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 DEPRAVED FINANCE 
 
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 cornel. University Library 
 arV13416 
 
m ffie Bankrupt BanRer OlalsD 
 I a Cype of Jill Bankers? 
 
 IT is interesting to learn from Secretary 
 Shaw tbat John R. Walsh, the'bank 
 rupt banker of Chicago, "did no more 
 than other bankers in the United States to 
 doing all the time." 
 
 Walsh, it has been shown, violated al|i 
 the vital clauses, of the' national bank! 
 law. He lent money to himself to an 
 tent prohibited by law. He juggled securi; 
 ties. He made false reports to bank ex-j 
 aminers.- He utilized dummies in his bank} 
 to sign notes for hundreds of thousands of} 
 dollars when they could not havie paid a 
 tnindred. And yet the Secretary of the 
 Treasury says, that he did nothing other 
 than many -Ijankers in the United States 
 are doing. 
 
 If that is the case, the Secretary of the 
 
 Treasury is derelict in his duty. It is the 
 
 1 business of the Comptis611er of the Currency, hi 
 
 who is his subordinate, to see that natipnal | 
 
 tiankers observe the law. Our own Spinion ^ 
 
 is that most of them do. If they do not, as 
 
 ^cretary Shaw says, it is the business of 
 
 the Treasury Department to discipline them. 
 
 1 The country does not want to be honey- 
 
 'oembed with dishonest and criminal baak- ; 
 
 e%of theJ:YPe of John R. WalaKnf riii^i^rp 
 
 % 
 
Depraved Finance 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT FLEMING 
 
 The people of a Nation are poor, when their country is barren of 
 resources, for then, they have only poor means for their existence. 
 But the mass of the people are equally poor, when their country has 
 large resources of u,^. Ah, which a few have corraled for themselves, 
 by charging bogus capital as real money. 
 
 Whoever is silent upon public chicanery ; or upon the defects of 
 government, by which combination, the people are being impover- 
 ished, is morally asleep, or a coward; a7id whoever does not look 
 proudly, upon these two poles of human life, is fit only for serfdom. 
 
 Tlie proper object of government used to be, to get twelve honest 
 men into a jwy box, in order to get a rogue into jail. In the United 
 States, tlie object of government, is to get a rogue into wealth, and 
 twelve honest men into poverty. 
 
 THE ROBERT FLEMING PUBLISHING CO. 
 NEW YORK 
 
 Postal Telegraph: Telephone: 
 
 Flammasia, N. Y. 8324E Cobtlandt, N. Y. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
^A^c\^.^ 
 
 Copyrighted, 1904, by the 
 
 ROBEBT FLBMINQ PCBLISHISO CO. 
 
 Now York 
 
 \\ 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction 5 
 
 How Bogus Capital Has Been Charged as Real Money 
 
 Upon the Resources of the Nation 20 
 
 How the American People and Their Country's Resources 
 Have Been Capitalized Under the Control of Bogus 
 Capital, Which Has Been Charged as Real Money. ... 52 
 
 How Trust-Makers Make High Prices, and Make Dollars 
 
 Worth Fifty Cents 78 
 
 Examples of Trusts — 
 
 The Oil Trust— How the Sinews of War Were Ex- 
 tracted from Oil 139 
 
 The Copper Trust — How Beatitudinal Windows 
 
 Were Extracted from Copper 148 
 
 The Steel Trust— How the Plunder Was Extracted 
 
 from Steel 157 
 
 The Railroad Trusts — How Inalienable Public Prop- 
 erties Have Become Private Estates 179 
 
 The Remedy for Trusts and Trust-Makers 205 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031251063 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 This book is an endeavor to inform my countrymen, 
 by frequent rehearsals of the facts, how nearly all of this 
 country's vast and rich resources, so necessary to the ex- 
 istence and well-being of all, have been wrongfully appro- 
 priated by the few. 
 
 More than one million dollars have been paid to Wall 
 Street lawyers to "hush up" the crimes perpetrated in 
 the making of the Shipbuilding Trust, while the law 
 authorities of the nation were winking. 
 
 A gang of financial, well-dressed thieves conceived a 
 piece of financial plundering, with as much nefariousness 
 and criminality as the most atrocious of frauds. They 
 used the Shipbuilding Trust for their purposes. For the 
 good of the public, the gang fell out by the way over the 
 sharing of the plunder. One eminent member of the gang 
 wanted to dispose of his share of the spoils to the unwary 
 before the others, and thereby he upset the pillagers' har- 
 mony. To this, and not to the alertness of the legal 
 authorities, we are indebted for the public exposure. 
 
 Were our religious life healthy, were our press whole- 
 some, were there an active moral force, the members of 
 these gangs would be imprisoned, and their spoils would 
 be disgorged. The extortion of Sam Parks of $200 from 
 the Hoboken contractor, by calling o£f the workmen and 
 stopping the job, was a nefarious piece of business, and 
 a set-back to the clock of labor for years. But the appro- 
 priation of the entrails of the dififerent industries and 
 other resources of the country by which the nation exists, 
 
 5 
 
6 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 by gambling appliances, is no less nefarious than the 
 doings of Sam Parks, and is vastly more damaging to 
 trade and more injurious to the people. Canfield's gam- 
 bling den was a degrading nuisance and a public disgrace, 
 as well as a crime, but both are more defensible than the 
 nefarious methods used to cripple our industries and pre- 
 vent them from rendering good service to the people. It 
 is difficult to discover why, under the same laws, Parks 
 and Canfield are in jail, and the doers of worse deeds 
 should be floundering with numerous flunkies in palatial 
 houses, often with racing studs and steam yachts, paid for 
 by the proceeds. 
 
 Every piece of plundering by which schemers obtain 
 vast riches for nothing is so much wrong done to every 
 member of society, and to the well-being of the nation, 
 in which every American is concerned, whether he will 
 or not. Every misappropriation of the country's riches 
 is a disorganization of human forces, whereby not only 
 the innocent and confiding are pillaged, but the workers 
 and producers of the nation, are made poorer, and put 
 under industrial enslavement, and the plunderers are made 
 more depraved and degraded, although they are enriched. 
 
 When a country's resources are small, its people must 
 struggle to live. When a country's resources are large, 
 like Russia, and when nearly all have been grasped by 
 the imperial family and the nobles, the people must be 
 poor, and must struggle to live. When a country's re- 
 sources are great and rich, like the United States, and 
 nearly all have been grasped by a few, using bogus capital 
 and charging it as real money, all Americans must face 
 higher prices; and millions must face lower wages, in 
 order to make up the difiference; other millions must 
 retrench and economize ; other millions must suffer priva- 
 tion and want; and children and women must be called 
 in to do the work of the men, because they are cheaper. 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 7 
 
 The Russian peasant, like the American, is bled at every 
 footstep, but not by Trusts. He is punished in the vilest 
 form by the officials of the Russian Government. When 
 the officials purchase the supplies for the Government, 
 they obtain three roubles of money with every rouble of 
 purchase, and all must be included in the bill, although 
 only one rouble's worth is delivered. This is as debasing 
 to the officials as it is oppressive to the Russian peasants, 
 who have to make it up. But it is not more vile or base 
 than the charging of four dollars of bogus capital to 
 every dollar of real capital, as is so often done in the 
 United States .to grasp the country's resources, and as 
 was done in the making of the Steel Trust and the other 
 Trusts. By this atrocious method the American, although 
 living under a Democracy, is plundered more than the 
 Russian peasant. For this same work Whittaker Wright 
 was sentenced in England to seven years' penal servitude, 
 because the law authorities there have not been purchased 
 or demoralized. 
 
 The resources of a country are of vital importance to 
 all the people. They are its wealth. The wealth of a 
 country consists of its railroads, industries, mines, lands, 
 buildings, farms, forests, fisheries, ships, etc. These are 
 as necessary for existence and well-being as air to breathe. 
 When a country's resources are charged with debts, or 
 when they are put in pawn, the people must be deprived 
 and harassed, in order to provide the yearly charges for 
 the debt, like a man who owes money, and must provide 
 the interest regularly, and always be confronted with his 
 debt. When a man is in debt he is not free ; he is more 
 or less the slave of his debt. This is not so apparent, but 
 it is equally true, that when a country is in debt the people 
 of that country are not free, and all of them are more or 
 less the slaves of the debt. Because of it the people are 
 poorer ; they must work more and receive less ; they must 
 
8 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 spend less and use less, because some of their money has 
 to be paid regularly for the debt. 
 
 All the resources, or wealth, of the United States have 
 been valued at $90,000,000,000. In the year 1900, 71 
 cents of every one of all these dollars were in the posses- 
 sion of a few, "and a very large portion was obtained, not 
 by industry, or the honest trading of equivalents, whereby 
 something was done for the good of society, but by schem- 
 ing jugglers, who have charged bogus capital stock and 
 mortgage bonds as real money upon the country's re- 
 sources, and fixed them under perpetual debts, for thou- 
 sands of millions of dollars, and scampered off with the 
 proceeds. 
 
 This atrocious system, whereby thousands of millions 
 of dollars have been alienated for nothing from the Amer- 
 ican people, was started when railroads were first con- 
 structed, when every nefarious method was allowed, and 
 often participated in, by the Government. It was devel- 
 oped in the creation of the Standard Oil Company ; it was 
 amplified and perfected by Jay Gould; and now it is an 
 established custom of the country, reveled in by lawyers, 
 and the perpetrators are now called Captains of Industry 
 when the volume of the plunder is enormous. It is seen 
 in its most matured form in the charging of more than a 
 thousand million dollars of bogus capital as real money, 
 and putting nearly all the steel industry of the country 
 under its control. 
 
 Capital must, to be real, possess the power of repro- 
 duction. Capital is necessarily and entirely saved labor, 
 and when it is considered, this will be seen to be inevitable. 
 Therefore, when men print pieces of paper and call them 
 capital stock, they are no more capital than air bubbles, 
 although they are charged as real money to the country's 
 resources, and demand regular interest, like the worst of 
 debts. In consequence of more than a thousand million 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 9 
 
 dollars of bogus capital, as well as excessive mortgage 
 bonds taken by Andrew Carnegie and charged as actual 
 money to the country steel industry, higher and prohibi- 
 tive prices were charged for steel products and reduced 
 wages were paid to the steel workers, in order to provide 
 dividends for a bogus capital which never existed, and 
 provide the interest for the excessive mortgage bonds 
 which were issued, so that the makers of the bogus capital 
 could create the bogus capital stock and sell it, and put 
 the money into their own pockets. 
 
 In the year 1900 only 29 cents of every dollar of the 
 country's wealth or resources remained for 91 in every 
 100 of the American people. Since the year 1900 the same 
 means have been used to grasp most of the remaining 29 
 cents of every dollar. Since 1900 the capital stock and 
 mortgage bonds of new and old stock companies, charged 
 as real money to the resources of the country, amount to 
 more than 20 cents of the 29 cents left for the 91 in every 
 100 of the population. Therefore, when the capital stock 
 and mortgage bonds created since igoo have been ma- 
 tured and made earners of dividends and interest by 
 higher prices and lower wages, there will remain for every 
 90 in every 100 of the American population only 9 cents 
 of every dollar of the country's wealth or resources, be- 
 cause all besides have been taken by the ten others, and 
 mostly by the fictitious process of charging bogus capital 
 as real money. This is the cause of the "desperate fight" 
 in American cities, described b}'' Bishop Sheehan, when 
 he urges the Irish people to keep away from the United 
 States. 
 
 All the evils of this atrocious and oppressive system 
 can not be told upon printed pages. Whenever an indi- 
 vidual worker, as well as the nation as a whole, depends 
 for existence and well-being upon their country's re- 
 sources, it is of the first importance that they shall not be 
 
10 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 in debt, but it is of prime necessity that their country's 
 resources shall not be in debt by a method so nefarious and 
 detestable as creating bogus charges and charging them 
 as actual money. For the future of the American people 
 this changes everything from good unto evil. When 
 prices are put up to provide dividends, the people must 
 be deprived, and this is an evil for the trade of the nation. 
 When the people's wages are reduced to provide dividends, 
 the squeeze comes a second time, and the consumption 
 of the country's products are restrained in doubled pro- 
 portions. By this vile system another evil is created. The 
 enrichment of an indolent, luxury-using class of non-pro- 
 ducers is accomplished, and their proportion to the number 
 of the producers of the nation becomes more and more 
 inconvenient and pernicious. In 1900 the idlers and in- 
 competents of the nation were 62 in every 100, even when 
 we include in the number of workers 5,329,292 children 
 and women workers. This number of idlers and incom- 
 petents in every 100 of the population is larger than any 
 other country of the world. Were the children and women 
 workers deducted, the idlers and incompetents of the na- 
 tion would be 69 in every 100, and were the numbers who 
 live in foreign countries, often supported like princes by 
 the American producers, placed among the idle and in- 
 competents, the proportion of the workers is reduced and 
 becomes more distressing. 
 
 Many Americans imagine that luxury-users are em ad- 
 vantage to society, and that when a man "blows in" ex- 
 travagantly for luxuries which never produce, he is a 
 blessing. This is a delusion, and the contrary is the fact. 
 He is a destroyer of wealth, and the amount must be 
 made up somewhere by extra work and extra sacrifice. 
 The recipients of the riotous spending are temporarily en- 
 riched, but there is no reproductive use, but a waste, and 
 the waste must be made up by the others — by the earners 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. , : .11 
 
 and producers of the nation. Whoever contributes noth- 
 ing, directly or indirectly, to the production of wealth, 
 is a consumer who does not produce, a mere waster of 
 wealth. 
 
 This is the origin of the English word "wastrel" said 
 to be formerly in common use by the outspoken people 
 of the North of England. But it obtained a larger inter- 
 pretation later. It is stated that once, in the law court of 
 the Northern Circuit, in England, counsel for a prisoner 
 was attacking a witness and called him a "wastrel." The 
 judge, who was a Southerner, asked the true meaning 
 of the word. After different renderings, one counsel said 
 it also meant "a man who had been spoiled in the making." 
 This very aptly explains what may be expected of the 
 progeny of the idle and incompetents of the nation, es- 
 pecially as they are developed in time. 
 
 All consumption of unnecessary luxuries by the idle 
 or industrious is non-productive, and interferes with the 
 production of necessaries, and, consequently, many of 
 those who need the necessaries obtain them with greater 
 difficulty, and often must go without. No labor tends 
 to the enrichment of society or mankind which is em- 
 ployed in producing things for the use of consumers who 
 do not produce. A legitimate capitalist is a producer, 
 because he is a factor in the production. But a bogus 
 capital maker, who charges it as real money — and it is 
 never made for other purposes — is the worst of all non- 
 producing consumers, because he. produces nothing; he 
 consumes extravagantly and consumes with other people's 
 money. Were a nation to consist of non-producing con- 
 sumers, it would soon cease to exist. Were half the 
 nation non-producing consumers, the other half would 
 have to provide for them by carrying a burden, requiring 
 extra work and extra sacrifice. Were the producers of a 
 nation only 30 in every 100, and the non-producers 70 in 
 
12 DEPKAVED FINANCE. 
 
 every loo, excepting the women and children, as in the 
 United States, and were some of them extravagant con- 
 sumers, the encumbering burden becomes oppressive for 
 all who do not belong to the privileged class, and intoler- 
 able for many. 
 
 In the number of idlers and incompetents of the United 
 States in every loo of the population we have excluded 
 all who are occupied for gain, although many are not 
 directly producers. We have included in. the number of 
 producers actors, artists, clergymen, musicians, lawyers, 
 barbers, nurses, saloon-keepers, bankers, brokers, soldiers, 
 sailors, hostlers, messengers, sales-people, stenographers, 
 telegraphers, shoeblacks, officials, and others. 
 
 The burden upon the American producer is enormous 
 and incomparable. It is shown by the few workers in all 
 our industries, which number only 9 in every 100 of the 
 population. It is shown by the value of the products of 
 each average industrial worker in the United States, 
 which, according to the Census of 1900, was $2,450, while 
 that of the average industrial worker of England was 
 only $500. It is shown in his labor-saving appliances, in 
 his high speed, as well as in the quantit)' and value of his 
 output, and yet the bogus capital and other bogus charges 
 of Trusts are treating him more and more as a human 
 machine, and displacing him, whenever they can, by chil- 
 dren and women, and by inferior alien races, dumped upon 
 this country with a vicious impunity. 
 
