All of this wealth is in the hands of but a small percentage of the people, and what is incomprehensible to the masses is the fact that a very large per cent of it is in the hands of foreign capitalists. Of the $10,000,000,000 of railroad bonds and stocks, it is a conservative estimate to say that one-half of it belongs to foreign, principally English, capitalists. The question is often asked, How did they acquire this property? What did they give us in exchange for it? Was it gold, silver, or merchandise? If neither of these, what did we get? To prove that they did not send us either gold, silver, or merchandise in payment for at least $5,000,000,000 of our railroad bonds, we have only to refer to the report of the Secretary of the United States Treasury for 1891, and we find that since the close of the war, in 1865, our exports of gold, silver, and merchandise have exceeded our imports in the sum of $872,000,000; so that it is very clear that we have been sending them an enormous amount of money and merchandise over and above the amount we have imported from them, and whatever may have been received from the railroad bonds is still to be accounted for. To understand how they have acquired this hold upon the resources of the country, imposing a burden on the people that is surely and certainly reducing them to the condition of paupers and serfs, we shall have to go back to the days of the war, and review the financial policy of the Government, and point out how the laws have been framed exclusively in the interest of capital. During the war the Government issued many kinds of paper money, such as greenbacks, seven-thirty notes, one-year notes, compound-interest notes, and one, two, and three year notes, all amounting to nearly $2,000,000,000. This money was put in circulation by paying it out at its full face value to the soldiers, sailors, and creditors of the United States, but the Government would not receive it back in payment of duties upon imports, but would receive it from any one who wished to purchase five-twenty Government bonds, taking it at its face value. The interest on these bonds was 6 per cent, payable in coin. This continued until February, 1863, when the laws were enacted that provided that after July 1, 1863, the paper money should not be received in exchange for bonds having interest payable in coin. The result of this was that shortly after the law went into effect the paper issued by the Government rapidly depreciated, and very soon it was worth only about 40 cents on the dollar, but our soldiers were still compelled to take it at its full face value, that is, 100 cents on the dollar. At the close of the war, in 1865, our Government issued many hundreds of millions of their depreciated paper and paid it out to the soldiers, sailors, and other creditors of the Government at its full face value, 100 cents on the dollar.