"Harrisburg, Pa.: The various manufacturers of cigarettes in this state have banded together to defeat the Anti-Cigarette League in its efforts to have laws passed forbidding the sale of cigarettes to children. While the manufacturers do not deny that the cigarette is wrecking the physical, mental, and moral character of the American youth, they contend that it will prove detrimental to their business interests, and thereby cause a loss of many thousand dollars if the Anti-Cigarette Law is put into effect. Reliable statistics for the past three years show that one hundred thousand children are ruined annually by smoking cigarettes."
"Pittsburg, Pa.: The Steel Trust has made a general reduction in the salaries of all its employees throughout the United States, which will decrease the wages of the worker from ten to twenty per cent, and affecting in the neighborhood of two hundred thousand men. It is estimated that this sweeping reduction will save the Steel Trust approximately twenty millions of dollars per year. Owing to the manipulations of the Wall Street schemers, this saving becomes necessary to keep the Trust in existence, as in the great merger of the several different steel companies, the actual valuation of the plants was increased one hundred times over in watered stock, so that it not only becomes necessary for those who do the labor to pay dividends on bona fide investments of the capitalists, but to pay dividends on watered stock criminally increased one hundred fold besides. This decrease in wages will cause great suffering among the laboring classes, for, owing to the increased cost of living caused by the raising of prices by the various food trusts, it is almost impossible for the ordinary man to make both ends meet. It appears to all thoughtful students of political economy that the object of those in control of the money markets is to limit the supply of necessities of life, so that the demand for them will force prices up, and, by decreasing production, will cause a superfluous quantity of labor, which, in turn, will force wages down. With cheap labor to produce, and a high selling price for the production, the trust managers and other financiers have easily solved the question of how to legally confiscate the wealth of the world."
"New York City: A great war is now being waged between the rich tenement house owners and their poor tenants on the East Side, which promises to end in lawlessness, riots, and much suffering in consequence. It appears that the owners of these houses have increased the rents from time to time until they are now beyond the reach of the tenants' ability to pay. At least three thousand of these occupants have banded together to fight the last raise, while the landlords have also combined to evict them unless they comply with the terms. The tenants, who are mostly hard working laborers, claim that it is utterly impossible for them to meet the extortionate prices of foods, fuel, gas, oil, and rents, now being forced upon them by the financiers with the small amount of wages that they receive for their work from the industrialists, and if they are evicted from their present homes it is a problem as to what they will do or where they will go. The landlords claim that is none of their concern; that they themselves are merely following the system now in existence of getting all they can, through their property rights, according to the law of supply and demand. Some of them even claim that these tenants are nothing more than vermin, anyway, and that it would be well to push them all into the East River and exterminate them entirely."
The newspaper articles, which I have reproduced, are but a few of the thousands chronicled daily of the terrible crimes which take place in all parts of civilized Christendom over the individual possession of money, or its equivalent, and they also demonstrate that after nineteen hundred years of Christianity the world still remains in a savage state. The Christian must admit, if he will stop and consider, that there must be something lacking in his religion, if after all these centuries, such barbarous conditions still exist. What is lacking? This question can be answered in a few words. The abolition of the money system. The eradication of individual accumulation. The substitution of united labor and honest distribution. The adherence to the principles of Natural Law.
Had Christ taught Natural Law instead of supernatural religion, had he been an organizer and started a movement toward the abolition of the money system and established a united labor organization in place of the system of individual accumulation, the world long ere this would have been a heavenly abiding place for the human family, instead of a seething furnace of petty quarrels, murderous fights, and selfish strife among all of the inhabitants.
Why should one hog have more to eat than another? Why should one man have more luxuries and privileges than another? Why should the man who conceives an idea receive a greater reward than he who puts the idea into execution? Why should the man who works with his brain have more of the sweets of life than he who works with his hands? Why should the man who lays the brick have more of the world's goods than he who carries the brick mortar to him? These questions do not apply alone to the capitalist, but also to the laborer as well, and as long as the laboring classes champion the cutthroat policy of grading man's allowance according to his ability, of giving more to one than another, owing to a slight difference of brain capacity, he should not, after showing his own greediness in this respect, expect the capitalist not to be greedy also. He must learn that all men should have equal opportunities and benefits from the whole production of united labor. As long as money exists, so long will fights and quarrels take place between capital and labor, and between the different branches of labor as well. The laborer will fight the capitalist until he in turn becomes a capitalist, and then he will turn about and fight the laborer. So there is but one reasonable method to pursue in order to better the conditions on earth, and to eliminate suffering and crime entirely, and that method is to strike at the very root of the cause, and abolish money and the system of individual accumulation.
My sojourn at the Waldoria Hotel was a rather pleasant one in many ways. I enjoyed the luxury and refinement of the surroundings. The harmonious music of the orchestras was pleasant to listen to, and the magnificent paintings and beautiful works of art were pleasing to the eye. I also took some pleasure in wearing the different suits of fine clothes with which I had been supplied, and in making my own person appear as well as possible in the eyes of others. I even enjoyed entering the spacious and luxurious restaurants and eating sparingly of some of the delicious viands prepared by the scientific chef. In fact, the many delightful advantages to be derived from living at the Waldoria directly appealed to me as being some of the blessings supplied by nature for all human beings to enjoy.
But still there was a serious drawback to my thorough and absolute enjoyment of these conditions, when I took into consideration the fact that I was in no way responsible for their existence. I was accepting something from the community, but giving nothing in return. I felt that in living at the Waldoria, and doing no work for the community, I was like a great sponge soaking up the life-blood of honest toil, and returning nothing for the sustenance it afforded me. I felt that I should at least go to work and do something that would help to pay for my keeping. True it was that I had the money to pay for these things, but where did the money come from? Where does all money come from? To have money to pay for things does not mean that one has earned them. So I decided that I would go to work as soon as possible, and give to the community an equivalent for the things I enjoyed.
But then, the great difficulty arose when I tried to find something to do. It made little difference what kind of work I should engage in as long as it was of a productive nature. But when I went around looking for employment, I discovered that there was none to be had.