 Until all this bogus capital and other such charges upon 
 the resources of this country are remedied and undone, 
 it will be an inferior country for all who are not rich, and 
 an intolerable country for all who work and are poor. 
 
 The enormous debts upon the country's resources cre- 
 ated by juggling bogus charges into the- real, is not only 
 debilitating and oppressi\e, but the means used to create 
 them have degraded government, have demoralized poli- 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 13 
 
 tics, have corrupted the youth and the private life of the 
 nation, as well as given us a trade which is good for a few- 
 years of each decade. 
 
 The more the Trust-makers can reduce the workers to 
 a state of privation and want, the more they can grind 
 the people down by higher prices and lower visages, the 
 cheaper can their votes be got. The Trust-maker cares 
 not for manhood or womanhood. The more the labor- 
 saving appliances can be perfected, the more useful will 
 be the inferior races which are being landed in this coun- 
 try. The more ignorant and gullible they are, the more 
 available will they be for corruption at election time. 
 Whenever a man or woman, a boy or girl, is degenerated 
 in body or brain, in home life or ideals, by being made a 
 human machine to produce dividends for bogus capital 
 for private enrichment, they necessarily become inferior 
 fathers and mothers, as well as inferior American citizens, 
 and their progeny must be inferior Americans. 
 
 Even were the American people willing for their coun- 
 try's wealth and resources to remain under the control of 
 bogus capital, charged as real money, for the benefit of 
 the few and the punishment and privation of the man}^, 
 it would be an injustice and a crime to the Americans 
 unborn, that they and their descendants forever must 
 exist with shackles around their necks, slaving to support 
 an increasing bogus capital aristocracy. 
 
 The vast and rich resources of the great Republic have, 
 in large measure, been alienated from the people, not 
 by giving equivalents in honest trading, but by diabolical 
 pillaging, by means of financial juggling of capital stock 
 and mortgage bonds into money, when they were merely 
 charges, creations of the brain, dependent for realization 
 by squeezing the people by new prices ; and governmental 
 authority has been winking, or actively co-operating ; and 
 
14 DEPKAVED FINANCE. 
 
 unless a remedy is applied without delay, the pawning 
 of all the country's resources will be completed. 
 
 It is a deplorable fact that the resources of every past 
 and present Democracy are looked upon by the cunning 
 and avaricious, as spoils which can be secretly appropri- 
 ated. Those in power obtain power, not for the better- 
 ment of the people, but for themselves. Every Democ- 
 racy appears deficient of vested immutable responsibility. 
 Men are vested with a sacred trust, and they abuse it by 
 weakness or infidelity. This is illustrated by the signing 
 of the Elkins Law by President Roosevelt, who must have 
 been mentally or morally irresponsible, because that law 
 was intended, and could only be intended, to serve the 
 guilty, at the expense and suffering of the innocent and 
 honest. It is illustrated by the open defiance of law by 
 the wealthy citizens, without restraint, and by the fact 
 that more than the value of this country's exports of 
 manufactures for two years was charged to the country's 
 steel industry, as fictitious capital, and the money appro- 
 priated with impunity. 
 
 Nothing will effectually deter the pillagers of the coun- 
 try's resources by capital stock and mortgage bonds 
 charged as real money, except the unconditional extinc- 
 tion of all of them, whenever made, by a special law, 
 which will also make the creation of more of them a 
 criminal ofifence. 
 
 The absence of vested immutable authority in a Democ- 
 racy was seen in George Washington's time. On the 28th 
 of November, 1775, George Washington wrote from 
 Boston : 
 
 "Such a dearth of public spirit, or such a want of virtue, 
 such stock-jobbing, and fertility in all the low arts, to 
 obtain advantages of one kind or another, I never saw 
 before, and pray God's mercy, I may never be witness to 
 again." On the 30th of December, 1778, he wrote from 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 15 
 
 Philadelphia : "Speculation, peculation, and an insatiable 
 thirst for riches seem to have got the better of every other 
 consideration and almost of every other order of men." 
 
 The foregoing is sufficient proof that for the good of 
 the spoilers, as well as the well-being of the people, the 
 enforcement of law cannot be too rigorous, and ought to 
 be mandatory, and that when the laws are indifferently 
 applied, the moral force of the people becomes degraded, 
 and then, the public pillagers not only debase themselves, 
 but impoverish and grind the people. 
 
 In the year 1875, Ismail Pacha of Egypt, was a spend- 
 thrift. He was in need of money, and he held 200,000 
 shares of the Suez Canal Co. The British premier at the 
 time was Lord Beaconsfield, and he diagnosed the situa- 
 tion, not for himself, as an American would have done, 
 but for the good of his country and his countrymen. He 
 negotiated the purchase of these shares with the Roths- 
 childs, and these bankers supplied the money for a five 
 per cent commission, and then Lord Beaconsfield trans- 
 ferred all the shares to the British Treasury. These Suez 
 Canal shares, obtained without the knowledge or consent . 
 of Parliament, now pay about $130,000,000 every year to 
 British revenue, whereby the taxes of all kinds are made 
 lighter and easier to bear. The money paid for the shares 
 was less than $25,000,000. Lord Beaconsfield died a 
 comparatively poor man. He left $200,000. He was a 
 Jew, environed by honorable doings, and he acted with 
 fidelity to his countrymen. 
 
 Comparisons are sometimes odious, but sometimes they 
 usefully show the direction of the stream. The ordinary 
 American would have corraled these 200,000 Suez Canal 
 shares for himself, like the records of the Vanderbilt, Jay 
 Gould, Carnegie and other innumerable wrongdoers, when 
 patriotism and solicitude for the future of the species were 
 submerged in the gratifications of avarice. Whoever is 
 
16 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 conversant with all past and present republics, will un- 
 hesitatingly declare that no government of any republic 
 would have done for it such an act as was done with theai 
 shares by this Jew under a monarchy. The deplorable 
 instability and headlessness of a republic are taken advan- 
 tage of by the cunning and greed of one portion of man- 
 kind, to despoil and enslave the others. It has always 
 been so, and it is conspicuously so now. It may be 
 urged that a monarchy is too costly. The facts prove the 
 contrary. We will provide only one of innumerable ex- 
 amples. Andrew Carnegie has rifled the pockets of the 
 American people to such an extent, that were it done un- 
 der the monarchies of Germany or England, there would 
 be a public commission of inquiry, and he would be called 
 upon to disgorge more than ten million dollars a year, 
 obtained by being truckled to by the makers of the Steel 
 Trust, who were careless of every cost if they could only 
 give birth to their thousand million dollars of bogus capi- 
 tal, charged as real money to the steel industry of this 
 country. For these ten million dollars a year Andrew 
 Carnegie delivered no pretence of an equivalent. For his 
 interest in the Carnegie steel plants he made a contract 
 whereby he obtains forever nearly sixteen million dollars 
 a year, and the equivalent given was worth only three mil- 
 ion dollars a year, and by this wrongful operation, An- 
 drew Carnegie receives more every year than the cost of 
 any known emperor, and more than three times the 
 amount of the yearly payments to the King of England 
 and all the royal family. In the seventeenth century, in 
 the fight for freedom in England, the English people be- 
 headed King Charles because he imposed taxes without 
 the approval of the people's Parliament. Andrew Car- 
 negie and others have imposed taxes upon the American 
 people which take about fifty cents from the dollar. No 
 person can obtain steel products without paying a tax of 
 
DEPEAVED EINANOE. IT 
 
 about fifty cents on the dollar, and the same, more or less, 
 with all the other products of the country, in order that a 
 bogus-capital aristocracy can be maintained and supported 
 in princely fashion. 
 
 The situation in the United States is one which every 
 righteous and reflecting man and woman will view with 
 horror. In Washington's time there was not sufficient 
 enforcement of law, and this condition has been con- 
 tinued until to-day. In consequence, the wealth and re- 
 sources of the country have been grasped by a few, by 
 means of charging the fictitious as the real. 
 
 It is true that most of the farming land of the country 
 has been left for the farmers, but Avith such conditions 
 that everyfarm of the average size of 146 acres, obtained, 
 for all its farm products, less than $13 per week for the 
 year 1900, and the average farm hand obtained less than 
 $65, for the year, for his wages, or less than 43 cents per 
 acre, although he produces farm crops four times as much 
 as the average farm hand of Europe. This is because the 
 farmer and the farm hand have been enslaved by pillaging 
 jugglery, and the law authorities of the government have 
 stood by and winked. When the farmer transports his 
 farm products, he is confronted with charges for divi- 
 dends for bogus capital, and in consequence his farm 
 products often rot upon his farm, while the people in cities 
 are starving for them. When the farmer buys clothing 
 and other necessaries of life, he obtains about fifty cents' 
 worth for a dollar, because the other cents are necessary to 
 support and maintain a bogus-capital aristocracy, which 
 neither toils nor spins, but consumes and wastes enor- 
 mously. Because of nearly everything in the country 
 being charged with bogus capital as real money, and in 
 order to provide it with dividends, the farmer has so 
 little for himself, and so little for the average farm hand ; 
 and when the average farm hand spends his $64 per year 
 
18 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 he obtains about $32 worth, so that he also can contri- 
 bute largely to the support of the bogus-capital aristoc- 
 racy. 
 
 The industrial enslavement of the producers of the na- 
 tion does not end with its application to the farmers and 
 the farm hands. The industrial worker of the United 
 States is the foremost of all countries in the quantity and 
 value of his and her industrial production. The United 
 States Census of 1900 states that he produced five times 
 the value of industrial products of the industrial producer 
 of England, and yet the average wages paid to the 5,316,- 
 000 men, women and children workers in our industries 
 in 1900 were only, per week, $9.44 to the men, $5.25 to 
 the women, and $2.92 to the children. But this is not 
 all. Without detailing here the disastrous efifects to the 
 industries of the country, by these under-paid people be- 
 ing made small consumers of the country's industrial 
 products, the fact remains that when the man wage- 
 earner receives $9.44, he obtains only about $4.72 worth 
 of the necessaries of life; when the woman worker re- 
 ceives only $5.25, she obtains only $2.63 worth of the 
 necessaries of life, and when the children receive $2.92, 
 they obtain only about $1.46 worth of the necessaries of 
 life. In other words, these workers, who Avork so long 
 and so fast and produce so much more than in all other 
 countries, must, when they spend their wages, pay about 
 fifty cents of every dollar in order to maintain and sup- 
 port a bogus-capital aristocracy, the largest and the most 
 extravagant in past of present history. 
 
 The Bible is distinguished for the lore and the travail 
 of the Children of Israel. They were in sad bondage in 
 Egypt. There is such a book of bondage in the United 
 States. It is the United States Census of 1900, when 
 read between the lines. The facts are more excruciating 
 than any of the bondage experiences of the Israelites in 
 
DEPRAVED riNANOE. 19 
 
 Egypt. Gaunt figures and haggard faces ; under- fed and 
 ill- clothed; grinding for long hours at high speed for a 
 miserable existence, in order to provide for a bogus-capital 
 aristocracy. Because the body of the serf and slave were 
 worth something, and were a marl<etable article, they were 
 better treated, they were better fed, and they were less 
 harassed about their to-day and the uncertainties of their 
 to-morrow, than the average wage earner. 
 
 By the few of this country having grasped about ninety 
 cents of every dollar of this country's wealth and re- 
 sources, by means, mostly, of bogus capital, charged as 
 real money, which will be completed when the recent cre- 
 ations of bogus capital have matured, every ninety in 
 every hundred of the population are left without indus- 
 trial freedom, and exist in a state of increasing industrial 
 enslavement, for themselves and their descendants for 
 ever, unless a mandate to Congress is made in the ballot 
 box, to undo the crime. 
 
20 DEPEAVED EDTANOE. 
 
 HOW BOGUS CAPITAL HAS BEEN CHARGED 
 
 AS REAL MONEY UPON THE RESOURCES 
 
 OF THE NATION. 
 
 While the American is being bluffed into talks of world power; 
 of a large standing army; and the suitability of gold lace for the 
 White House, he imagines that the industries, railroads, and other 
 resources of the country, are for the American people; whereas, 
 they are largely for dividends for a bogus capital, which never 
 existed. While the American is so amiably beHeving, and selling 
 his vote, he is being cajoled out of his share in the country's 
 wealth, and his portion is becoming more, and more like that of 
 the serf, in the serf estate. Already, about 90 cents of every dollar 
 of the country's resources or wealth have been taken by a few — 
 by using bogus capital and charging it as real money. 
 
 Probably few Americans know that the ordinary- 
 pawnshop is an establishment where articles of value can 
 be pledged, that is, they can be deposited in exchange for 
 money, which the pawnbroker lends upon the pledges; 
 and that until the pledge is redeemed by the repayment 
 of the money borrowed, with interest, it remains in pawn. 
 The pawnbroker will retain the pledge indefinitely, if the 
 interest is regularly paid, from time to time, as it becomes 
 due. When a pawnbroker receives a pledge he gives a 
 pawn-ticket, which can be transferred or bought or sold. 
 Few Americans know how their country's resources, 
 which are its wealth, by which all are able to eat, drink, 
 clothe, house, travel and enjoy, are every year being put 
 under the control of a great pawnbroking system for 
 thousands of millions of dollars, and that the pawn-tickets 
 used are in the shape of mortgage bonds and capital stock 
 certificates. 
 
DEPKAVED EINANOE. 21 
 
 When money is borrowed upon real estate by or for 
 its owner, it is practically put in pawn, and the persons 
 who do the work of the pawnbroker receive a mortgage 
 deed upon the property, and are entitled to regular interest 
 upon the money lent until it is repaid. When a house or 
 other real estate is mortgaged, it is mortgaged for or on 
 behalf of its owner, and the money is paid to or for the 
 owner, or a criminal offence is committed. But not so 
 with the country's resources, and it is here where the 
 illegitimate jugglery comes in. When a stock-juggler 
 pledges the country's resources, as in the instances of the 
 Steel, of the Ocean Marine, the Shipbuilding, and other 
 Trusts, the persons who did the pledging were not the 
 owners, and never pretended to be the owners, and yet 
 they so juggled that they were able to take for them- 
 selves many hundred million dollars for nothing, and 
 have charged even more than they have taken, as perpetual 
 debts upon the resources of this country, whereby they 
 are weighted with more monetary liabilities than they can 
 carry and at the same time do good and efficient and 
 economical work for the nation. 
 
 The beginning of a stock- juggling programme resem- 
 bles a cowboy with cattle. The object is to get the re- 
 sources of the country into a corral, and then to brand 
 them with a Trust name, and first pawn them for more 
 than cost or value, by pawn-tickets in the shape of mort- 
 gage bonds, and sell these on the Stock Exchange and use 
 the money to pay for the properties ; and then pawn the 
 property again by using pawn-tickets in the shape of cap- 
 ital stock certificates, and sell these also on the Stock 
 Exchange for the purposes of the stock-jugglers them- 
 selves. The amount of the second pledging is without 
 regard to values or costs; besides, the mortgage bonds 
 alone usually amount to more than cost or value of the 
 properties. In the Shipbuilding Trust one property which 
 
22 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 stood in its own books as originally costing $300,000 was 
 mortgaged by mortgage bonds for $10,000,000, besides 
 $20,000,000 of capital stock. The amount of the second 
 pledging depends largely upon the amount which can be 
 squeezed out of the consumers by higher prices and out 
 of the wage-earners by lower wages. Every million dol- 
 lars a year which can be squeezed in this manner will 
 provide dividends at the rate of 4 per cent, per year upon 
 $25,000,000 of bogus capital stock, which can be sold on 
 the Stock Exchange like cotton upon the Produce Ex- 
 change. 
 
