Confiscations; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918
A policy that keeps our increase of wealth in the country, and prevents
it from lodging in a few hands, can work no injury whatever. No
enterprise worthy of notice will languish for the want of the necessary
capital. The savings banks are the depositories of the people, and the
capital of those institution in all the cities of the country exceeds
that of the commercial or capitalistic banks, and the "statements" of
the savings banks should dispel any fears as to whether capital can be
concentrated afterit once gets into the hands of the people. $50,000,000
is the assets of more than one savings bank in the City of New York. And
our own San Francisco has its Hibernia and other banks of its kind, with
from $5,000,000 to $30,000,000 of capital. And when it is remembered
that the total deposits of an individual in most of those institutions
is not allowed to exceed $3,000, we can see that the people will not
fail us as "concentrators" when their help is needed.
Those statements also show whether those of small means are for
concealing it, or for putting it into the hands of competent managers
for investment. And if these competent managers approve of an enterprise
they will not neglect their client's interests by refusing to make the
required loan.
At present, they do not seek investment outside of corporate limits,
and, of course, the money they have been intrusted with, must be about
all invested, and cannot be called idle money, or there could be no
interest paid to its owners.
There will be no friction in the management of industrial enterprises
when this savings-bank depositor makes a direct investment. The voter at
the polls has his say as to who shall fill a political office, but he
cannot interfere in the work of the office itself. Neither will our
investor have the right or power to interfere. In short, the modern
industrial world would go to pieces even now, if it was run by its
million owners, instead of by its appointed or elected superintendent.
These small depositors are either laborers or in "business;" business
that they would enlarge if business of all kinds was not already
overdone. It is not to be inferred from this that the new law will cause
factories to run day and night, or keep the merchant's door always on
the swing. There will be an increase of business surely; but this world
is not like a goose whose liver we are after. Her capacity to absorb
what we make or produce is limited, and when we reach that limit, let us
be content, and chain down Greed for the moment, that we may look out
and see how beautiful is this world whereon we live, when freed from the
crack of the master's whip.
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Through Confiscation alone can the people regain their liberty and
possession of their resources.
A readjustment means justice to all.
Without it the days of the republic are numbered, and the overwhelming
disaster to mankind will mark the burial place of the aspirations of its
founders, and the latest conquest of individual greed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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