BONDS THAT HOLD PRESENT AND POSTERITY.
Behold, in imagination at least, this mass of stocks and bonds. Heaps of paper they seem; dead, inorganic things. A second's blaze will consume any one of them, a few strokes of the fingers tear it into shapeless ribbons Yet under the institution of law, as it exists, these pieces of paper are endowed with a terrible power of life and death that even enthroned kings do not possess. Those dainty prints with their scrolls and numerals and inscriptions are binding titles to the absolute ownership of a large part of the resources created by the labors of entire peoples.
Kingly power at best is shadowy, indefinite, depending mostly upon traditional custom and audacious assumption backed by armed force. If it fall back upon a certain alleged divine right it cannot produce documents to prove its authority. The industrial monarchs of the United States are fortified with both power and proofs of possession. Those bonds and stocks are the tangible titles to tangible property; whoso holds them is vested with the ownership of the necessities of tens of millions of subjected people. Great stretches of railroad traverse the country; here are coal mines to whose products some ninety million people look for warmth; yonder are factories; there in the cities are street car lines and electric light and power supply and gas plants; on every hand are lands and forests and waterways— all owned, you find, by this or that dominant man or family.
The mind wanders back in amazement to the times when, if a king conquered territory, he had to erect a fortress or castle and station a garrison to hold it. They that then disputed the king's title could challenge, if they chose, at peril of death, the provisions of that title, which same provisions were swords and spears, arrows and muskets.
But nowhere throughout the large extent of the Vanderbilt's possessions or those of other ruling families are found warlike garrisons as evidence of ownership. Those uncouth barbarian methods are grossly antiquated; the part once played by armed battalions is now performed by bits of paper. A wondrously convenient change has it been; the owners of the resources of nations can disport themselves thousands of miles away from the scene of their ownership; they need never bestir themselves to provide measures for the retention of their property. Government, with its array of officials, prisons, armies and navies, undertakes all of this protection for them. So long as they hold these bits of paper in their name, Government recognizes them as the incontestable owners and safeguards their property accordingly. The very Government established on the taxation of the workers is used to enforce the means by which the workers are held in subjection.