 This has been proceeding for years upon a stupendous 
 scale, while lawyers, politicians, legislators, and others 
 have been in the swim, until thousands of millions of 
 dollars' worth of the country's resources have been 
 pawned. By this stock-juggling process men have ac- 
 quired thousands of millions of dollars for themselves. 
 This is more than immoral. When an article is in pawn 
 the regular charges for interest must be paid, but when 
 the man makes the pledge and obtains the money he has 
 some means provided of paying the interest, and then the 
 transaction is legitimate. The method is entirely different 
 with the resources of the country, for when the jugglery 
 is performed the resources do not get the money, but they 
 are liable for the interest and for the debt, which is per- 
 petual, like the interest. In other words, a set of stock- 
 jugglers have pledged the resources of the country for 
 thousands of millions of dollars and taken the money for 
 themselves, and left the American people to struggle with 
 the debt and provide it with regular interest by higher 
 prices and often by lower wages. In this manner the 
 country's resources, upon which the nation depends for 
 its existence, have been pledged, and the money has been 
 taken by stock-jugglers, and thereby the resources have 
 been made responsible for enormous debts, together with 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 23 
 
 their yearly charges, which drain the people by higher 
 prices and often by lower wages. In consequence, the 
 trade of the country, as well as the country's exports of 
 manufactures, are dwarfed, made less stable and unsatis- 
 factory for all who are not trade boomers and stock-jug- 
 glers, and these are rarely, if ever, the producers of the 
 nation, but schemers who do nothing for the enrichment 
 and well-being of society, and seldom do anything for 
 the improvement of their species, but usually the oppo- 
 site. 
 
 All the vast and rich resources of this country, with 
 its superior means of production, better than in all other 
 countries, are for all the people, but by wrongful stock- 
 juggling they have been taken possession of by a few. 
 It is claimed that this country has the best of labor and of 
 labor-saving appliances and other machinery, whereby the 
 most can be obtained for the least, of all countries. The 
 farm hands of the United States produce per average 
 farm hand four times the farm products of the average 
 farm hand of Europe, and according to the census of that 
 year his wages were only $64 for the year, or 43 cents 
 per acre. The average farmer of the United States has 
 146 acres, and the average products of each farm, includ- 
 ing everything, was only $656 for 1900. The average 
 wage-earner of the 5,316,000 employed in our industries 
 was only $9.44 per week paid to the men in 1900. These 
 and other such facts show that the embarrassments of the 
 present industrial situation, are not due to payments made 
 to the mass of the people. The work-people of this coun- 
 try, in the different industries, work faster and longer, 
 and nearly all the industries employ women and children, 
 for hours which would be criminal in England, and for 
 incredibly low wages, especially in view of high prices. 
 
 Under these conditions this country ought to deliver to 
 its people more of food, clothing and good housing for a 
 
24 ' DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 dollar than all other countries, and would do so but for 
 the protection given to the making of higher prices and 
 the license given to stock-jugglers to charge its industries, 
 railroads, and other resources with thousands of millions 
 of dollars of spurious capital stock and mortgage bonds 
 as real money, whereby they have to be provided with divi- 
 dends and interest yearly by higher prices and lower 
 wages, and whereby schemers acquire vast millions for 
 nothing. 
 
 All this is done by a pawnbroking system combined 
 with stock jugglery. When an industry is pledged by 
 the creation of mortgage bonds and capital stock for mil- 
 lions of dollars it is a pawn, and according to the United 
 States Census of 1900, 60 cents of every dollar of all the 
 manufactured products of this country in 1900 were pro- 
 duced by establishments of industry which were in pawn 
 by mortgage bonds and capital stock, and a very large por- 
 tion of these were bogus or unreal, although they were 
 charged as real money, and they demand yearly interest 
 and dividends, like real money. In order to provide these 
 unreal or bogus pawn-tickets with interest and dividends 
 real money has to be paid, and this is squeezed out of the 
 people by higher prices and lower wages. 
 
 When the mortgage bonds and capital stock, amounting 
 to about fifteen hundred million dollars, were created 
 and issued upon the plants of the Steel Trust, the plants 
 were pledged and put in pawn for this amount, and the 
 pawn-tickets, in the shape of mortgage bonds, were used 
 to pay for the properties, and the pawn-tickets, in the 
 shape of capital stock certificates, were sold on the Stock 
 Exchange for the pockets of the men who made the Steel 
 Trust. By the pledging and pawning, for private pur- 
 poses, and not for the good of the steel industry, the 
 pawn-tickets ha\^e to be provided with interest and divi- 
 dends every three months, and to do this doubled prices 
 
DEPEAVED FINANOE. »5 
 
 for steel products have been charged and reduced wages 
 have been paid, although the more than a thousand million 
 dollars of capital stock vi^as no more real than dreamland 
 and cost only the paper and printing. The men who made 
 the Steel Trust did not own the properties, they never had 
 actual possession, and the money they used was not their 
 own, but they were the financial jugglers. 
 
 This is an illustration how the American people's re- 
 sources are juggled into enormous debts, and how the 
 American people have to provide the debts with their 
 yearly charges by paying higher prices and by lower 
 wages. 
 
 The pledging and pawning of the country's resources 
 commenced in the sixth decade of the last century by 
 loading the different railroads with bogus mortgage bonds 
 and capital stock and charging them as real money. The 
 amount of the different pledgings and pawnings since 
 then amount to about from forty-five to fifty thousand 
 million dollars, and it is within the mark to state that 
 more than thirty thousand million dollars were bogus and 
 unreal when they were created, although they were 
 charged as real money to the different resources of this 
 country. This oppressive system by which the proceeds of 
 this thirty thousand million dollars have been wrongfully 
 acquired by the jugglers, at the expense and degradation 
 of the people, has been increasing at a compound rate, 
 and the pledgings and pawnings of recent years are almost 
 incredible. As examples of the pledgings of the country's 
 resources, there were creations of new capital stock certi- 
 ficates by new stock companies, amounting to $4,207,000,- 
 000 in 1899 ; to $2,589,000,000 in 1900 ; to $4,333,000,000 
 in 1901; to $3,755,000,000 in 1902; and to $2,432,000,- 
 000 in 1903. These sums do not include amounts for any 
 mortgage bonds, often, if not always, for more than the 
 actual value or real cost, or costs to replace, the respective 
 
26 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 properties. Nor do these sums include amounts of capital 
 stock creations by old corporations in these five years, 
 which amounted to over $1,176,000,000 in the year 1902. 
 Neither do these sums include any amounts for either 
 mortgage bonds or capital stock creations for railroads, 
 which have been very large always, and were very large 
 during these five years. When we consider these enor- 
 mous capital stock creations, created without legal or 
 other restraint, we must not forget that most are only 
 supplemental charges to mortgage bonds existing upon 
 the respective industrial properties, often for considerably 
 more than the cost or actual value. In other words, that 
 most of the respective properties were first burdened with 
 debts for mortgage bonds in excess of value or actual cost, 
 and then they were reburdened by large amounts of 
 fictitious or bogus capital stock. 
 
 It is difficult to declare with certainty the proportion 
 of these amounts which represent actual value or actual 
 costs, or costs to replace or reproduce. It would be fair 
 and conservative to estimate that 80 cents of every dollar 
 of these enormous amounts of capital stock, charged as 
 actual money, are actually spurious, mere creations of 
 the promoter's brain, as just and legitimate as a capital 
 stock creation for the moon. 
 
 All these vast creations of bogus capital are only of 
 atmospheric value, except by dividends, which can be 
 secured out of the people by higher prices for the products, 
 or by grinding the people for lower wages. These crea- 
 tions would be bad enough were they only made to boom 
 off on the Stock Exchange, but when we see that the 
 whole has been charged as debts upon the industries and 
 other resources upon which the people must depend for 
 a livelihood, and that in order to pay the yearly charges 
 the products must be charged with higher and prohibitive 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 2Y 
 
 prices, and often wages squeezed lower, how can the 
 American people be otherwise than in a state of unrest? 
 Some of the capital stock creations included in these 
 amounts are bogus from beginning to end. To wipe out 
 all of some of the capital stock creations would not adjust 
 their finances, because the mortgage bonds alone are 
 greatly in excess of actual value or real cost. Many of the 
 stock companies, such as the United States Steel Corpora- 
 tion and the United States Mercantile Marine, and others, 
 would not be financially adjusted were all the capital stock 
 extinguished. They are loaded with created charges for 
 mortgage bonds in excess of genuine costs, or costs to 
 replace, besides the perpetual liabilities created by the 
 bogus capital stock. Therefore, these and other such cor- 
 porations were in debt for large amounts for liabilities 
 over actual assets before the fictitious capital stock was 
 created. For example, it is incontestable after fair exam- 
 ination that the properties of the United States Steel Cor- 
 poration, including the iron ore lands obtained and paid 
 for out of the earnings since the Trust was created and the 
 coal lands obtained upon royalties, ought not to be charged 
 to capital account for more than $250,000,000, including 
 all the fees for the Trust-making. The census of the dif- 
 ferent decades shows the capital invested in the different 
 industries, as well as the different amounts of their prod- 
 ucts. In 1870 the capital charged in all the different steel 
 industries of the country to produce a dollar's worth of 
 steel products was 58 cents. But the means then known 
 of producing steel products were more costly and required 
 about double the capital and labor to produce a dollar's 
 worth of steel products than with the improved machinery 
 and labor-saving appliances of 1902, and yet the capital 
 charged by the Steel Trust in that year to produce a 
 dollar's worth of steel products, after it had doubled prices 
 and gave only half the quantity of steel for a dollar, was 
 
28 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 $2.67, whereas it ought to have been 29 cents. This shows 
 completely, how the present high prices for everything 
 are made necessary, and how lower wages are necessary, 
 and how the industries of the country are debilitated and 
 prevented from giving more than 50 cents' worth for a 
 dollar, how the export trade in manufactures is crippled, 
 and how a disorganized state of trade and commerce is 
 most natural. The difference between 29 cents for real 
 or actual capital, as it ought to be, and the $2.67 as it 
 has been charged by the creation of bogus mortgage bonds 
 and capital stock, has been taken by the stock-jugglers, 
 and the people have to pay 3'early charges upon $2.67 
 instead of 29 cents for all the bogus and fictitious capital 
 in the Steel Trust, by higher prices and lower wages. 
 
 That the amount of mortgage bonds and capital stock 
 created in the aforementioned years are as quixotic as 
 they are nefarious is demonstrated by the amounts in- 
 vested for actual capital in all the United States indus- 
 tries for land, buildings and machinery in 1900. Accord- 
 ing to the United States Census Report of that year, the 
 capital invested in all the United States industries in land 
 was $1,027,453,140; in buildings, $1,450,495,991 ; in ma- 
 chinery, $2,543,080,244, making a total of $5,021,029,- 
 375. The total amount is less than the capital stock crea- 
 tions for industries in a single year, independent of crea- 
 tions of mortgage bonds. Of this sum of $5,021,029,375, 
 60 per cent, was already incorporated into stock com- 
 panies before the year 1900. This is stated by the United 
 States Census Report of that year. Therefore, there was 
 only 40 per cent, of the industries of this country to be 
 incorporated, or about $2,000,000,000; whereas the incor- 
 poration of stock companies in the years 1900, 1901, 1902, 
 and 1903 averaged $4,000,000,000, besides mortgage 
 bonds, and an important portion remains unincorporated. 
 This evidence is sufficient to show that bogus capital stock 
 
DEPRA.VED FINANCE. 29 
 
 creations, charged as real money, for which dividends are 
 demanded, have been allowed to run riot, in violation of 
 all law and order, and without regard to the serious con- 
 sequences to the future of the nation. The stock-juggling 
 Trust-makers have been allowed to bluff vast millions of 
 money out of the pockets of the American people into 
 their own by placing different imposts or taxes upon the 
 different products of the country, in order to provide divi- 
 dends and interest for their bogus creations of pawn- 
 tickets. In consequence, many important industries are 
 so disabled by debts which must have their regular pay- 
 ments that their prices have crippled the consumption at 
 home and prohibited trade for export. 
 
 We see the evil consequences in the high prices for steel 
 products by consumption being reduced both at home and 
 in foreign countries. The Steel Trust was created in 
 1 90 1, and the exports of steel products were considerably 
 less in 1901 than in 1900, and less in 1902 than in 1901. 
 In 1900 the exports of steel products to Great Britain 
 were $9,790,675; in 1901 they were $1,675,000, and in 
 1902 they were only $187,335. This is a portentous com- 
 ment upon the Steel Trust with all its bogus capital re- 
 quiring dividends by higher prices. By reducing wages 
 and discharging its work-people it has reduced the power 
 of these workers to consume the country's products, upon 
 which the factories so largely depend for consumption. 
 On the other hand, vast millions of dollars have wrong- 
 fully gone into the hands of non-producers, who spend so 
 largely for luxuries in foreign countries. 
 
 The foreign enterprise, financial and commercial, of 
 Great Britain is considerably larger than that of this 
 country, and its large geographical area, including its 
 dependencies and population of about four hundred million 
 people, gives large scope for financial undertakings. Great 
 Britain finances foreign governments and countries more 
 
30 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 than the United States. But the new capitalizations of 
 Great Britain, that is, the creations of new stock com- 
 panies, in the five years from 1897 to 1902, were less than 
 $910,000,000, or smaller than the imaginary or bogus 
 capital of the Steel Trust. The explanation of this is 
 simple. In New York and other cities men can plot 
 schemes whereby they can control vast amounts of money 
 with the open audacity of highwaymen. False prospec- 
 tuses, false working capital; the using of names of men 
 as directors without their knowledge, the use of dummy 
 directors, the buying of ramshackle plants and charging 
 more for them than new, and the paying of hundreds of 
 thousands of dollars for business in a state of bankruptcy, 
 and doing all with the money of the unwary public. 
 
 All is done openly and with impunity, while the poor 
 worker who steals a dollar is put in prison. All is common 
 knowledge, and the authorities stand by and wink, and if 
 the storekeeper, or laborer, or bank clerk does a small 
 crime they are put in the penitentiary. The country may 
 have the most beneficent of laws upon the statute books, 
 but if the authorities are purchased, whenever they are 
 violated, by men who can buy off all opposition, where is 
 the hope of remedial measures ? Men who have put out 
 false prospectuses and other false statements whereby 
 they have cajoled the unwary out of their money, as well 
 as all creators of bogus capital who have abstracted the 
 proceeds, ought to be indicted without fear or favor, and 
 unless this is done there cannot be equal liberty and pro- 
 tection for the poor and rich. The trader and the worker 
 belong to a class which produces for the good and enrich- 
 ment of society, whereas the men who do this wrongdoing 
 are systematic schemers, of no more value to society than 
 the parasites who bleed their victims. The men who 
 scheme by charging bogus capital as the real, and take 
 the proceeds and spend it upon luxuries, are as bad as a 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 81 
 
 devastating fire. Were wage-earners to openly swindle 
 with bogus labor charges, in the same way as the bogus 
 capital-maker swindles with bogus capital ; were labor to 
 charge a thousand million dollars of bogus labor stock, as 
 a perpetual debt to the steel industry of the nation, and 
 demand dividends upon it forever, as the members of the 
 Steel Trust have done, it would be better for the nation, 
 because the workers use the necessaries of life, and thereby 
 the trade of the country would be expanded, whereas the 
 bogus capital schemer uses mostly luxuries, and often in 
 foreign countries. 
 
