THE "SYSTEM" AND THE LOUISIANA LOTTERY COMPARED
Years ago one of the greatest evils in this country was the Louisiana
Lottery. Through that lottery millions and millions annually were taken
from the people and transferred to a few unprincipled schemers, who soon
found themselves in possession of enormous fortunes. Wise men called for
the abatement of this awful drain on the savings of the nation, but the
law-abiding, God-fearing people of the country met their plaints with
"Why should we be bothered about this matter? If fools and knaves elect
to gamble in such palpably fraudulent ways, let them gamble, and their
losses are no affair of ours. It is none of our business." But presently
these honest people had it pounded into their well-meaning heads that
the principal instrument by which the swindle was conducted was their
own mail service, one of the most important branches of their
Government; that, in fact, in each and every city, town, village, and
cross-road in all our virtuous land, Government officials were acting as
distributing agents for this huge corrupter and robber.
Then the people rose in their irresistible might, and between the rising
of one day's sun and its setting this powerful machine went as goes the
gum-drop on the red-hot stove cover at a pop-corn soiree. It melted,
leaving nothing but a faint odor and a thin stain, both of which
disappeared in the next morning's scrubbing, and the Louisiana Lottery
was as though it had never been. Yet during its reign its insolent
votaries could prove to the absolute satisfaction of all intelligent,
patriotic men that it was useless for any man or set of men to attempt
the lottery's destruction, because they would be met with the
accumulated resistance of the reckless spending of the vast amounts of
festered dollars which had been stolen from the people. The argument of
these comparatively petty thieves was: "No men nor sets of men can hope
to 'stack up' against us, for their money comes hard, cents and dollars
at a time; they are obliged to earn it, while we get ours in chunks by
simply taking it. We can buy lawyers and can hire law-makers, and we can
lease Government officials, and we can outbid any honest men, who are
the only ones who object to our game. In the market for legislative or
business talent you cannot get within touching distance of us." Yet the
people had but to sneeze and this foul parasite was detached from their
free and honest structure and was wafted away with the dead leaves and
the dust to bottomless nowhere.
In the height of its prosperity the Louisiana Lottery took from the
people only a paltry ten or twenty million dollars a year, while to-day
there are single groups of banks, trust companies, corporations, and
trusts which take from the people by might, by trick, and by theft
hundreds of millions each year; and there are scores of such groups. The
Sugar trust has been the instrument of gathering, in one year, a hundred
millions of the people's savings, and the Steel trust alone has robbed
the people of over five hundred millions of dollars in a single twelve
months.
To-day the "System" and its methods are as clearly and as sharply
defined in the tangibility of their relation to the people as was ever
the Louisiana Lottery. On certain days the Louisiana Lottery sold its
tickets, which the people bought with their savings. On a certain day
the drawing took place, at which all those who had parted with their
dollars expected to receive them back together with immense profits, and
upon that day disappointment was spread broadcast among the many and
unhealthy joy among the few. So with the "System." On certain days the
public is sold their stock, bond, and insurance policy certificates.
Upon other days they look for their savings and profits. On the
contrary, they learn that their savings have decreased in value or have
been wiped out, and that there never was any chance of profit. My
critics will say that such a comparison cannot hold, for in the lottery
nothing was dealt in but gambling tickets, whereas the stock or bond
certificate represents an ownership in the material things of the
country. This is the fallacy the "System" spends millions every year to
foster and disseminate. Between the two the difference is in favor of
the Louisiana Lottery, for both are gambles and the lottery game was
square. Those who ran it had for their trouble a fixed percentage of the
profits, an enormous percentage, it is true, but the general fund was
never encroached upon by the controllers. Who is to say what percentage
the votaries of the "System" take in their game? It depends on how much
their victims have to lose. The public have been persuaded, too, that in
purchasing stocks they do not gamble, but only invest, or, at the worst,
speculate, so they are deceived as well as plundered. A few millions
each year satisfied the lottery owners; the votaries of the "System,"
among whom the "swag" must be divided, demand millions upon millions
each. The tickets of the lottery had a definite value at all times until
the drawing took place. The stocks and bonds of the "System" have no
rigid or unalterable value when issued or at any other time, and do not
represent a fixed ownership in all the savings of the people which have
been paid for them.
Morally, legally, or ethically, the Louisiana Lottery, with all its
attendant curses, was a far better institution for the people to bump up
against every month than is the "System" against which the whole people
are now directly or indirectly dealing every working day of the year.
Startling this statement may be, but not more startling than the facts.
