Let us suppose that Christ and John L. Sullivan were contesting for the pugilistic championship under London prize ring rules, most assuredly Sullivan would win in the first round. But let us change the conditions and make the place of contest the pulpit of a Quaker church, and the subject: "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of heaven," don't you think Sullivan would be quite out of place and Christ would be the victor on that occasion? Suppose a fine pasture, bountiful with grass and water should be well stocked with a few hundred sheep and lambs and lurking around in hidden nooks of the field were a dozen or more Norway wolves; the sheep and the wolves are in the same pasture, I want to ask you, my friend, what kind of stock do you think the farmer will have in that pasture in a few days if he says to himself the law of the survival of the fittest will protect those sheep if they are fit to live, and if they can't survive then I will shear the wolves for my winter's wool. My friends, if that farmer ever got any wool from those wolves he would have to get it from their stomachs; he couldn't shear it from their backs, because it don't grow on that class of animals. What would you think of the farmer's good wife if after the wolves had killed and sucked the warm blood of the last lamb she would in her supreme recognition of the law of the survival of the fittest take from her child's grave the tombstone that had carved thereon the image of a little lamb at rest under the weeping willow and place in its stead a statue of marble with the life-sized image of a wolf with the blood of a lamb streaming from his teeth? No, that would not be the act of a sane mother, nor would the farmer willingly leave the sheep in the pasture with no other protection but the wolves.
Under laws recognizing viciousness the most vicious will survive best.
Our country and her people are industrious and willing, but we are in debt, having promised to pay American dollars that by the vicious system of contracting the money under the gold standard which makes dollars harder and harder to get, which is only another way of expressing the fact that wages and produce will go lower year by year under the system of greed that is accompanying the gold standard in all countries. But one thing can help the masses of our people out of the bondage of debt, and that thing is higher prices for labor and produce.
Higher prices in America will follow either of two causes—foreign famine and war or bimetallism and an increased volume of money. The latter is within our control, the former method no one should desire.
Let us not disclaim against the wolves, for scientists tell us that the shepherd dog that so kindly protects the sheep is a direct descendant of the wolf, but he has been domesticated by the law of man. So we see that under the vicious law of the survival of the fittest the wolf as a master was a sheep destroyer, but under the civilized law of the survival of the fittest, the descendant of the vicious wolf as we know, the shepherd dog is a servant of the sheep. Gold is good money, but as a master it is a tyrant. Let us hitch it side by side with silver and paper money, put it all under direct control of the government, and the wealth of this nation will be our servant, but with gold in control our nation's wealth becomes a hard master.
The other day, while on the train, in conversation with a rich banker, the subject of the rich and poor came up. He said "there was nothing in the law that tended to make people rich or poor." His idea was that individual prosperity came from each man's ability as a financier. "Why," said he, "don't you know that if the property was all equally divided among the people, the same people who now have it would get it again in a very short time?" I asked him if he was willing to change certain laws about the banking business, then divide the property and money of the United States equally among the people? He said "he did not want to have any such thing done." When I asked him to specifically name his objections to such a transaction, he replied "that it would not be fair to take what he made and give it to some one who had not made it." Then when I reminded him that he had said he would have it all back in a short time, he said that "if the law was changed about banking he would not have the same chance to get it back that he now had to keep it." I told him that I agreed with him on his last statement, but if I should agree with him in his first statement I could not see how the changed law and division of property would affect his ability, and if it did affect it, then I said the banking law must be a part of his ability. Then he replied that "banking laws were something that our congressmen would attend to." At this part of the conversation the train stopped and the banker bade me good-by and with a pleasant smile greeted a crowd that was waiting at the depot to escort him to the opera house, where he was to make a speech in favor of a law allowing the banks to issue all the money and retire the government from the banking business. The fellow was a candidate for congress.
As the train left the station I took from my valise a little book of statistics and found that 79 per cent of our Congressmen and 63 per cent of our Senators were either bankers or bank directors, then I thought his last remark was true, that our Congressmen would attend to the banking laws all right, especially from a banker's point of view. I then thought of a path up the mountain side that was so crooked a traveler going up would meet himself coming back.
Thanks for your attention.
SPEECH DELIVERED AT JACKSONVILLE, ILLINOIS, DECEMBER 15, 1897,
BY C. A. BOGARDUS.