 Bishop Spalding, at Chicago, on the 9th of February, 
 1904, stated: "More than 70 per cent, of the wealth of 
 the United States, it is reckoned, is owned by 9 per cent, 
 of the families, while 29 per cent, of the wealth is all that 
 is left for 91 per cent, of the population." In other words, 
 this states that 9 in every 100 of. the population own $70 
 of every $100 of all the country's wealth, and that every 
 91 in every 100 of the population own only $29 in every 
 $100 of the country's wealth. In view of the rate of the 
 creations of the bogus capital and the charging it as 
 actual money, and the length of time it has been done, 
 these terrible and appalling results are only natural. It 
 is a formidable statement of the progress of the industrial 
 enslavement of the American people. In view of all this, 
 by the advance in power of a plutocratic oligarchy, which 
 has corraled the country's wealth in such proportions, and 
 continues to do it by such rapid stages, have we not lost, 
 and are we not losing, vastly more than all the rewards 
 of the War of Independence and of the Civil War, and is 
 there not a greater war than either in front of the Amer- 
 ican people, who are so far enslaved, if they are to obtain 
 their industrial liberty for the future.' By indifference to 
 the ballot box and to the quality of their representatives 
 in the State Legislatures and Congress, what a great heri- 
 
as DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 tage the American people have forfeited, and by often sell- 
 ing their votes, what a vast possession for themselves and 
 their descendants has been given away. The darkness and 
 gloom, the degradation and servitude, are not yet, until 
 the iron bands have been completed. In 1900 only $29 
 of every $100 of the country's resources or wealth had 
 to be corraled in order to complete the enthralling chain, 
 and then the other 91 in every 100 of the population will 
 be in slavery as complete as ever serfdom was in Russia 
 or slavery in the worst of slave-holding times, because 
 these nine of every hundred of the American people will 
 be the owners of all American wealth, and mostly by 
 means of bogus capital charged as actual money. The ad- 
 vantages of the War of Independence, as well as of the 
 war for the integrity of the Union, were very great, but 
 all are more than counterbalanced by the fact that nine 
 in every hundred of the population are the owners of 70 
 cents of every dollar of the country's wealth, obtained 
 mostly by the charging of bogus capital as the real. 
 
 All this is not a question of policy and cannot be a 
 debatable quantity, but it is simple license, without any 
 kind' of restraint, given to the most pillaging of crime, 
 which not only wrongfully enrich the pillagers and im- 
 poverish and degrade the producers of the nation, but 
 provide the pillagers with the most powerful of weapons 
 whereby they can grind and enslave the producers still 
 more. England, France and Germany and other coun- 
 tries make examples of the men who create bogus capital 
 and charge it as real money. Whittaker Wright, who 
 charged bogus capital as real money in England, was 
 sentenced by an English criminal court in January, 1904, 
 to seven years penal serviture for the offence. Had he 
 done the same in the United States he would have realized 
 the proceeds and enjoyed them in buying steam 3^achts 
 and racing studs, and the amount of the bogus capital 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 33 
 
 would have been a perpetual debt for the American people 
 to carry and provide for every year by higher prices for 
 all and lower wages for the wage-earners, and increased 
 privations for the others who are not rich. The righteous 
 sense of the English Stock Exchange was so active in 
 London that it appropriated special funds to pay for the 
 criminal proceedings, and after the conviction the London 
 Stock Exchange was reimbursed by the British Parlia- 
 ment. The punishment of the bogus capital-maker in the 
 United States does not fail because there are not laws 
 which make such doings a criminal offence, but because 
 the moral sense of the American people is not alert enough 
 to demand that the laws shall be put into operation. 
 
 In England no railroad can be capitalized until the 
 proposal has been publicly examined by a select committee 
 formed by Parliament, and its recommendations cannot be 
 confirmed until Parliament has given permission. The 
 English Stock Company Law makes imperative the great- 
 est publicity for every stock company organization, and it 
 must be publicly approved by the courts. Every stock 
 corporation director is liable by his person and property 
 for every statement in the prospectus or report. Every 
 semblance of misstatement is a criminal offence. It is a 
 criminal offence in England, as it ought to be in this 
 country, to make any profit by promotion of a company 
 or by sale or purchase, unless the facts are published in 
 detail in the public prints. Every vendor, every pur- 
 chaser, every sale, every purchase, whether by rich or 
 poor, saint or blackguard, the usher at a bishop's consecra- 
 tion or the bishop himself, must make public all contracts, 
 written or otherwise, and any false statement, at any 
 time, makes the author and the other directors who have 
 assented to it liable to a criminal prosecution. 
 
 The doings of American plunderers are a byword and 
 a hissing in all countries. No annals of commerce can 
 
34 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 produce their equal. The most barefaced and diabolical 
 plunderings are done, and the perpetrators have only to 
 purchase immunity and then plant themselves upon the 
 bills of fare of churches and educational establishments 
 with the effrontery of Mephistopheles. The doing are not 
 new ; they are usual and customary. The following is an 
 exti-act from the Brooklyn Eagle of December 30, 1881. 
 Referring to the operations of Jay Gould, Russell Sage, 
 Cyrus W. Field, of that period, it said : 
 
 "For several years past it has been manifest to all but 
 the blind that our State Government, in all its branches, 
 was largely under the influence of railroad operators, 
 whose interest in the Legislature is to make weapons of 
 defence, and in the judiciary to turn these weapons against 
 the public. Steadily the work has been going forward of 
 reducing the honest material enterprises of the Common- 
 wealth to a condition of servitude to a few men, and as a 
 result the spectacle is presented of certain monopolies and 
 monopolists piling up fortunes- such as the world has 
 never seen, while side by side of them poverty seizes upon 
 ever-increasing thou.sands of industrious people. Mr. 
 Vanderbilt, by the stroke of his pen, enriched himself to 
 the extent of fifty million dollars. The Erie stockholders 
 were by an equally expeditious move robbed of sixty 
 million dollars. A half dozen men now add thirty million 
 dollars to the Western Union Company without investing 
 a cent, while the attorney-general showed that the Man- 
 hattan Railroad of New York City was watered to the 
 extent of eighteen million dollars, every cent of which 
 was so much stolen from the traveling public. Jay Gould's 
 latest operation gives him three millions. These things 
 show how the wealth of the country is going. They show 
 how the farmer, the artisan, and the merchant are sweat- 
 ing their blood out to enrich a few who regard their fel- 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 36 
 
 low-men as the spider does the fly, and as the wolf does 
 the sheep." 
 
 It will surprise many Americans that sets of men in 
 New York, Philadelphia and other large cities can form 
 syndicates without using any money of their own, and 
 can get banks, banking trusts and other institutions to 
 co-operate and lend their depositors' money to enable the 
 syndicates to get options of purchase upon the railroads, 
 industries, and other resources of this country, the control 
 of which constitute monopolies, and then charge them 
 with mortgage bonds, often for more than actual cost or 
 actual or proper value, in order to pay for them; and 
 then, on top of these mortgage bonds, charge thousands 
 of millions of dollars of bogus capital stock certificates 
 as real money. By operations of this kind single mem- 
 bers of syndicates have come into possession of millions 
 of dollars in cash. Every intelligent American will realize 
 that whenever men obtain the vast amounts of dollars for 
 nothing, the commonweal has to pay for it, because the 
 loaf of wealth in the country is not unlimited in its size, 
 and the more some take than their share for nothing, or 
 that they earn, the less is there for the others. 
 
 All these bogus capital stock certificates and mortgage 
 bonds, turned out like soap bubbles, stand upon the coun- 
 try's resources as a perpetual debt, and must be provided 
 with yearly payments, like the mortgage upon a house. 
 The power of cornering the country's resources, and then 
 turning them into a monopoly, and then charging them 
 with thousands of millions of dollars of bogus capital as 
 real money, is like charging a bank with capital which 
 never existed, and the bank is obliged to pay yearly divi- 
 dends, as if actual money had been paid in. 
 
 There has been unrestrained license taken by men to 
 form expeditions of plunder and blackmail to corral the 
 railroads, industries and other resources of the nation by 
 
36 DEPKAVED FINANCE. 
 
 which the people live, and then charge them with debts, 
 and the proceeds have not been put into the treasuries of 
 the different corporations, but taken for private aggran- 
 dizement. The charges which could be squeezed out of 
 the people for products and transportation, as well as by 
 parsimonious, and often by grinding wages, have been 
 the measure by which the creating of mortgage bonds and 
 capital stock have been created. Earnings have been an- 
 ticipated and every possible contrivance has been used to 
 force revenues, and these have been made the measure of 
 asset value. Whenever a pretext could be devised, and 
 even when a pretext could not be devised, bogus mortgage 
 bonds and bogus capital stock for thousands of millions 
 of dollars have been created upon the country's resources 
 and charged as real money, just as if the money had been 
 paid in, or other representations of value had been given in 
 exchange. Often the men who created the bogus charges 
 were in only temporary control, acquired by depressing 
 the prices of the stock market, and under varying pre- 
 texts have issued mortgage bonds and capital stock, and 
 then under other pretexts have taken a large portion, and 
 sometimes the whole of the proceeds. The providing of 
 yearly interest and dividends for all these creations of 
 imaginary or bogus capital charged as real money, for 
 which real money has been taken for nothing, means that 
 the resources of the country have been laid vmder tribute, 
 and are made subject to an enormous yearly tax, which 
 in its pernicious consequences is worse than a war tax. 
 because it is a tax of plunder, and goes into the pockets 
 of men who have no more title or right to it than brigands, 
 in consequence of these wrongful conditions millions 
 of men and women, as well as \\'orking children, 
 are harassed in order to live, and do not know what a day 
 will bring forth. To be happy requires obedience to the 
 laws of being. But how can human beings be obedient 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 37 
 
 to the natural laws which govern them, when they are 
 underfed, underclothed, overworked, and must of neces- 
 sity live in ill-conditioned rooms and inhale foul air? 
 The men and women do not possess liberty who must 
 work under hard conditions for ten hours and more. It 
 is more than absurd for the opponents of high wages and 
 shorter hours to claim that commodities cannot afford the 
 increased wages and shorter hours which enable the wage- 
 earners to be larger consumers. But the commodities 
 are affording vast sums for bogus capital by which a 
 luxurious class is being created, which is incomparably 
 less productive and advantageous than the wage-earners. 
 Imagine the widespread benefits to the nation if the wage- 
 earner could be paid more and the luxury users paid less 
 for a process which is industrially enslaving the country, 
 and imagine the resurrection of equity and morals by 
 doing justice to the producers, instead of extravagantly 
 indulging those whose vocation is to place the country 
 under unjust monetary incumbrances. 
 
 The means of happiness and good improving living, 
 the first essential of good citizenship, would be within the 
 reach of all the millions of the American people, were tkc 
 greed and grasp of the few who have adopted the use of 
 bogus charges to bleed the people under the restraint of 
 the law and made to disgorge. 
 
 The founders of the United States and the authors of 
 the Declaration of Independence would be not a little 
 surprised were they to return in the third year of the 
 twentieth century and find that about thirty thousand 
 million dollars of bogus securities had been created as 
 perpetual charges upon the country's resources, and that 
 the proceeds had been taken by the men who juggled them 
 into life, and that now the American people are struggling 
 to provide these bogus creations with yearly payments. 
 In' other words, the great resources of this country have 
 
38 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 been so manipulated that they are not for the benefit and 
 well-being of the American people, but for the private 
 purposes of men who make bogus capital for themselves 
 and then make the people provide it with dividends. 
 
 The existence of this enormous amount of the spurious 
 treated as the real means that the country's resources are 
 charged with debts approximating $30,000,000,000, for 
 which the country and nation have received no pretence of 
 equivalent, except a class of millionaires who are mostly 
 due to its creation. The country has been proceeding like 
 a man who has a thousand dollars and buys steel with his 
 money, and reckons the steel worth five thousand dollars, 
 and begins to indulge and spend accordingly. Were an 
 individual case under consideration he would be declared 
 to be on the road to ruin. But this is just what the Amer- 
 ican people have been doing, made worse by stock jugglers 
 taking the real money, often for extravagant luxuries and 
 degrading indolence. It is like a grocer who invests his 
 capital of a thousand dollars in groceries, and he at once 
 assumes and acts as if their value were five thousand 
 dollars, for this is about the proportion in which bogus 
 capital has been charged. Neither the country nor the 
 people are actually wealthier by such a process. The 
 inflation of products, of land, of houses, developed by 
 means and by the influence of bogus capital charged as 
 real money, is not wealth. It is inflation, of the value of 
 air, and the adjustment of the fictitious to the real for the 
 nation is inevitable, and until the nation makes the ad- 
 justment there will be a period of financial disease aggra- 
 vated by neglect or delay. But for the bogus capital which 
 has been charged as actual money upon the different re- 
 sources of this country since about the year i860, sixty 
 cents would buy more of the necessaries of life and other 
 commodities than can now be bought for a dollar. 
 
 All this explains the excess which the farmer has to 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 39 
 
 pay for transportation, for his clothing, and for the neces- 
 saries of Hfe which he does not grow. All this explains 
 in large measure why the average farm hand in the United 
 States is paid the wages of only $64 for a year's work, 
 according to the United States Census Report for 1900. 
 The high prices for the farm hand who receives $64 for a 
 year means that his wages will buy only about one-half 
 of the quantity that they ought to buy, and would buy, 
 if these evils were rectified. These doubled prices are 
 hard upon the factories and the wage-earner, for when 
 $64 will buy only $32 worth, only $32 worth must be 
 made by the factories, and produced by the wage-earner. 
 These high prices make it necessary that children work 
 in factories and work long hours for small wages; and 
 they explain why 2,000,000 children are working for a 
 bare living in the great modern Republic, where there is 
 more than enough for all. These high prices, created to 
 provide bogus capital with yearly charges, as if it were 
 actual money, explain why families are existing in New 
 York City with no more than $4 per week for their work, 
 with meals of only coffee and bread, and why in one 
 municipal district of New York City there are more evic- 
 tions in a month than in the whole of Ireland for the 
 same period. These high prices explain why a small room 
 at the top of the tenement in New York City, without 
 any air or light except by the door, costs $8 per month. 
 
 This vast amount of the spurious charged as the genu- 
 ine upon the country's resources explains why men, 
 women and children workers must travel to and from 
 their work packed like sardines, in a railroad car, holding 
 on to straps, and paying five cent fares, Avhile in the cities 
 of Great Britain the workers travel under better condi- 
 tions for less than two cents. The same cause explains 
 why men, women and children workers are tenants 
 of cold rooms, while the cost of coal in England is nine 
 
40 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 cents, and in Philadelphia and other cities the same quan- 
 tity and quality of coal costs twenty cents. The same 
 cause explains why the price of refined sugar in 1902 at 
 wholesale was 2.56 cents per pound in England, when 
 the same sugar at wholesale in the United States was 
 4.46 per pound. The same cause explains why the men, 
 women and children workers in the city of New York and 
 in other cities are without light of either gas or electricity, 
 while the cost of gas in American cities is a dollar or 
 more per thousand feet, while in the cities of Great Britain 
 the cost of gas is less than half. The same cause explains 
 how American bread is charged from five to eight cents 
 per loaf, while the same bread, made of the best American 
 flour, is sold in the same quantity in London for two and 
 a half cents. 
 
 In Glasgow, Scotland, 177,000,000 passengers were 
 carried in 1902, and the payment for traveling was less 
 than one and three-quarter cents each. Some paid one 
 cent for a shorter journey, and the others paid two cents. 
 Not only were the people of Glasgow carried for these 
 costs upon an electric railroad, but a further profit was 
 made by which in thirty years the cost of the railroad will 
 be paid off, besides a large amount being appropriated 
 from the profits to reduce the general expenses of the city ; 
 and no employee worked more than eight hours a day. 
 The railroads of American cities, especially such as New 
 York and Philadelphia, have been used like the gaming 
 tables of Monaco. In New York City return tickets at a 
 cost of three cents would provide better wages, shorter 
 hours for the railroad men, and pay all actual costs, were 
 the railroads not burdened with charges for fictitious cap- 
 ital and mortgage bonds. In 1901 the street railroad of 
 New York City owned only 26 miles, and this was charged 
 with about five million dollars a mile, and the other part, 
 which was only rented, had been dosed by the other com- 
 
DEPRAVED EINANOE. 41 
 
 panics with bogus capital for about the same sum per 
 mile. In 1903 this railroad, which ought to be for the 
 citizens, was charged with a new company to look after 
 the dividends for the other companies and to guarantee 
 the payments, and this new company was endowed with 
 nearly thirty millions of bogus capital, so that it could 
 bleed the citizens still further in the process of providing 
 the blood for the other companies. The greatest concern 
 of the stock-juggler is to find pretexts. Only pretexts 
 are required : no assets but those which can be squeezed 
 out of the public ; no money but that which can be turned 
 into the dividend bureau, and this will so vitalize the 
 bogus capital that it becomes a standard security for the 
 Stock Exchange. 
 
