And I sez, “Yes, that’s so; but Charity, though she’s a good creeter and well thought on, hain’t so good as Justice in lots of places.”
He sez, “We give big gifts to the churches.”
And I sez, “Yes, I know it; but do you think that the Lord is goin’ to think any better on you for raisin’ up costly temples sacred to the Lord who specially said in his first 381 sermon that he had come to preach the Gospel to the poor, give sight to the blind, set at liberty them that are bound? As it is you rare up magnificent temples and hire eloquent clergymen to preach the doctrine that condemns you if they preach the Bible, which a good many on ’em do. For you must remember what it sez:
“If you who have plenty give not to your brother in need, how dwelleth the love of God in you? And if you have two coats and your poorer brother has none, you ort to give him your second best one. And you kneel down on your soft hassocks and pray all your enormous, needless wealth away from you, for you pray, ‘Thy kingdom come,’ which you know is the kingdom of love and equality and justice, and ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,’ when you know that God’s will is mercy, pity and love. And ‘Give us our daily bread,’ when you must know that you are takin’ it right out of the mouths of the poor when you are makin’ your big corners on wheat and meat, and freezin’ the widder and orphan when you make your corners on coal.”
Sez I, “Look at Robert Strong’s City of Justice. Love, peace and happiness rains there. Every workman is content, for he has his pay for his labor and a fair percentage on profits. If the factory is prosperous the workman knows that he gets just as much accordin’ for the work he puts in as if he owned the hull thing, and it is for his advantage to give good work and help it along all he can.
“Intemperance is not allowed to show its hoof and horns inside that city, for that would be injustice to the weak-willed and their families. Greed and plunder and the whiskey power has to stay outside, for the Bible sez without are dogs.
“Robert Strong might wring all the money he could from these workmen, wrop himself in a jewelled robe and set up in a gold chair and look down on the bent forms of the poor, sweating and groaning and striking and starving below him. But he don’t want to. He is down there right by the side of ’em. Capital and labor walking side by side 382 some like the lion and the lamb. He has enough for his wants, and they have enough for their wants, and there is mutual good-will there and peace and happiness. Hain’t that better than discontent and envy and despair, bloody riots and revolutions? Cold, selfish, greedy Capital clutching its money-bags, and cowering and hiding away from starvin’ infuriated strikers.”
Sez I, growin’ real eloquent, “Monopoly is the great American brigand hid in the black forest of politics. It has seized Labor in its clutches and wrings a ransom out of every toiler in the land.
“Monopoly steals out of Uncle Sam’s pocket with one hand and with the other clutches the bread-money out of the tremblin’ weak fingers of the poor. Is our law,” sez I, “a travesty, a vain sham, that a man that steals millions for greed goes unpunished, while a man who steals a loaf to keep his children from starvin’ is punished by our laws and scorfed at? Monopoly makes the poor pay tribute on every loaf of bread and bucket of coal, and the govermunt looks on and helps it. Shame! shame that it is so!”
Sez Mr. Astofeller, “Where would the world be to-day if it wuzn’t for rich people building railroads, stringing telegraph and telephone wires, binding the cities and continents together?”