And I will tell you another benefit that will follow the nationalization of our railroads. You have all heard of the dealing in stocks, of the “bulls” and the “bears,” and the “longs” and the “shorts,” and the “lame ducks” of Wall street. Well, they will all be abolished. There will be no stocks in which to deal. That sort of speculation, by which gigantic swindlers corner a stock and take it in at their own figures, will, to use a vulgar phrase, be “played out.” And if you were to see their customers, as I have seen them, rushing about Broad street to catch sight of the last per cent. of their margins as they disappear in the hungry maw of the complacent brokers, you would agree with me that it ought to be “played out.”
Under the system which I propose, not only will stock gambling be abolished, but also all other gambling, and the hundreds of thousands of able-bodied people who are now engaged in it, living from the products of others, will be compelled to go to producing themselves.
But, says the objector, take riches away from people and there will be no incentive to accumulate. But, my dear sir, we don’t propose to do anything of the kind, nor to destroy any wealth. There will never be any less wealth than now, but a constant increase upon it. We only propose that the people shall hold it in their own right, instead of its being held in trust for them by a self-appointed few. Instead of having a few millionaires, and millions on the verge of starvation, we propose that all shall possess a comfortable competence—that is, shall possess the results of their own labors.
I can’t see where there is a chance for a lack of motive to come in. It seems to me that everybody will have a better and a more certain chance, as well as a better incentive to accumulate. Will the certainty of accumulation destroy the desire to accumulate? Nobody but the most stupid would attempt to maintain that. It is not great wealth in a few individuals that proves a country prosperous, but great general wealth evenly distributed among the people. That country must be the most prosperous and happy where the people are most generally comfortably and happily circumstanced. And in this country, instead of a hundredth part of the people living in palaces and riding in coaches, while the balance live in huts and travel on foot, every person may live in a palace and ride in a coach. I leave it to you to decide which is the preferable condition and which the more Christian.
And why should the rich object to this? If everybody has enough and to spare, should that be a subject of complaint? What more do people want, except it be for the purpose of tyrannizing over others dependent upon them? But no objections that may be raised will be potent enough to crush out the demand for equality now rising from an oppressed people. This demand the possessors of wealth cannot afford to ignore. It comes from a patiently-enduring people, who have waited already too long for the realization of the beautiful pictures of freedom which have been painted for them to admire; for the realization of the songs which poets have sung to its praise. Let me warn, nay, let me implore them not to be deaf to this demand, since they do not know so well as I know what temper there is behind it. I have tested it, and I know it is one that will not much longer brook the denial of justice.
But there is another monopoly of which I must speak—I mean the monopoly of money itself. We have seen how great a tyranny that is which arises from monopolizing the land. But that occurring from the monopoly of money, is a still more insidious and dangerous form of despotism, since its ramifications are more extensive and minute. It may be exercised by the person possessing a hundred, or by the person possessing a million dollars. But what is the process? A person inherits a half million dollars for which he never expended a single day’s labor. He sits in his office loaning that sum of money say, in sums of one thousand dollars to one thousand different persons, each of whom conducts a little business which yields just enough to support a family and to pay the interest. These people live for forty years in this manner, and die no better off than when they began life. But during that time they have paid all their extra production to the amount of four thousand dollars, each, to the capitalist; and, finally, the business itself is sold out to pay the principal. And thus it turns out that the capitalist obtains everything those thousand persons earned during their whole lives, they leaving nothing to their families. Now, what better is that result than it would have been had these people been slaves? Could their owners have obtained any more from them? I say they would have obtained less; since, had they been slaves in name, as in fact they were, there would have been times during the forty years that they would not have earned interest over cost of their support. Now, look at the capitalist. For one million dollars, and without the straining of a muscle, he receives five million dollars direct, which, reinvested from time to time as it increases, amounts at the end of the forty years to not less than fifteen millions dollars.
But try another example of a somewhat different kind. A person having four grown children, whom he has reared in luxury, and given all the facilities of education, dies, leaving each of them a farm worth twenty-five thousand dollars. These children having never learned the art of farming are incapable of conducting these farms; but they lease them to four different people for a thousand dollars a year each, and live at ease all their lives, therefrom, never so much as lifting their hands to do an hour’s labor. Now, who is it that supports those four people? Is it not clear that it is the people who work the farms? And how did it happen that they had the farms to lease? Simply by an incident for which there was no legitimate general cause, else why do not all children have farms and live without work?
Nor can you, my friends, discover anything approaching equality, or aught that looks like justice in that operation. I tell you nay! It is the most insidious despotism, with a single exception, that is possible among a people. It is a despotism which was condemned in all former times, even by barbarians, and which the Jews were only permitted to enforce upon people of other nations. It is the hideous vampire fastened upon the vitals of our people, sucking—sucking—sucking their very life’s blood, leaving just enough to keep up their vitality, that they may manufacture more. It is the heartless monster that will have the exact pound of flesh, even if there be loss of blood to obtain it, and there is no just judge near to prevent the taking, or to hold him to account if he take it. It paralyzes our industries; shuts the gates in the way that leads to our inexhaustible treasures within the bosom of mother earth; strips the stars and stripes from the masts of merchantmen; compels our immense cotton lands to luxuriate in weeds; robs our spindles of the power to turn them; and lays an embargo upon every productive enterprise. Whoever makes a movement to compel the earth to yield her wealth, or to transform that wealth into useful form, must first obtain the consent of this despot, and pay his demands for a license.
Thirteen millions of laborers in this country produce annually four thousand millions dollars of wealth, every dollar of which over and above the cost of living is paid over to appease the demands of this insatiate monster—this horrid demon, whose name is Interest.
We are told that we cannot manufacture railroad iron in this country as cheap as it can be manufactured in England. Yes! And why? Is it because we have no ore or no coal; or that, which is not as good as England has? No! We have on the surface what in England is hundreds of feet in the bowels of the earth, and coal the same; and both of better quality. But money can be put at interest in this country so as to double itself every four years, and be amply secured. What reason have capitalists to construct iron works, or to have their care, when twenty-five per cent. per year is returned them, without care or risk? And what is true of iron is also true of every other natural production. Is it any wonder that our manufacturers are obliged to demand that the people pay an additional per cent. upon everything they eat, drink or wear, that they may be protected in their various productive enterprises, when such exactions are laid upon them by this more than absolute monarch? No! It would indeed be a wonder if it were not so.