 The excessive cost of coal in the United States is not 
 because the coal is scarce or that the means of mining it 
 are inferior, but because the coal lands, the methods of 
 coal mining, and the coal transportation are charged with 
 millions of dollars of bogus capital, as if it were real 
 money, and the high prices are necessary for dividends 
 for capital which never existed. In 1879 there was less 
 fictitious capital charged upon the coal industry than in 
 1902. In 1879 the wholesale price of anthracite coal was 
 $2.50 per ton, and in 1902 the wholesale price was $4.50 
 per ton. The increased cost of gas is not because the 
 American people have not gas coal, nor that they have not 
 the modern means of converting the coal into gas, but 
 because the franchises which give a monopoly of gas and 
 electric supply in New York and other cities have been 
 obtained without consideration for the citizens, and the 
 franchises and the means of making and distributing the 
 gas, as well as the gas coal and electric plants, are charged 
 with millions of dollars of bogus capital, as if it were 
 actual, and high prices are necessary to provide it with 
 dividends. The same quality of gas is being supplied in 
 
42 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 English cities for less than fifty cents per thousand feet. 
 The gas and electric supply of New York City are con- 
 trolled by the Rockefeller interests, and although the citi- 
 zens and the press are in a state of indignation because 
 of the quality of gas supplied, it is publicly stated that 
 for every dollar of actual capital invested, more than ten 
 dollars of bogus capital have been charged as actual 
 money, and all are receiving large dividends. 
 
 The bread made of American flour, which is sold in 
 England for less than two and a half cents per pound, 
 which is charged five cents in the American cities, is 
 mostly because American appliances, American transpor- 
 tation, American means of distribution are more or less 
 surcharged with bogus capital as if it were real money, 
 and higher prices and charges are necessary to provide 
 the bogus capital with dividends. The baker has to pay 
 more money for his clothing, for his home, for his means 
 of travel, because all are more or less under tribute to 
 provide dividends for capital which exists only in dream- 
 land. 
 
 The charge for a room in tenements in New York and 
 other cities is not due to cost but to the general inflation 
 of prices, due largely to the creation of thousands of mil- 
 lions of dollars of fictitious capital, charged as actual 
 money, and to the inflated cost of transportation, and also 
 to the higher price for work, necessary to meet the high 
 prices and the reduced buying power of the dollar. Were 
 transportation free from fictitious charges the rates would 
 be lower, and then land outside the cities would be avail- 
 able for dwellings of better quality at less cost. The 64,500 
 evictions in New York City in 1903 are because the occu- 
 pants of tenements are unable to pay the high rentals, as 
 well as the high prices and charges for living and clothing 
 and traveling. The more than two million children work- 
 ers who are said by Anson Phelps Stokes, Jr., to be work- 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 48 
 
 ing under unfit conditions, is not because there is a scarcity 
 of men workers, but because they cost less, and because 
 the pressure in every direction is to make dividends for 
 capital which is unreal. The prices being so high makes 
 pressure for the parents, and contributions by the chil- 
 dren's wages are often necessary to provide the money to 
 pay the higher prices for the food and clothing and hous- 
 ing, and without the children's wages the supply would 
 often be still more scant. 
 
 Refined sugar is not more plentiful in England than the 
 United States, and the English have not better means of 
 refining sugar, but the bogus capital charged upon sugar 
 requires dividends, and these cannot be provided except 
 by high prices. According to the wholesale prices issued 
 by the United States Treasury for refined sugar in 1902, 
 and the wholesale prices issued by the British Government 
 for the same year for refined sugar, one hundred cents 
 would buy as much in England as 174 cents would buy 
 in the United States. This means that every million 
 dollars' worth of the same refined sugar in England was 
 sold in the United States for $1,740,000. The extra profit 
 of $740,000 upon a million dollars' worth of sugar would 
 provide dividends at the rate of 4 per cent, per year upon 
 more than $18,000,000 of bogus capital, which could then 
 be sold upon the New York Stock Exchange as freely as 
 wheat in the wheat market. 
 
 The knavery in charging imaginary capital as the real 
 is seen when we consider the nature of real capital. Cap- 
 ital is necessarily something which exists, and therefore it 
 cannot be fictitious. Capital must necessarily be some- 
 thing which will reproduce wealth, and therefore it cannot 
 be imaginary or unreal. If it cannot reproduce, it cannot 
 possibly be capital. Therefore, how erroneous and fraud- 
 ulent when men make pieces of paper having the sem- 
 blance of money and call them capital. 
 
44 DEPKAVED FINANOE. 
 
 The bogus capital-maker is like the scout of an attack- 
 ing army, to discover where people are industrious, pro- 
 ductive, and spending money; for it is there, and upon 
 them and their industries and necessaries, upon their earn- 
 ings and spendings, that he can create bogus capital and 
 charge it as real monej'. If the people travel, especially 
 if they must travel, he corrals into a monopoly all their 
 means of traveling. If there are many who must eat or 
 drink or clothe, or who must light up, or use heat, he 
 corrals the food, clothing, as well as the gas, electricity, 
 and oil and coal. All this is never done except to make 
 bogus capital. Were there no bogus capital which could 
 be charged as real money, the corraling of the railroads, 
 industries, and other resources of the country into monop- 
 olies, and then into Trusts, would be in vain. 
 
 When a man owns a store or farm it is important that 
 they are free from debt, but it is especially important that 
 they are free from debts for which he has received no 
 consideration or advantage, such as when bogus capital 
 has been charged upon the country's resources. When 
 a man has to take out of his earnings from his store or 
 farm so much every year to pay interest for a debt for 
 which he never received anything, his condition is not 
 only oppressive, but it is unjust. But when a man pays 
 by higher charges or higher prices so much every year to 
 provide dividends for a debt upon his country's resources, 
 for which his country has received nothing, then this is 
 no less oppressive and unjust than if he had to pay interest 
 upon a debt upon his store or farm for which he received 
 no consideration or benefit. The trader, the fanner, the 
 citizen, and the wage-earner are in the position of the 
 house-owner when another person obtains a mortgage 
 upon the house and takes the money, and the house-owner 
 has to pay perpetual interest upon the amount of the 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 45 
 
 mortgage, and is liable for the principal also, although 
 he never received the mortgage money. 
 
 The sum approximating thirty thousand million dollars 
 which exists upon the resources of this country as bogus 
 capital charged as real money, does not include the just 
 mortgage bonds and capital stock which have been issued 
 for actual values. This amount represents only the sum 
 of the pledging of the country's resources, in excess of 
 proper costs or proper values. When a railroad is mort- 
 gaged by mortgage bonds for its cost to construct and 
 equip and for betterment, and for working capital, it ought 
 not to be pledged again for any monies for private pur- 
 poses. All bogus mortgage bonds and capital stock 
 charged upon railroads of which the proceeds have been 
 used for private aggrandizement ought to be void in law. 
 
 It cannot be other than a policy of eventual destruction 
 to permit the resources of the country, upon the efficiency 
 of which it depends for its very existence, to be charged 
 in perpetuity, without compensation or exchange, with 
 thousands of millions of dollars, which must be provided 
 with dividends every year by higher prices and lower 
 wages. In view of the economies necessary to support a 
 great and increasing population, and place the necessaries 
 of life within the reach of the working producers, as well 
 as to obtain those low costs which will capture foreign 
 commerce, is it not absolutely imperative that all imag- 
 inary and fictitious charges shall no longer infest and dis- 
 qualify our railroads from giving the utmost of economies 
 in transportation? Is it not equally imperative that our 
 industries shall be made free from the same discreditable 
 cause of disablement, so that our exports of manufactures 
 can be normal, and that an American dollar at home shall 
 buy more of American industrial products, whereby the 
 people can consume more? This is not a question of 
 choice for the American people. The cost of production, 
 
46 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 because of bogus capital being charged as real money, has 
 become great, and will become greater and greater as the 
 bogus charges are allowed to increase. 
 
 The thirty thousand million dollars of bogus charges 
 put upon the country's resources, with the proceeds of 
 which the authors have floundered into millionaire life, 
 stand like a mortgage upon a house for which the legiti- 
 mate owner of the house never received the money. This 
 terrible amount, when divided among the 80,000,000 of 
 the American people, means that each have a perpetual 
 debt, for themselves and their descendants, of $375 per 
 head, to be provided with its yearly charges, which are 
 always there, even if there are no wages. When we 
 divide this perpetual debt among the workers, or produc- 
 ers of the nation, it amounts to more than $1,000 for 
 every one of them. This iniquitous debt acts like a maim- 
 ing machine upon all those who work. It reduces the 
 earning power for themselves, and it makes their hands, 
 their feet, their brains worth so much less to themselves, 
 but worth so much more to the men and their families who 
 have juggled the debt into existence by charging bogus 
 capital as real. Thus the extent of the disabling incum- 
 brance is apparent. But it is more apparent when we 
 consider that the men, women and children, who do all the 
 work and producing of the nation, and the creating of the 
 country's wealth, are only 38 in every 100 of tlie popula- 
 tion, and that the remaining 62 who do not work, or are 
 too young, or too old, or are sick or imbeciles, have to be 
 provided for by these 38 in every 100, as well as pro-vide 
 subsistence for themselves. 
 
 The great crucial question of tlie enslavement of the 
 American commerce is now before the American people, 
 and next to the Revolution and the Civil War, it is the 
 foremost question ever presented to them. Shall sets of 
 men systematically corral, then form into monopolies, the 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 47 
 
 railroads, industries, and other resources of the countrj', 
 pledged for thousands of millions of dollars, in order that 
 they can get pawn-tickets, in the shape of mortgage bonds 
 and stock certificates, which they can sell and take the 
 money for themselves? Shall men have full license to 
 create huge Trust institutions, in order to pledge the 
 country's resources, and then sell the pawn-tickets, as was 
 done with the United States Steel Corporation and with 
 nearly all the other Trusts ? If the American people say 
 yes, then more pledging will be done and more pawn- 
 tickets will be created, and the yearly charges for them 
 must be paid by the American people who work, while the 
 money will be taken, as in the past, by the few Americans 
 who only scheme. If the American people say yes, then 
 the American industries and other resources must be 
 blackmailed for the amount, they must be disabled to that 
 extent, and their products must be the most costly of all 
 countries, as they are, although they are produced in a 
 country of incomparable resources, and by labor and ma- 
 chinery which are the best in the world. The outcome will 
 be that more millionaires will be created, and the people 
 must work more and be depended upon as the chief con- 
 sumers of the country's products, although their wages to 
 buy with are small, and by increasing prices are becoming 
 smaller in value every year. 
 
 The existence of a debt approximating thirty thousand 
 million dollars which represent fictitious creations of cap- 
 ital, charged as real money upon the resources of the coun- 
 try, is the cause of only $9.44 being the average wages 
 paid to workmen in all industries of the United States, 
 and the explanation of $9.44 buying only $4.72 worth of 
 the necessaries of life. The existence of this debt explains 
 why all Am_ericans, in the professions, in trade, in indus- 
 tries, on the farms, wherever they are in this country, 
 obtain about sixty cents worth of transportation, clothing, 
 
48 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 housing, and home-life, and often of food, for a dollar. 
 The existence of this enormous and crushing debt operat- 
 ing as a black cloud upon the lives of millions of people, 
 explains how millions of dollars have been taken for noth- 
 ing but gambling and pledging, by w^hich the country's 
 resources have been alienated to bogus capital. When 
 millionaires have given the country equivalents for the 
 millions of dollars which they have obtained they are an 
 advantage to the nation. But when millionaires have ex- 
 tracted their millions by stock-juggling, by non-producing 
 contrivances, which give no equivalent to the nation, like 
 bogus capital charged as real money, and then juggling 
 the investors out of the capital stock, they are an inaim- 
 bering load upon the Commonwealth. 
 
 When men corral the country's resources, very often 
 without ownership or possession, and then charge them 
 with vast amounts of mortgage bonds, in excess of value 
 to pay for them, like the mortgage bonds of the Steel 
 Trust, and then charge the country's resources with bogus 
 capital as real money, they make necessary that others 
 shall make up the misappropriation, and the consequences, 
 in the end, always rest upon the people who work, and 
 thereby they are made less capable, poorer, with increased 
 privations, with lives difficult, hard and often unendurable. 
 Whenever men give an equivalent for the money they 
 obtain, for the resources they acquire, the number of the 
 poor is small, and the happiness of the people is great, 
 unless the country is barren. Whenever the poor are verv 
 numerous, whenever the privations of the people are great, 
 whenever the cost of living is high, in a country with vast 
 resources, whenever wages are comparatively small for 
 long hours of work, at high speed, then always there have 
 been vast appropriations of wealth, taken for nothing. 
 This explains, and is the only explanation, why vast 
 wealth in this country is allied with vast poverty, and 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 49 
 
 great working pressure mingled with the desperation of 
 want. Were men to give an equivalent for their wealth, 
 the country would get the equivalent, and the people would 
 get a share. The alienation of the country's resources and 
 the charging of them with the maintenance of non-pro- 
 ducers, whether by the action of a monarchy or nobles, or 
 the action of a juggler in making bogus capital charged as 
 real money, is the real creator of poverty and has always 
 been so. For example, were a community, numbering one 
 hundred persons, to possess money or resources of coun- 
 try, or an industry, of the value of one hundred thousand 
 dollars, each person of the community would be worth 
 one thousand dollars. Then each member of the com- 
 munity would be comparatively well-to-do, and the de- 
 mand upon each would be reasonable and moderate. Then 
 the compensation would be adequate and the conditions of 
 life would be good, improving and enjoyable. But were 
 one member of the community, with more greed and grasp 
 than all the others, to get a mortgage loan upon the com- 
 munity's resources for ninety-nine thousand dollars, and 
 take all the money for himself, and leave the debt and its 
 yearly charges as yearly obligations for the ninety-nine 
 other members of the community, then the ninety-nine 
 persons would have less than eleven dollars each, instead 
 of one thousand dollars. Then they have not only a re- 
 duced share, but they have to provide for the shares which 
 they have not. They have to provide for the quarterly 
 interest upon the debt or mortgage, for which the greedy 
 and grasping member has taken the money. Then the 
 conditions of the entire community are vastly changed. 
 The ninety-nine members are made poorer, for they have 
 lost nearly all their share of the resources of the com- 
 munity. They have, besides, to carry the debt and pay 
 interest upon it forever. Then the ninety-nine members 
 must not only be poorer, but they must work harder and 
 
50 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 longer, and eat less food, and use less clothing, and use 
 worse houses, and possess inferior homes, because they 
 have to support the tricky member in luxury, with his 
 servants, and coachmen, and horses, and steam yachts, all 
 of which are non-productive. And all this is being done 
 by the money derived from mortgaging the resources of 
 the community and taking the proceeds. \Anien the tricky 
 member of the community obtained ninety-nine thousand 
 dollars by pledging the resources of the community and 
 appropriating the money, he did the same work, in the 
 same way, by which Trust-makers make Trusts, except 
 that the Trust-maker makes the debt about five times the 
 actual value, or cost, and the people must carry and pro- 
 ^•ide for the amount every year, forever. Intense avarice 
 and depravity, allied with extra smartness, are all that 
 are required to corral railroads, industries, and the other 
 resources of the country, and these have created the enor- 
 mous debt which, for its yearly charges, bleeds the people 
 so largely. How natural that the multi-millionaires should 
 be so plentiful, that they should get their millions so 
 easily, and that the cost of everythmg, especially the neces- 
 saries of life, should be high, to make up for it. The 
 country's industries and railroads are becoming like vast 
 proprietary domains in olden times, apportioned among 
 princes, except that the revenues then were only a minia- 
 ture of the amounts they are now. The methods of ac- 
 quiring the millions and becoming princes, b}' controlling 
 properties as easily as dice-throwing and thus commer- 
 cially enslaving the people, without their knowing it, and 
 then bleeding them so largely, would be a surprise to 
 Csesar himself. The ease with which these princes are 
 created can be imagined when they carry the means up 
 their sleeves. 
 
