The national debt of France is $7,000,000,000. This exceeds the combined
national debts of the United States, England, and Germany.
In territory, France is not as large as California.
Her population is[2] ....................... 37,000,000
The population of the United States is ..... 65,000,000
The population of England is ............... 37,000,000
The population of Germany is ............... 40,000,000
____________
Total .................................. 142,000,000
The French navy is a fairly close second to that of England.
Her army is as large as that of Germany.
France, then, supports an army and navy of the first class, and has only
37,000,000 people to do it with. And this same 37,000,000 people pays
interest on a debt that is greater than that of the 142,000,000 people
in the three countries named. Yet there is no wail of distress, such as
we are familiar with, heard in this France, with its great army and
navy, and its fabulous interest-bearing, debt.
What is the secret of it?
France is the greatest producer of luxeries in the world, and, of
course, has the rich the world over for her customers; and she is a
nation of small owners, her resources, land and all else, being
subdivided among her people to an extent unknown elsewhere. This is only
half the secret.
There is a natural increase of wealth in every country. Keep that
natural increase in the country where it is made, and there will always
be a surplus left after the mere live and wear expenses are paid, and
this surplus can be used either to support an army or to build
macadamized roads. This then is the other half, without which she would
be where we are: France legislates to keep her wealth in her own country
- and her loss on that canal is only one plum out of her heeping bushel.
The foreign sapper and miner does no work on French soil. His field of
operation is the whole American continent, beginning in Canada and on
down through, without a skip, till he reaches Magellan and the Horn,
scattering his due bills all the way.
The French law-maker, in spite of his clatter, is without a peer, and he
dwarfs none so much as our own, who will become the butt of his own
sneer if he ever gets his eyes open.
This foreign master of the art of governing legislates in the interests
of his own people, who are the only source of his country's power or
greatness, and he leaves the income of the large farm or small one where
it is made. And when the issuing of bonds is the only alternative he
issues them in sizes those small incomes can buy.
Their labor pays the debt in the end, and it is their interests that are
first consulted when profits from bond issues are considered. He makes
the size of the bond fit their ability to buy, and not that of the
millionaire syndicate, as is the case in this misgoverned land, where
the matchless ignorance and complicity of the law-maker is made to serve
the matchless corruption and greed of its millionaire master.
No French syndicate makes its five to ten per cent. profits off every
issue of bonds.
Thousands among our toilers could have secured their ten-dollar savings
could they have bought Government bonds of that denomination but they
could not, and were forced to become the victims of swindling bankers.
Individual greed cares nothing for its victims as they are thrown on the
streets and its ways.
When this enterprising foreigner, with his surplus capital, the result
of wise laws, started for Panama to do a much needed work for this
Western world, that this great gold producing country could not find the
capital to do, our blackmailers worked the Monroe Doctrine on him and
all the while he was quieting the rascals, the sappers and miners were
splitting their sides at our treasury door.
Congress is opened by a chaplain. It should be opened by a physician and
a warrant - bibs for the drooling chins of some and the rest to jail.
[2] The writer is not within hundreds of miles of works of reference;
but these figures are substantially correct. The quibbler, however, is
welcome to anything he may find.
Conclusion.
A policy that keeps our increase of wealth in the country, and prevents
it from lodging in a few hands, can work no injury whatever. No
enterprise worthy of notice will languish for the want of the necessary
capital. The savings banks are the depositories of the people, and the
capital of those institution in all the cities of the country exceeds
that of the commercial or capitalistic banks, and the "statements" of
the savings banks should dispel any fears as to whether capital can be
concentrated afterit once gets into the hands of the people. $50,000,000
is the assets of more than one savings bank in the City of New York. And
our own San Francisco has its Hibernia and other banks of its kind, with
from $5,000,000 to $30,000,000 of capital. And when it is remembered
that the total deposits of an individual in most of those institutions
is not allowed to exceed $3,000, we can see that the people will not
fail us as "concentrators" when their help is needed.
Those statements also show whether those of small means are for
concealing it, or for putting it into the hands of competent managers
for investment. And if these competent managers approve of an enterprise
they will not neglect their client's interests by refusing to make the
required loan.
At present, they do not seek investment outside of corporate limits,
and, of course, the money they have been intrusted with, must be about
all invested, and cannot be called idle money, or there could be no
interest paid to its owners.
There will be no friction in the management of industrial enterprises
when this savings-bank depositor makes a direct investment. The voter at
the polls has his say as to who shall fill a political office, but he
cannot interfere in the work of the office itself. Neither will our
investor have the right or power to interfere. In short, the modern
industrial world would go to pieces even now, if it was run by its
million owners, instead of by its appointed or elected superintendent.
