THE GHOULS OF WALL STREET.

463

ble bursts; and continually involve the legitimate industries of the country in serious embarrassments, if not in ruin.

It is this class of men who hold sway in Wall Street, and thence virtually rule the country. Nay, not these brokers, themselves; they are but tools who do the bidding of the Vanderbilts, Goulds, Drews, et id omne genus, the real Ghouls, who fatten upon the body social and politic; and who, under a garb of sanctity or honor, sit plotting in their offices, and manipulate stocks and men to suit their own purposes.

These wretches not only can create fictitious values, but can also produce a scarcity of currency at will, backed as they are, by the powerful co-operation of banks which they largely or wholly control.

Many of these latter corporations, trading largely upon the money deposited from day to day by men in legitimate business, furnish capital to these sharks on fictitious or real security—which, it matters little. A fall of stocks is brought about, and they lock up currency. Legitimate business can not borrow, but the "lame ducks" who have securities to offer-ah, they can have money, at from two to five per cent. a month. And thus unscrupulous banking corporations make it pay at both ends. The last panic has been called the "rich man's panic." But look at what we see around us every day, and the misnomer is only too apparent.

The remedy is simple. Neither wealth, place, nor power, must be allowed to buy exemption from the punishment which our laws affix to crime. Law must be so administered that it shall be a terror to evil-doers of whatsoever kind, degree, or station; and the public conscience must be quickened until nothing short of this will be accepted, as well in actual practice as in sentimental theorizing.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

MONOPOLIES AND SPECIAL PRIVILEGES.

WHAT ARE MONOPOLIES?

The granting of a charter or franchise of any kind creates a monopoly. Patents are monopolies. A right to a ferry across a river is a monopoly, usually more or less restricted. A tariff which protects any given industry of the country creates a monopoly. The right to do a banking or manufacturing business in some degree constitutes a monopoly. The - same is true of railroads and telegraph lines. Even the pioneers of a new country, in one respect, partake of the character of monopolists; for the after-coming settler must buy of them, or not at all.

Monopolies, as these illustrations show, are not evils necessarily. It is an abuse of the powers granted that constitutes the evil. If Congress grant extraordinary privileges to certain classes of manufacturers, in consequence of which all who buy their wares are really obliged to pay a tax on the value of the goods sold, this protection constitutes a monopoly, not necessarily objectionable, however; not at all so, indeed, if the design be to build up that manufacture, and the protection bestowed is not so large as to make the tax unjust to the nation at large. But when the industry becomes strong, and while exporting their wares to foreign ports, and underselling the markets there, and especially

COMMUNISM OF PROTECTED INDUSTRIES.

465

when they use the power of their wealth to bribe officials, in order to secure a continuance of this monopoly, then it is odious, and it becomes the right and duty of a free people to rebel against this injustice, and, through the ballot-box, hurl from office the sordid placemen who have fleeced the people by their unscrupulous deeds. As instances of monopolies of this sort, it is only necessary to mention the host of reissued patents, and the protection on iron, salt, lumber, etc.; notoriously unjust, and kept going simply by the power of the wealth of those holding the monopolies, through our members of Congress and other public men.

Interior of Farm-house in the Olden Time.

Greatest of all the evils of which the American people have to complain are the various conspiracies by which the people are continually fleeced. Conspicuous among these are the combinations against the public interests based upon

and originating in the system of granting special privileges, by national and State Legislatures.

The ramification of this systematized robbery of the people, through the communism of capital, now extends through every industry of the nation.

The railway companies are a company of communists who take toll from all. The iron manufacturers, able to stand alone but protected to a most scandalous extent, and who have taken untold millions from the working men of the United States, exact their toll from the railroad companies, as well as every individual in the nation. We can not even toast a piece of cheese on a wire without paying toll to these arch-conspirators. They are now so strong that individuals can not even undertake the manufacture of iron without asking their gracious leave. The immense capital at the command of the few persons concerned in this industry enables them to dictate to those entering the business what they shall and what they shall not do. If they agree to use money to keep the monopoly intact, they are taken into the communion; if not, they are crushed, just as the iron-masters of England sought to crush this and other industries in the United States while yet young and weak. This is why tariffs were originally instituted; but in these days the strong and rich are protected, and the weak and poor are made to pay for all.

EXAMPLES OF ODIOUS PROTECTION.

Salt is protected, although the poor use more than the rich, and although the manufacturers sell their surplus in foreign markets lower than they do at home. Iron is protected, although, however poor the individual, he can not cook or eat his meat without paying tribute to these iron

RAILROADS AS PROTECTED MONOPOLIES.

467

lords, who, in reality, are able to compete with any nation on earth on equal terms. Almost every man and woman in the nation, however poor, now uses tea or coffee as one of the necessities of life, and ought to use as much, nay more, per individual, than the rich. They are obliged to pay an enormous tax for this privilege, and we have not the poor excuse to offer that it is protecting American industry.

On the other hand, the money changer buys up government bonds, upon which he pays no tax but receives interest. Depositing these again with the government, he is allowed to issue notes to nearly the amount deposited, and upon these notes he received the full interest which he may be able to grind out of the necessities of the people, besides the profits from the wear and tear of his paper currency (sometimes amounting to ten, fifteen, or twenty per cent.), and the discount thereon as compared with gold. He then uses the moneys of his depositors to speculate with. The history of commercial convulsions shows that usually it is not forthcoming when most wanted.

RAILROADS AS PROTECTED MONOPOLIES.

A railroad corporation is granted a vast area of the public domain, more than sufficient to build the road; nay, the government subsidizes it besides with a grant of large sums of money per mile. In return, and with the very moneys thus donated, the management corrupt our public men, that they may still further bind their fetters about the people.

Or, a railway is projected through a country already thickly settled. It is given the right of way, and, perhaps, subsidized to the extent of from $10,000 to $75,000 by the townships and cities through which it runs. The company has a monopoly of the carrying trade, necessarily so. In