 Mulhall, the eminent statistician, and others have de- 
 clared that a young man is worth to the United States, as 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 51 
 
 well as to himself, one thousand dollars. That is, sup- 
 posing he had free course, and had not to carry and pro- 
 vide for the portion of the delrt upon the country's re- 
 sources created by bogus capital charged as real money. 
 With his portion of the debt upon this country, created by 
 fictitious capital, his share is more than one thousand dol- 
 lars. Therefore he is worth one thousand dollars to the 
 country, and instead of being worth one thousand dollars 
 to himself, he is worth one thousand dollars to the stock- 
 jugglers who have created all the bogus capital and 
 charged it as money. 
 
52 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 HOW THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND THEIR 
 COUNTRY'S RESOURCES HAVE BEEN CAP- 
 ITALIZED UNDER THE CONTROL OF 
 BOGUS CAPITAL, WHICH HAS 
 BEEN CHARGED AS REAL 
 MONEY. 
 
 When the American people's resources are gambled under the 
 control of bogus capital, charged as real money, the people who 
 produce, as well as the people who use the products of these re- 
 sources, are largely included. The American people who work 
 out their existence, as well as their descendants, cannot do it with 
 freedom and liberty, nor with true manhood and womanhood and 
 well-being, while their country's resources are every year being 
 brought into the stock-juggling corral, in order to bleed them, 
 for a bogus capital, which the stock jugglers have imagined. 
 
 The United States has soil and climate capable of all 
 growth. It has incomparable mineral wealth. It has the 
 means for the pursuit and enjoyment of happiness, for all 
 its people, superior to all countries. It is claimed that it 
 has the best of labor, of labor-saving appliances, and other 
 machinery whereby the most can be produced for the least. 
 The average farmhand of the United States actually pro- 
 duces four times the quantity of farm products of the 
 average farmhand in Europe. Its working people in the 
 different industries work longer and at greater speed, and 
 were bogus capital not charged as real money in such vast 
 proportions and placed as a perpetual debt upon the coun- 
 try's resources, to be provided for every year by higher 
 and higher prices, it would produce and deliver to its 
 people more for a dollar of food and clothing and housing, 
 and of home-life, than any other country. 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. , 53 
 
 With all these natural and acquired advantages an 
 American is surrounded with nature's goodness and 
 plenty. He lives under a democratic form of government, 
 intended for the benefit of every one of its people, and 
 with good honest government and all that nature and 
 human ingenuity have provided, the United States should 
 be the ideal abode of mankind. 
 
 But during the last fifty years these advantages have 
 very largely been capitalized under the control of stock 
 companies, not for the purposes of utility or economy, but 
 in order to make thousands of millions of dollars of fic- 
 titious or bogus capital and charge it as real money, and 
 leave the amount as a perpetual debt upon these means of 
 advantage and benefit intended for the future use and 
 well-being of all the American people. 
 
 When the resources of a country, such as its industries, 
 are capitalized by bogus capital being charged as actual 
 money, the working people, as well as others who act as 
 producers, are practically included. The country would 
 be no better than a howling wilderness, it would be worse 
 than an Indian reservation, were there no working people 
 to produce and no population to consume. All this is fore- 
 seen and calculated by the Trust-makers of bogus capital. 
 Very largely, the different products which can be pro- 
 duced, and the people who produce them, and the higher 
 prices for the products, and the lower payments for wages, 
 are estimated and capitalized, and for every four million 
 dollars a year which can be evolved by the extra enslaving 
 grind, one hundred million dollars of bogus capital stock 
 can be created and charged as actual money, and then sold 
 on the New York Stock Exchange as easily as exchang- 
 ing paper dollars of the United States Government for 
 dollars of gold. To grasp the wealth or resources of the 
 country by which the American people must live, and then 
 charge them with thousands of millions of dollars of bogus 
 
54 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 capital, as real, and then appropriate the money for them- 
 selves, is the purpose of Trust-makers. 
 
 In former times a slave-owner could breed slaves, as 
 men nowf breed horses and sheep, in order to increase his 
 wealth. In Russia, during the period of serfdom, the 
 nobles were accounted rich according to the number of 
 serfs they owned. When the slaves or serfs were counted 
 at stock-taking time they were estimated as being capable 
 of earning so much money a year. They were then capi- 
 talized in the same way as industries, railroads, and the 
 earnings of their employees, are capitalized now, except 
 that then there were no capital stock corporations, and 
 consequently there were not the great inducements to treat 
 slaves and serfs to enormous doses of bogus capital, and 
 charge it as real money, as now. When the slaves or serfs 
 were capitalized, the more they could produce in net yearly 
 earnings the greater was their monetary value. The earn- 
 ings of so much money yearly, in dollars or in roubles, 
 enabled the slave-owner and the serf-owner to determine 
 the amount for which they could be capitalized. The 
 larger the earnings could be made, the more money would 
 the slave plantation and its slaves and the serf estate, with 
 its serfs, fetch at auction. Then, neither the slave-owner 
 nor the serf-owner was up to modern methods, in the way 
 in which an American stock-juggling Trust-maker is up 
 to date now. 
 
 Were a stock-juggling Trust-maker to handle a slave 
 plantation or a serf estate now as he handles the indus- 
 tries, railroads and other resources of this country and 
 counts the earnings of their employees, he would make a 
 stock corporation and place the whole lot, by a piece of 
 jugglery, under the control of a great perpetual debt, for 
 which he would take vastly more dollars than the actual 
 cost or worth of the property. The first operation would 
 be to create a mortgage on the property, and fix it in such 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 55 
 
 1 
 
 form that it would be quoted and bought and sold on the 
 Stock Exchange. The mortgage bonds are the mortgage 
 deeds of the property, but in small uniform amounts, and 
 a yearly interest is payable upon them, which, in the event 
 of failure, entitles the holder to legal proceedings and ulti- 
 mate foreclosure. The amount of the mortgage bonds is 
 usually for more than the actual cost or worth of the 
 property, sometimes double. These are sold by brokers 
 and agents, and the proceeds supply the money to pay for 
 the property. The next step is to make the bogus capital, 
 usually depending upon how much can be squeezed out of 
 the people, for dividends. The amount of the bogus cap- 
 ital is sometimes more than five times the value or cost of 
 the property. The bogus capital is a perpetual debt upon 
 the property, like the mortgage bonds, and both must be 
 provided with their yearly charges, only out of revenue. 
 There is no restraint upon the amount of the bogus capital, 
 nor upon the amount of the bogus mortgage bonds, al- 
 though the capital stock is no more the nature of capital' 
 than a fraudulent bank-note. But it can be made of value, 
 but in no other way than by the creation of dividends, and 
 then it can be sold. After the scheme has been completed, 
 the amount of the mortgage bonds and of the capital stock 
 is the sum for which the property is in pledge to the bond- 
 holders and stockholders. The Trust-maker has decamped 
 into millionaire life with the money which he has juggled 
 into his own pocket at the expense of the property. The 
 slave plantation and serf estate, loaded with a disabling 
 debt, are now under a new form of control. If the interest 
 on the mortgage bonds is not paid regularly all may go to 
 pieces. If the dividends are not paid regularly there will 
 be trouble. Therefore, new pressure is applied in every 
 direction. Doubt and difficulty, friction and antagonism, 
 and discontent are everywhere. The stock- juggler, who 
 has created all the embarrassment, is enjoying a princely 
 
66 DEPKAVED FINANCE. 
 
 life, as righteously obtained as the money obtained by the 
 card-sharper. 
 
 There is an important difference between the slave plan- 
 tation owner and the modern stock-juggling Trust-maker. 
 The Trust-maker never pretends to ownership or posses- 
 sion; he never pretends that he employs his own money. 
 He obtains only an option of purchase, often for no more 
 than 90 days ; and then he proceeds to pledge and pledge, 
 until the property is transferred to the mortgage bond- 
 holders and the bogus stockholders, when the juggling 
 scheme is completed. The juggler never does any legiti- 
 mate trading. He never pretends to give honest equiva- 
 lents. He never produces any enrichment of society, any 
 more than the proprietor of a debasing poolroom. In the 
 most generous sense he is no better than a perpetual attack 
 of virulent smallpox in a peaceful abode of industry. By 
 the stock- jugglery he makes vast millions of dollars for 
 himself, without cost or outlay, beyond some incidental 
 expenses. He juggles industries, railroads, and other re- 
 sources of the country, from an option of purchase, with 
 all their employees with their families and homes depen- 
 dent upon them, into the control of bondholders and stock- 
 holders, who believe they have secured unheard of bar- 
 gains, which will make them millionaires as well. 
 
 In stock-juggling three important processes are com- 
 pleted. The first is that the stock-juggler has slipped out 
 with millions of dollars, and renders no service whatever 
 to the property which he burdens with perpetual debts. 
 The second is that vast millions have been charged to the 
 industries or railroads or other resources of the country, 
 for which they receive no benefit, but actual disadvantage. 
 The transaction resembles in every particular the action 
 of a man who, as a stranger, mortgages a house which he 
 never owned, and appropriates the money. The house is 
 then in the same position of the industries and railroads 
 
DEPKAVED FINANCE. 57 
 
 and other resources of the country. All are burdened with 
 a debt for which they did not obtain the mortgage money. 
 The house is then like the resources of the country — all 
 are in queer street, and submerged in difficulties. The 
 house needs more rent to pay the yearly charge of the 
 mortgage. The industries must demand higher prices in 
 order to provide for the dividends of the bogus capital 
 stock, for which it received no benefit. Later, the diffi- 
 culties become accentuated. The rent of the house be- 
 comes so high that it is difficult to find a tenant. The 
 prices of the industrial products are so high that the people 
 must do with less, and some must do without. Then the 
 demand falls off more and more; then the mills must 
 close; the wage-earners must cease to work; then the de- 
 mand is reduced still more; then there is bad trade, and 
 the innocent wage-earners and others are reduced to the 
 desperation of want. The third process is, in its results, 
 like a temporary attack of a nauseous disease, except that 
 the charge is forever waiting like a vampire for blood 
 which has never been earned, and for which nothing of 
 any value has been given. These are not theories, but 
 actualities of every-day American life. 
 
 When an American man or woman starts out in life 
 for the struggle to live it is important that they should 
 be free from debt, free from its influences and exactions, 
 and free from all monetary burdens which hinder in the 
 race of life. But not one of the American nation who is 
 in the number of the people who work can start life free 
 from a great oppressive incumbrance which bleeds every 
 moment of their lives. Each one must carry a great debt 
 and provide dividends for it by more work and less wages, 
 more privation and increased suffering, caused by stock- 
 jugglers having pledged the resources of the country in 
 which they live for bogus capital stock, and taken the 
 money without giving anything of value for it. It is not 
 
58 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 I . - ^; ■ ■ _ 
 
 enough that all of the 29,074,717 who work in the United 
 States must face competition with each other, but they 
 must do more. They must carry always a debt charge of 
 about a thousand dollars. The thousand dollars have, been 
 created by the men who make bogus capital for stock 
 companies, who take the proceeds and leave the amount as 
 a debt upon the country's resources, which can only be 
 provided for by the American people who work. This 
 enormous debt, for which real money has been taken for 
 nothing, needs interest and dividends every day. Before 
 the wages or earnings can be used the interest and divi- 
 dends must be provided for, and in providing for them 
 so many cents are taken from the dollar every time it is 
 used. When a man clothes, charges for dividends must 
 be included in the price of his clothing. When a man 
 provides a home for himself and his family, charges for 
 dividends must be included in the cost of the building 
 materials of the house, in the cost of the appliances of his 
 kitchen, in the cost of the furniture, in the cost of the gas 
 with which he lights up, in the cost of the coal or the oil 
 with which he cooks and is warmed. In countless ways 
 the American people are fleeced in order to provide divi- 
 dends for a capital which is fraudulent. 
 
 Andrew Carnegie has publicly stated that "Trusts are a 
 natural and inevitable outcome of our economic con- 
 ditions." It would be interesting were Andrew Carnegie 
 to inform the American people if there exists one single 
 Trust, that is a trade combination, which has no bogus 
 capital charged as actual money. It would also be im- 
 portant to discover if he actually believes that it was for 
 the good of the American people that their steel industry 
 should have been charged with mortgage bonds so ex- 
 cessively, by which he was enriched so enormously, and 
 that more than a thousand million dollars of imaginary 
 capital should be charged as actual money, upon which the 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE, 59 
 
 American people are called to pay dividends and interest 
 for ever, by higher and prohibitive prices and lower v^fages, 
 such as the Steel Trust has accomplished. 
 
 Andrew Carnegie has obtained a goodly heritage by 
 only one Trust, and for him it is only natural to advo- 
 cate them. He has acquired forever an income for him- 
 self, his administrators and executors, of nearly sixteen 
 million dollars a year, by being a party to bleeding the 
 steel industry of this country. This is more than four 
 times the income of the King of England and all the royal 
 family, and whatever vicissitudes may come to the King 
 of England to make his income precarious, that of Andrew 
 Carnegie cannot be endangered, so long as the United 
 States has a steel industry. The New York Sun of Au- 
 gust nth, 1903, says that in twenty years the iron ore 
 of this country is likely to be exhausted, causing the ex- 
 tinction of this country's steel industry. But this has 
 been provided for. Andrew Carnegie obtained $303,- 
 450,000 in first mortgage bonds, which must pay 5 per 
 cent, a year or the entire properties of the Steel Trust are 
 liable to legal proceedings and forfeiture. There were 
 sundry doubtful contingencies, such as the exhaustion of 
 the iron ore of this country, and the resulting collapse of 
 this country's steel industry. Andrew Carnegie did not 
 forget these. He arranged that the contract should secure 
 to him, and his future heirs, and lay aside so much money 
 every year as a redemption fund, so that he could acquire 
 the principle in gold dollars, or English gold sovereigns, 
 in a certain number of years, before the steel industry is 
 a thing of the past, or in any other event. 
 
 The excessive amount paid to Andrew Carnegie for 
 only 60 per cent, of the Carnegie Company's steel plants 
 will be seen when we make comparisons of value. Ac- 
 cording to the United States Census Report of 1900, the 
 entire capital invested in the steel industry in 1899 was 
 
60 DEPKAVED FINANCE. 
 
 $590,530,484, and some of this was fictitious and charged 
 as actual money. The entire steel output of that year was 
 $804,034,918. It was produced in 669 establishments, 
 with 227,687 workers. In that year double the weight or 
 quantity of steel was delivered for a dollar, because prices 
 were then about one-half, and therefore double the capital 
 was required in 1889 to produce a dollar's worth of steel. 
 The total capital employed to produce the output of steel 
 in 1889 was 73 1-2 cents per dollar's worth. But in com- 
 parison with the quantity of steel delivered for a dollar in 
 1902 this amount should be cut in two, and the capital 
 to produce a dollar's worth of steel in 1902 should be only 
 37 cents. In 1902 the Steel Trust delivered steel products, 
 at doubled prices, amounting to $560,000,000. Therefore 
 the actual capital of the Steel Trust ought to be $207,200,- 
 000, based upon the real and fictitious capital existing in 
 this country's steel industry in 1899. In view of this 
 being the proper amount of capital for the Steel Trust, the 
 payment to Andrew Carnegie ought not to have exceeded 
 $60,000,000. Then the American people would have been 
 better off by paying for their own libraries and in a better 
 frame of mind for using them. The people would have 
 willingly put his name on them had he been just to them. 
 Andrew Carnegie's correspondence shows that he knew 
 that the makers of the Steel Trust were not handling 
 their own money or their own property, and that with 
 their feeble steel plants, loaded with mortgage bonds and 
 bogus capital, they were in queer street, and never would 
 get out, unless the Carnegie competition could be sup- 
 pressed. Then he demanded and obtained double the 
 money, for which he was an anxious seller, in the pre- 
 vious April. In this manner how natural that millionaires 
 are grown like mushrooms, collaterally with magnates 
 most costly than any known Emperor, and that at the 
 same time the millions who work are so bled by the 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 61 
 
 millionairing and emperorizing process that their struggle 
 to live and their desperation of want are increasing year 
 by year. The charges of all the absentee landlords of 
 Ireland for their land are everywhere claimed to be the 
 cause of the blight and sufifering and the hindrance to 
 trade and commerce in that country. All that the absentee 
 landlords of Ireland ever took for their land was less 
 than ten million dollars a year, but Andred Carnegie has 
 arranged to take, with the certainty of the rising sun, for 
 all time, more than ten millions a year from only one of 
 the industries of this country in excess of that which was 
 due. 
 