The records of the lottery company will show how many dollars it took in
from the public; how many were returned in prizes and expenses; and how
many went into the pockets of the owners. The records of the banks,
corporations, trusts, and stock-exchanges will exhibit how many dollars
were paid into the "System" by the people; how much they received back
in return therefor; how much the expense of conducting the business was;
and how much profit went to the votaries of the "System." Compare the
two and it will be found that there is annually taken by the "System"
from the people a hundred, yes, a thousand times more than the Louisiana
Lottery ever obtained in the same period.
This being the fact, for how long will the people allow such a monstrous
wrong to be done? How long will they suffer a few men to siphon
automatically the money of the many into their own pockets?
It is only a matter of simple mathematics to ascertain the day, and that
only a few years away, when ten men will be as absolutely and completely
the legal owners of the entire United States and all there is of value
in it, as John D. Rockefeller is the absolute legal owner of the large
section of it of which he is to-day possessed.
_When that day is here, the people will legally be the slaves of these
ten men._
If this is so--and it is as surely so as it is that the Constitution of
the United States of America guarantees to every man, woman, and child
who is a part of it perpetual freedom--it is so because the legal
interest alone to which the ten men will be entitled and which they must
receive (or our entire structure will fall) will of itself bring to
their coffers all the wealth in existence within a given time. If this
is so, then why have the American people allowed themselves to reach
this condition? Why are they to-day not only resting peacefully under
this worse than death-bringing yoke, but assisting in the further
riveting of this badge of dishonor and degradation?
The reason is simple: They have been lulled to sleep by the "System" and
its cunning votaries until they have but a dull appreciation not only of
existing conditions but of their coming consequences. It is almost
incredible that a people as intelligent as the American people, and as
alert to that individual and national honor which they have bought with
so much of their blood and their peace of body and mind, can be so
deceived and juggled with. When one looks about, however, and notes
happenings of which one personally knows, and the degradation and
dishonor to which public opinion is seemingly indifferent, nothing is
incredible.
One sees a certain man openly displaying five hundred millions of
dollars, a sum which represents the life earnings of 150,000 of our
population, and knows that this man has secured this incredible amount
during forty years of his life. One sees the second highest and most
honorable office in the nation, a United States Senatorship, openly
bought for a few stolen dollars by a man who up to the very day of its
purchase was a watch repairer in a small country town, and who had never
done a single meritorious deed or been possessed of worldly goods to the
extent of $5,000. One sees a wily adventuress secure from the banks,
which exist only to safeguard the people's deposited savings, hundreds
of thousands of dollars on her bare story that she was the possessor of
some mysterious documents. One sees a $6-a-week office-boy of one of the
"System's" votaries able to borrow for the "System," on his bare note,
four millions of dollars from a New York institution which only exists
to safeguard the people's savings--although the law says that such
institutions shall not loan to any man on any kind of collateral, even
Government bonds, one-tenth that sum. One sees two men, drunk with their
success, gouging and tearing at each other's hearts in Wall Street, and
sees their gouging and tearing bring about a panic which takes from the
people in an hour over a billion dollars and drives scores to suicide,
murder, and defalcation--the two men continuing meanwhile as ornamental
pillars of society instead of wearing prison stripes. One sees a great
railroad corporation, in which are millions of the trust funds of
widows, orphans, and charitable institutions, caught "short" (having
sold something it did not own) in the stock-gambling game and held up to
the tune of ten million dollars by a reckless stock gambler, who says
"If you don't settle to-night it will be twenty millions to-morrow"; and
the toll is paid, while the great banker who conducts the release of the
hold-up charges the further tribute of twelve million dollars for his
services. And then one sees this twenty-two millions of "commission"
tacked on to the capital stock of the great railroad which is
subsequently capitalized into a "bond" and sold to great life-insurance
companies as a first-class investment for their trust funds.
When one sees these things and a hundred other as rankly fraudulent, one
should not wonder at anything American connected with dollars.
Such things occur because the "System" has so far been able to keep the
public in ignorance of its doings. On the surface there is nothing to
suggest that a set of vampires have captured the high places of finance
and are sucking away the life-blood of the nation. Our banks and trust
companies all present a fair exterior and apparently are the same safe
and honorable institutions they were before the canker fastened on them.
Only its votaries know what the "System" is, and their way is the way of
silence and darkness. A tie, stronger and more effective than the oath
of the Mafia, binds them to its service, and woe be to him who dares
divulge its methods. He who is bold enough to enter upon a recital of
these secrets must be strong indeed to withstand the bribes to silence
which would be placed in his hands. The "System" can well afford to pay
any price rather than be brought face to face with its past, with an
enraged people for referee. And even if the being be found who will
venture an expose of the conspiracy, he will find it strangely difficult
to get his story past the traps and pitfalls which will be placed
between it and the people for whose enlightenment it is intended.