These small depositors are either laborers or in "business;" business
that they would enlarge if business of all kinds was not already
overdone. It is not to be inferred from this that the new law will cause
factories to run day and night, or keep the merchant's door always on
the swing. There will be an increase of business surely; but this world
is not like a goose whose liver we are after. Her capacity to absorb
what we make or produce is limited, and when we reach that limit, let us
be content, and chain down Greed for the moment, that we may look out
and see how beautiful is this world whereon we live, when freed from the
crack of the master's whip.
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Through Confiscation alone can the people regain their liberty and
possession of their resources.
A readjustment means justice to all.
Without it the days of the republic are numbered, and the overwhelming
disaster to mankind will mark the burial place of the aspirations of its
founders, and the latest conquest of individual greed.
That disaster cannot be averted by Grover Cleveland, the head of the
Democratic party, finding a foreign market for a few more shiploads of
our products. And never should the oppressed of other lands find an
enemy here to take their bread. Pinching nature has not made wolves of
this people that they should go and show their teeth among the cabins
and hovels of Europe. Theirs is but a crust now, and a judgement should
wither the hand that would take it from them.
This disaster cannot be averted by Thomas B. Reed, the idol and
recognized leader of the Republican party, forcing the producers of
those few ship loads of products to consume them themselves. The whole
could be dropped to the bottom of the sea, or sold for their value a
hundred fold, and it would not stay the doom of the Republic one swing
of the pendulum.
This disaster cannot be averted by Robert G. Ingersoll - another idol -
advising the millionaire to be extravagant. Or by taking the
labor-saving machinery away from the people, and keeping them longer at
their toil, as this humbug has suggested.
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This Is The Age Of Beef.
Our leaders are incompetent. Argument here is needless. We have plenty
of everything, and plenty of hunger at the same time, which shows
mismanagement. Our leaders, therefore, must be incompetent. Nor should
the blame of this be charged to the people. Statecraft, like the
prescribing of medicine or the practice of law, is a profession, and the
unlearned in their ways is at the mercy of the quacks of all three.
When none but quacks offer their services to the State a selection must
be made, and the people cannot be held to account for choosing quacks
when there was nothing to choose from but quacks.
Whatever physical characteristics distinguishes the genius of leadership
from the ordinary man; whether it is long legs or short; long nose or
pug; big heads or little, one thing is certain - history tells you on
her every page that leadership is never found in combination with beef.
Cleveland and Reed! How they stew and swelter in positions they cannot
fill. How these Jonahs have grown till they have become the whale
itself. How their fat will spot the pages to come, and float on the sea
where the Republic went down.
And Ingersoll - let us not forget Ingersoll - the thumber over of past
woes, whose five hundred dollar opera ticket identifies the class to
which he now belongs, and proves his success as a fifteenth century
reformer. The people made and keep up the acquaintance of this man by
way of the ticket office, but instead of considering him as they would
any other footlight performer, who had struck a paying vein and was
working it for all it was worth, and who can only be heard at so much
per ticket, they have come to look upon the character he has been acting
as the man himself, and their friend who would make their cause his own.
No fee is collected at the door of the little church that is found along
the byways of every Christian land, and its humble preacher can be heard
free of cost. But abuse of this follower and disciple of Jesus, whose
teachings are in no way responsible for the crimes of Individual Greed,
has been the source of large profits to this man, who has even gone so
far as to tell his hearers not to give a dollar to the support of a
preacher - meaning, doubtless, while you could see his performance for
half the money.
This man, whose audience is world-wide, uses his great opportunity for
helping mankind by inclosing the scenes of former struggles, and
collecting the gate receipts.
This bogus friend of the people answers the cry of distress that is
heard all over this bountiful land by a shrug, and a nod to the master
to drop a few more crumbs, as if the people were hungry dogs under the
table.
Ingersoll a friend of the oppressed? He would render justice to the
enslaved toiler by lengthening his hours of labor.
A sham reformer, who would destroy the Inquisition of this day by
plunging his spotless blade into an Inquisition whose sun has set, never
to rise again.
Ingersoll of the tender soul, who shows the sincerity of his
exhibition-tears for the persecuted dead by riding, rough-shod, over the
sensibilities of the blameless living.
Warrior Ingersoll, furiously charging up and down an abandoned
battle-field, rattling the bleaching bones of a dead and gone enemy -
for an admission fee.
Ingersoll the capper, who would turn all eyes to the ashes of a
burned-out bell, while another is being dug in our rear.
Cleveland - Reed - Ingersoll,