 Shylock was despised for demanding an equivalent for 
 his ducats, but how much more despicable would he have 
 been had he secured millions of dollars a year for steel 
 plants for which no equivalent was delivered ? An inter- 
 esting inquiry arises. Is it honorable to grasp all we can, 
 without consideration for others, especially when it means 
 a direct appropriation from the millions of our country- 
 men, whose hardships must thereby be increased and often 
 made intolerable to bear ? If it is, then it is honorable for 
 a President of the United States to plunder, for a boss to 
 be in politics for his own pocket, and for a politician to 
 be corrupt. 
 
 The geologic activities of the earth produce mountain 
 and valley with as much solicitude and emotion as some of 
 the human species acquire unearned riches and create un- 
 deserved poverty. Mutual aid in four-footed animals is 
 often demonstrated more than by bipeds. Even in rats 
 we see beautiful examples of mutual aid, and it is not 
 recorded that one has ever struggled to huddle into a 
 corner vast supplies for which its species were starving, 
 sometimes unto death. 
 
 Under conditions like these the growth of the poor 
 glass is enormous, and the advance of the rich class is 
 
62 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 gigantic. The wealth soon swallows up the others. This 
 is shown by the history of Rome. The wealthy class of 
 Rome used its wealth to corner more, until all were en- 
 slaved who were not wealthy. The vast wealth of Rome 
 was ultimately cornered by a comparatively few families, 
 and the others became servile slaves, to minister to indo- 
 lence, luxury, and ostentation. The great revenues were 
 sufficient to cover Italy with magnificent edifices, but only 
 to people them with degenerates. All had become so ener- 
 vated, the one by wealth and the other by servility, that 
 the nomad population which skirted their borders became 
 their superiors and then their masters. Later, when the 
 feudal over-lords allowed the Roman people to work on 
 the soil, the terms were three days' service a week, without 
 wages. This is vastly inferior to the terms of the indus- 
 trial over-lord who acquires control by bogus capital 
 charged as real money, and then demands double prices, 
 and gives fifty cents' worth of commodities for a dollar. 
 It is not to be supposed that the upper classes of ancient 
 Rome, who were degenerated by indolence and wealth, 
 as well as their inferiors, were not of superior origin, or 
 because they were strangers to la\\- and the arts. Their 
 physique and physiognomy, their intelligence and culture, 
 were of a high order, and would favorably compare with 
 the best classes of this country. 
 
 The wealth of a country may be compared to a loaf of 
 bread. The size is not unlimited, ^^^^en some take more 
 than their share the others must accept less^ This explains 
 the existence of vast riches and widespread and increasing 
 poverty in a country of great abundance. When men 
 make imaginary capital and charge it as money to obtain 
 more than their just share of the loaf of wealth, to the 
 extent of more than a thousand million dollars, as with 
 the Steel Trust, then great numbers are at once marched 
 into harder living, into more poverty, and often into ab- 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 63 
 
 ject want. In the loaf of wealth there is only so much 
 for all. The more that is taken for nothing the less must 
 be accepted by those who do something to earn it. The 
 more that is taken for bogus capital, the more will be the 
 number of the poor, and the more must the worker work, 
 and less must the worker receive. 
 
 The people of Detroit have shown a commendable no- 
 bility in refusing Andrew Carnegie's money extracted 
 from the people of the steel industry, as well as from all 
 the American people who spend dollars, because he has 
 made the dollar buy less. Were the same methods ap- 
 plied for taxing the British steel industry forever, the 
 British Parliament would appoint a commission of inves- 
 tigation, and that result would be more than inconvenient. 
 
 Carnegie preaches the doctrine that the rich are the trus- 
 tees of the poor. Would it not be better to have done 
 justice to them by giving them wages Avhich are not the 
 price of blood, such as we saw at Homestead, and as de- 
 scribed by John Redmond in his letter to the Irish Emi- 
 gration Society. John Redmond says : "I have seen the 
 Irish laborer in the great steel works. I have seen him 
 working like a white slave, stripped almost naked, at the 
 furnace, working ten and twelve hours a day, and some- 
 times sixteen hours, for a dollar and a half. When it is 
 remembered that a dollar in America will not buy more 
 than twenty-five cents will buy in Ireland, you should 
 think whether a dollar and a half is worth such slavery." 
 The facts show that Andrew Carnegie has squeezed the 
 people and made human machines of them, and with the 
 proceeds he is posing as a picture of philanthropy with 
 the ostentation of an Emperor. What is more natural 
 than that all that Andrew Carnegie took for nothing by 
 the doings of the Steel Trust, and by grinding the people 
 at Homestead out of the people's grist mill, that children 
 and women, as well as the men, with their wan and hag- 
 
64 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 gard faces and underfed and ill-clothed bodies, must be 
 forced in to grind and make up for it? 
 
 The causes of great wealth and widespread poverty are 
 simple. Wealth consists of all things in a country which 
 possess a value, for which other useful things of value 
 can be exchanged. The wealth of the United States con- 
 sists of all its resources, of farms and all their different 
 properties, such as land, buildings, machinery, live stock, 
 and products ; railroads, with their equipment and proper- 
 ties ; industries, with the capita, land, buildings, machinery 
 and products ; buildings and land, sliips, fisheries, forests, 
 mines, and quarries, and all belonging to them which have 
 an exchangeable value as well as money. When one man 
 grasps the power and uses it without the restraints of 
 just laws to grind the people for low wages, the people 
 become emaciated and impoverished human machines, 
 with their best instincts ground out of them, while the 
 man becomes rich, and usually rich unto demoralization. 
 Formerly riches were obtained by industry, thrift, econ- 
 omy, and honest trading for equivalents. By the absence 
 of restraining laws and preferences for the men who have 
 acquired riches, or who will share their plunder, riches are 
 mostly acquired by scheming, and in the United States 
 mostly by scheming bogus capital stock and mortgage 
 bonds as charges forever upon the country's resources, 
 and then getting real money for them. 
 
 The severe hardships in getting a living produced by 
 men grasping enormous slices of the country's wealth, are 
 increased when the monetary proceeds are spent upon ex- 
 travagant ostentation in foreign countries, and upon racing 
 studs, steam yachts, and palatial houses and numerous 
 flunkies at home, and the employment of wealth upon 
 such conceits and vanities are incontestable evidences that 
 wealth is doing a demoralizing work, and often that the 
 men are unfit for it. Augustus Caesar was great. After 
 
DEPKAVED FINANCE. 65 
 
 he had conquered all the enemies of Rome, and became 
 the autocratic Emperor of all the Roman Empire, he lived 
 in unostentatious simplicity and occupied a house smaller 
 than that of other Roman citizens, with about one-tenth 
 of the flunkies employed by Andrew Carnegie, extracted 
 blood from the steel industry. We have too much of 
 the bedaubing of mere wealth, and it is more intolerable 
 and offensive because it is so unholy and ill-gotten. Rome 
 fell because of its wealth, extracted for nothing by a few 
 from the people. The wealthy few dotted Italy witli 
 palaces, which only degraded the nation and made the 
 people servile, and then all were without the moral stamina 
 necessary to support the Roman nation. Were a people 
 sufficiently moral and conversant with economics, they 
 would petition ostentatious and extravagant wealth to 
 leave their locality, for the public good. 
 
 It is impossible for the capitalization of any people, 
 such as has been done with most of the American indus- 
 tries and their workers, to be performed without wide- 
 spread and far-reaching consequences to the nation. The 
 capitalization of the resources of a people by bogus capital 
 in the best of all means to ultimately produce the indus- 
 trial enslavement of all who work for a livelihood. It is 
 superior to all other means for producing a class of idle, 
 luxury-using non-producers who have all the vices and 
 few of the virtues of an actual aristocracy. That there is 
 a debt of a vast amount, fictitiously created by bogus cap- 
 ital charged as real money, with yearly charges due to it 
 as if it were created for equivalents of value, means that 
 there are thousands of consuming non-producers, includ- 
 ing absentees abroad, who are existing, often in extrava- 
 gant luxury and indolence, who are equivalent to encum- 
 bering paupers, dependent upon the yearly payments made 
 for this bogus debt. 
 
 The destruction of the moral fiber of the nation by a 
 
66 DEPKAVED FINANCE. 
 
 small part of its citizens who are unscrupulous being able 
 to commercially enslave the other larger portion, by ac- 
 quiring only temporary control of the resources of the 
 country, and pledging them and appropriating the money, 
 by charging bogus capital as real, must naturally produce 
 a class of non-producers, who will disclaim work as de- 
 grading and create an atmosphere of class privilege and 
 indolence. This is shown in a marked degree by the num- 
 ber of the population of the United States who are em- 
 ployed in producing the means of the nation's existence. 
 According to the United States Census Report of 1900 the 
 population in that year was 76,303,387. Of this number 
 57,949,824 were adults. Of the entire 76,303,387 there 
 were 29,074,717 employed in the various occupations of 
 this country. There were 10,381,765 engaged in agricul- 
 ture; there were 7,055,992 engaged in manufactures and 
 machinery; there were 5,380,657 engaged in domestic and 
 personal service; there were 4,766,964 engaged in trade 
 and transportation; there were 1,253,739 engaged in the 
 professions; there were 581,221 engaged in quarrying and 
 mining; and there were 68,777 engaged in fisheries. Ac- 
 cording to this report, in the population of the United 
 States, supposed to be the most industrious nation in the 
 world, there are 61.9 persons in every hundred who are 
 dependents and must be provided with an existence by the 
 38.1 others in every 100 who work. Therefore there are 
 61.9 persons in every 100 who are idle, or incapable, or too 
 sick, or too young, or too old, or unwilling to work and 
 do their share of moving the Commonwealth along its 
 industrial pathway. When we consider the fact that 
 more than five millions of all the 29,076,387 workers of 
 the United States are women over fifteen years and chil- 
 dren over ten years, the industrial conditions of this 
 country are more discreditable and discouraging. If we 
 exclude the number of women and children from the num- 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 67 
 
 ber of the occupied portion of the population of this coun- 
 try, the workers are only 31 in every 100. In the produc- 
 tion of all the industrial products of this country, which 
 amount to more than double that of all our agricultural 
 products, the number of wage-earners is only 9 in every 
 100 of the population, and in some of these industries, 
 such as the manufacture of cottons, there are more chil- 
 dren and women employed than men. 
 
 These comparatively few workers in every 100 of the 
 population produce enormously, and must do so in order 
 to support so large a portion of the population which is 
 idle and non-productive. These non-producers tax the 
 products of the country so largely, by higher prices, that 
 the dollar obtains only about fifty cents' worth of prod- 
 ucts, and owing to the same cause the workers receive 
 miserable wages and receive miserable quantities for their 
 wages, and must work at high pressure for longer hours, 
 although the worker produces so much more than the 
 workers of all other countries. 
 
 According to the United States Census of 1900 the 
 average industrial workers of the United States produced 
 in that year industrial products of the value of $2,450, 
 or nearly five times as much as the industrial products of 
 the British industrial worker. The census states that the 
 average British industrial worker produced only $500. 
 The average farmhand of the United States was paid only 
 $64 in that year, and he produced four times as much as 
 the average farmhand of Europe. The average farm of 
 all the farms of the United States is 146 acres, and the 
 entire average production of all such farms in 1900 was 
 only $656, or less than $13 per week, for all the products 
 out of which the farmer and his family must live and pay 
 expenses and farm costs. All this is because the farmer in 
 the country, as well as the worker in cities, are under the 
 grasp of bogus Capital, and must provide it with divi- 
 
68 DEPKAVED FINANCE. 
 
 dends. Thus we see how incomparably great is the pro- 
 duction of the American people for so little, and yet they 
 are punished again and every time they spend their dollars, 
 because everything is taxed by bogus capital, and divi- 
 dends are unavoidable for it so long as it is not extin- 
 guished. The wages of the wage-earner, and the farmer, 
 and all the others who are not in the bogus game, are not 
 only squeezed by small payments, in order to provide divi- 
 dends for an imaginary capital, but when they use their 
 payments to buy with they get as little as can be enforced, 
 in order to provide dividends for other capital which is 
 only imaginary. 
 
 When 61.9 in every 100 of a nation's population do no 
 producing, and do all and more of their share of con- 
 suming, and some consume extravagantly, the other 38. i 
 in every 100 of the population must work more and do 
 with so much less. Were every one of these 69 in every 
 100 in the United States who are not too young or too old, 
 or too sick, classed as imbeciles, and had to be provided 
 with suitable asylums, the affliction thereby upon the na- 
 tion would be great. But as the facts are, the affliction 
 of the nation is considerably worse. When a large portion 
 of the population misappropriate the people's resources 
 by charging bogus capital as real money, and then squan- 
 der the proceeds in extravagant luxury and indolence, they 
 are worse than the cost of imbeciles to the nation. This 
 large proportion of non-producing dependents so created 
 are equivalent to parasites upon the workers. They exist 
 in the same proportion in none of the countries of Europe, 
 nor in any other country of the world which has a record. 
 Every country, even those with their nobles, aristocrats, 
 hidalgos, gypsies, and beggars, have a larger proportion 
 of workers than is recorded in the United States Census 
 Report of 1900. If an aristocracy is distinguished by its 
 ability to disclaim work, then the United States has more 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 69 
 
 aristocracy in eVery loo of its population than any other 
 country. When we observe that in the 38.1 in every 
 100 who work are included hundreds of thousands of 
 children of the age of ten years, as well as of women over 
 the age of fifteen years, and that every one, on an average, 
 including the children and women, have to maintain 
 nearly three other dependents, and some of them consum- 
 ers in such large proportions, the human fiber seems to 
 fall apart. 
 
 Cardinal Gibbons and other Catholic clergymen of this 
 country have written to the Irish Emigration Society urg- 
 ing the Irish not to come to this country, intended to be 
 for the ideal abode of mankind. Cardinal Gibbons says : 
 "I know under what circumstances people live in America. 
 My advice to the young men and women of Ireland is to 
 endeavor to find a livelihood in their own Ireland." 
 Bishop Luddon, of Syracuse, writes : "I would like my 
 voice and my advice to reach every young man in Ireland, 
 if he can possibly find a decent living at home to stay 
 there."" It is not because the resources of the country are 
 too poor; they are the richest of all countries. It is not 
 because the people are not industrious ; they are the most 
 industrious and productive of all countries. It is not be- 
 cause the machinery is inferior; its output in value for 
 every dollar of actual cost exceeds that of all countries. 
 The cause is that all is taxed so enormously to support the 
 most numerous and costly, luxury-using and wealth-wast- 
 ing idlers of all countries, and this cannot be done by so 
 few workers without driving them like mules in a coal 
 mine, for starvation conditions, and nothing will remedy 
 these inhuman conditions but the extinction of the bogus 
 capital stock. 
 
 Only one country of Europe approaches such conditions 
 of indolence as exist in the United States. In Spain there 
 are thousands of hidalgos, saturated by the influences of 
 
70 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 centuries of indolence and pride, including 30 adults in 
 every 100, who have no visible means of existence, and yet 
 the workers in that benighted country number more per 
 hundred of the population than in the United States. The 
 workers of Spain number 41.6 in every 100 of its popu- 
 lation. In England, Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, 
 there are nobles, aristocrats and others who pride them- 
 selves upon being able to disclaim all work by means of 
 old inheritances. But these countries and France, Bel- 
 gium, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Norway and Sweden, 
 have a larger proportion of workers in every hundred of 
 their population than the United States. In England, 
 with its large aristocracy and land-owners of private es- 
 tates, the workers number 46.8 in every 100 of the popu- 
 lation. The workers in Germany number 46.1 in every 
 100 of the population. The workers in Austria and Hun- 
 gary number 50 in every 100 of the population. The 
 workers of Canada number more than 50 in every 100 of 
 its population. Canada has 11.9 more workers in every 
 100 of its population than the United States, which largely 
 explains why the exports of Canada are nearly $80 per 
 head of the population per year, while the exports of the 
 United States are less than $30 per head of the population 
 per year. 
 
