capital. It is over a century since
this government was established, and it is time we had enough capital of
our own.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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