 The few workers and the many indolents in the popu- 
 lation of the United States disclose remarkable conditions 
 of society in the modern Republic, founded to be an exem- 
 plary democracy. This fact explains the existence of the 
 great privations and want in the midst of incomparable 
 abundance which we see in American cities. It directly 
 shows the effects of the rampant Trust system which takes 
 vast sums of money from the people by means of bogus 
 capital charged as real money, taken for nothing. This 
 enables numbers of men and women, with their retinues, 
 to live in luxury and indolence at home and like royal 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 71 
 
 princes abroad. Were the United States in possession of 
 a nobility more numerous than ever existed in any Euro- 
 pean country, or were it an old crumbling nation, steeped 
 in old traditions which looked upon work as ignoble, these 
 conditions of indolence would be natural. But the United 
 States claims to be a model democracy of the people, 
 built for the people, for the good of all. When we see 
 61.9 of every 100 of the population are outside the pale 
 of all work, we have incontestable proof that in its na- 
 tional composition there are elements of disease in large 
 and unexampled proportions common to the worst in- 
 stincts of nobles, aristocracy, hidalgos, and other such 
 burdensome incumbrances, which have always made op- 
 pressive burdens by appropriating more than their own, 
 which the people of the country must carry and endure. 
 Wherever these unjust conditions exist, facilitated and de- 
 veloped largely by a tariff law which protects the making 
 of high prices, the workers must work more and the chil- 
 dren and the women must be called in to provide for the 
 many who play and take so vastly for nothing. Wherever 
 there is much extravagance and indolence there must be 
 extra privation and pressure of work, to make up the dif- 
 ference. Wherever there is luxurious living in large 
 measure there is always privation and suffering, as well 
 as poverty and overwork. The more who indulge inordi- 
 nately in luxuries and in indolence, the more the working 
 people who support them must grind and endure, and by 
 less eating, less clothing, and worse housing, adjust the 
 balance sheet with those who use in excess. When the 
 idler is an actual capitalist, providing actual money, or 
 other representations of value, which is saved labor, for 
 the genuine purposes of capital, he then does his portion 
 in the producing economy, and is justly obtaining the 
 earnings of his saved labor. But it is altogether different 
 when a man imposes bogus capital as real money, and then 
 
72 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 creates a family of indolent dependents upon the dividends 
 perpetually demanded for the bogus capital. 
 
 The number of workers in every loo of the population 
 demonstrates the efficiency and well-being of a nation. 
 Neither Athens, Rome nor Venice had a good proportion 
 of workers. They failed ignominously by indolence and 
 luxury, as all other nations have fallen. The more the 
 workers in a country, the smaller is its idle class, the 
 smaller its commercial disease, and the more wholesome 
 and vigorous is its political life. That such unwholesome 
 conditions can exist in a country which claims to be a 
 model Republic is explainable only by the absence of 
 fidelity and good faith in those to whom the American 
 people have entrusted government. 
 
 Pizarro, the Spanish general who conquered Peru, de- 
 clared to Atahualpa, the King of the Incas, that he could 
 have his freedom if he would only fill Pizarro's room with 
 gold. To the surprise of Pizarro the gold was produced 
 and the room was actually filled, but Atahualpa never re- 
 gained his freedom, and was killed by the order of Pizarro. 
 
 In a room ten feet square and ten feet high, when filled 
 with pure gold, there would be more than three himdred 
 and eighty-five million dollars. Were Pizarro now the 
 conqueror of the United States as he was then of Peru, he 
 would have demanded the earnings of the promoters, or- 
 ganizers and underwriters of the United States Steel Cor- 
 poration, although their services were not worth a cent 
 to the steel industry, and then he would have been enriched 
 considerably more than by double the number of gold 
 dollars which he obtained from the room which was filled 
 by Atahualpa's gold. 
 
 In France, in the time of Louis XIV, there were no 
 steel industries, and the other industries were compara- 
 tively small. The wealth of that time consisted mostiy of 
 land and its products. The exactions and plunderings by 
 
DEPEAVED EINANOE. 73 
 
 the nobles had developed into scandalous proportions dur- 
 ing the reigns of the previous monarchs, but insignificant 
 compared with the amount of the plunderings of this coun- 
 try's resources in these days by Trust-makers. In 1667 
 Louis promulgated an edict which declared : "Every one 
 has taken lands according to his powers. Imaginary debts 
 have been created in order to seize upon the lands." It is 
 a remarkable fact that in present and past history benefi- 
 cent laws have been enforced more under monarchies than 
 by republics. Louis made severe examples of the men who 
 had seized upon lands by means of imaginary debts. How 
 apt would the same edict be were it applied to Trust- 
 makers who have taken industries, railroads and other re- 
 sources of this country by means of imaginary capital 
 charged as real money. Louis XIV, with all his faults, 
 never would have allowed stock-jugglers to enslave the 
 steel industry and railroads by creating thousands of mil- 
 lions of dollars of imaginary capital and charge it as 
 actual money upon those resources upon which the people 
 depend for their existence and well-being. 
 
 Louis XIV was extravagant, and he was so with money 
 which he obtained by taxing the French people, just as the 
 Trust-makers are extravagant now by taxing the Amer- 
 ican people, only in vastly larger proportions. Louis spent 
 one hundred million dollars upon the building of the pal- 
 ace at Versailles, and he little knew that he was then sow- 
 ing the seeds of the French Revolution, which would de- 
 stroy his dynasty and emancipate the French people from 
 serfdom into freemen, -and into the possession of their 
 alienated properties. But in comparison with all that has 
 been done with the steel and other industries of the United 
 States, whereby the prices have been doubled, and the 
 wages of the steel workers reduced, in order to provide 
 dividends for imaginary capital charged as real money, 
 the extravagant taxation and spending at Versailles was 
 
74 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 as nothing. The men who created the Steel Trust, with- 
 out the profits of their other trust-makings, lined their 
 pockets with peculated gold dollars which would have built 
 ten such palaces as Louis built at Versailles. But had ten 
 such palaces been built in the United States by the pro- 
 ceeds of the appropriations out of the steel industry by 
 the making of the Steel Trust, they would have been un- 
 productive, like most of the money peculated from the 
 steel industry, and would have produced no more enrich- 
 ment of society than if the money were devoted to riotous 
 living. They would have given work to thousands, but 
 like a coat made for a non-producer, the work would have 
 been unproductive. But even this would be vastly better 
 for the American people than devoting the proceeds of 
 bogus capital to flunkies and castles in foreign countries, 
 for then the earners acquire no advantage whatever. 
 
 Louis XIV obtained his money by bleeding the French 
 people by direct taxation. When he wanted money an 
 edict went forth with all the omnipotence of a modern 
 Trust when it puts up prices and puts down wages, and at 
 one stroke makes dollars buy less and gives the wage-earn- 
 ers less dollars to buy with. The methods of bleeding the 
 people by Louis, b)'^ which he commenced the dethrone- 
 ment of his race, were never so effectual nor so far-reach- 
 ing, nor so ingathering, as those of the American Trust. 
 Louis wanted his blood-money for his methods of govern- 
 ment, and he openly declared this to the French people. 
 The American Trust-makers bleed the American people 
 mostly to make schools of millionaires and to found mod- 
 ern aristocratic families, which can gambol in indolence 
 and disclaim all work, and be notorious for consuming, if 
 not destroying inordinately. Louis believed that his title 
 to bleed was founded upon a noble heritage, as well as 
 divine right. American Trust-makers found their right 
 to their great bleeding process by juggling bogus pieces 
 
DEPRAVED riNANOE. 76 
 
 of paper, called capital stock, and then charging them as 
 actual money, upon the very resources of the country by 
 which the American people and their descendants hope to 
 live and enjoy their being. 
 
 The American Trust-makers bleed the American people 
 by indirect taxation, by which, whenever dollars are used, 
 so many cents are seized for the dividends for the imag- 
 inary capital, and this process of bleeding so mystifies the 
 American people that they believe the operation is done 
 for their special benefit by a captain of industry, whereas 
 it is a monster stock- juggling, blood-drawing accomplish- 
 ment. The tax-gatherer never calls for large sums, and 
 his calls are seldom. The Trust-makers of this country 
 have so arranged their taxing scheme that whenever an 
 American eats, or drinks, or clothes, or rides, or smokes, 
 and in nearly all the other operations of life, that divid- 
 dends for the imaginary capital shall be provided with 
 unerring certainty, as well as in large measure. Some- 
 times the dividend provision is at the rate of fifty cents 
 upon the dollar, as with steel and beef, and other neces- 
 saries of life. 
 
 Louis XIV was very jealous, especially when any of his 
 nobles made imaginary charges upon his provinces. But 
 one set of Trust-makers have made imaginary charges 
 upon the steel industry which amount to more than the 
 actual value of all the farm property, including all their 
 belongings, of twelve States of the Union, and consider- 
 ably more than all the invested capital in these twelve 
 States. In other words, the unreal or fictitious charges 
 trumped up and charged to one industry for private pur- 
 poses have been considerably more than the real invested 
 capital in twelve States. 
 
 According to the United States Census Report of 1900 
 the following twelve States, Arizona, Delaware, Idaho, 
 Maine, Utah, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New 
 
76 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wyoming had alto- 
 gether, in 1900, farm property of the value of $903,000,- 
 000. This farm property comprised all the farms and 
 their improvements, buildings, machinery, implements, 
 and all their live stock. But the imaginary capital charged 
 to the steel industry was considerably more than this 
 amount, and considerably more was appropriated for 
 nothing. 
 
 This nefarious system of misappropriating the money 
 derived by pledging the resources of the country, and so 
 disabling them for good and proper work for the Amer- 
 ican people, is now so interwoven with the fiber of finance, 
 as well as of politics, and the rewards are so easy and 
 enormous, that often our youth look forward to it, as 
 honorable men look forward to the emoluments of an 
 honorable profession. By it the dreams of avarice are 
 satisfied with small effort and often without cost to them- 
 selves, but at a terrible expenditure to the future well- 
 being of the nation. Depravity is now the core of suc- 
 cessful finance, and political boodleism often plays an im- 
 portant part in the programme. But for the unfaithful- 
 ness of the members of Congress and of the State Legis- 
 latures, depraved finance would be impossible. Prominent 
 lawyers are so closely connected with Trust making, and 
 can so easily be enlisted not to oppose, that no help from 
 them can be expected. Lawyers are necessarily interested 
 in defective laws, just as the meat-packer is interested in 
 the bulk of the cattle being large when he pays for them 
 per head. The profession of the law is supported by the 
 dishonesty of mankind, and as the standard of integrity 
 falls the emoluments of lawyers increase. It would never 
 be for the interest of lawyers to have perfect laws which 
 promote the honesty of mankind, for then their employ- 
 ment would be reduced enormously. 
 
 All this plundering can proceed, but it means inevitable 
 
DEPEJlVED finance. Y7 
 
 ruin ultimately. At every step of its progress the thral- 
 dom and punishment for all who are not in the middle of 
 the swim, especially for those who are not rich, as well 
 as for all who work, is gradually being completed. It is 
 to be deplored that politicians are often made passive, 
 often disarmed by the large donations of Trust-makers to 
 both political parties at election times, whereby the Trust- 
 makers purchase immunity from punishment for great 
 crimes. 
 
iS 
 
 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 HOW TRUST-MAKERS MAKE HIGH PRICES 
 AND MAKE DOLLARS WORTH FIFTY 
 CENTS. 
 
 The best of governments is that one which so fosters the econo- 
 mies of the nation, and protects the weak and poor from the grasp- 
 ings of the powerful rich, that the people can obtain the most for 
 their dollars. 
 
 Every government which makes laws to protect the making of 
 higher prices in order to enrich a rich class makes hardship and 
 poverty for the others, and that government is an enemy of the 
 people, because its object is to make them get the least for their 
 dollars. 
 
 The first duty of a government of the people, for the people, 
 will be to undo all the measures of the higher-price governments, 
 in order that the people can get the most of the necessaries of 
 life for their dollars. Then higher prices will not provide divi- 
 dends for bogus capital. 
 
 In a country which has an abundance of the best of raw ma- 
 terials and the best of labor and machinery, which, in combination, 
 produce more for a dollar than in any country of the world, laws 
 which protect the making of higher prices are not only uneconomic 
 but an injustice to the people. 
 
 There is an inseparable relation between the prices for the 
 necessaries of life in a country where they are abundant — like the 
 United States— and its government. Prices for the necessaries of 
 life are an infallible barometer of the quality of the government 
 and of the privileges it grants to a few, to acquire riches for noth- 
 ing. Low prices for the necessaries of life and much for the dol- 
 lar mean well-being and contentment for the people. High prices 
 and little of the necessaries of life for the dollar mean bad govern- 
 ment; mean privileges for the few and riches for nothing, and 
 increasing poverty and hardship for the many. The best evidence 
 of a bad government is higher and higher prices for the necessaries 
 of life, resulting from increasing and increasing privileges for the 
 few, whereby they get riches for nothing, and the many have to 
 make up the difference by increasing sacrifice and work. The 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 79 
 
 more a government winks or trades in the deal, the worse and 
 more infamous and poverty-making is that government. 
 
 The mere men are allowed to "grab," the more must the other 
 men of the nation work and suffer, in order to make it up, and 
 the more must the women and children be called in to suffer and 
 work. Every grab, or the taking of the country's resources by an 
 emperor, by a politician, or by a trust with its bogus capital 
 charged as real money, means higher prices; means that the dol- 
 lar will buy less, and means less food, less clothing, worse homes, 
 worse home life, as well as deteriorated men, women and children. 
 
 The cost of the necessaries of life are of the first im- 
 portance to a nation, as well as individuals. When the 
 buying power of the dollar is largely reduced, the indi- 
 vidual life and the home-life, as well as the national life, 
 are deteriorated. The poor are thereby inade poorer, the 
 home-life is more scant, and then citizenship is degraded. 
 The same cause produces the same effects with a nation. 
 The first effects are seen in diminished consumption of 
 products at home, and then in reduced exports of manu- 
 factures for abroad. For how can the people, with a 
 limited number of dollars, buy as much when prices are 
 about doubled, and how can manufacturing industries 
 compete in foreign markets when the prices are prohibi- 
 tive? The inevitable consequence would sooner or later 
 disorganize trade and commerce, first to the work-people, 
 then to the unwary investor, and later the calamity be- 
 comes widespread. 
 
 The Treasury Department of the United States Gov- 
 ernment regularly issues the wholesale prices of the prin- 
 cipal articles of trade for each year. The wholesale prices 
 of twenty of the most important, forming the necessaries 
 of life of the American people, were 58.6 cents on the 
 dollar less in the year 1895 than in the year 1902. In 
 other words, the same quantity of the same necessaries of 
 life could be bought for 100 cents in 1895, which in 1902 
 could not be bought for less than 158.6 cents. 
 
80 DEPEAVED FINAFCE. 
 
 The different articles and their wholesale prices in 
 1895 3-nd in 1902, with their respective increases, are the 
 following : 
 
 Increa»e 
 WhoUtale Wholesale in cent* 
 
 Abtioles Pricet Pricet on the 
 
 1895 1902 dollar 
 
 Oak leather, per lb $ .27-$ .28 $ .31 33 
 
 Bessemer pig iron, per ton. . . 10.00- 10.20 22.75 123 
 
 Muckbar iron, per lb 1. 10 .02.10 90 
 
 Steel billets, per ton 15.00-15.25 34-00 123 
 
 Furnace coke, per ton .90 2.25 150 
 
 Raw cotton, per lb .05fi .08A 4l 
 
 Refined petroleum, per bl . . . 5.70 7-40 33 
 
 Wheat, per bushel 57^ -91 38 
 
 Corn, per bushel .51 -7° 37 
 
 Oats, per bushel .32^4 -52 62 
 
 Lard, per lb .05.60 .10.40 85 
 
 Tallow, per lb .04 .o6j4 69 
 
 Beef, per bl 10.30 16.00 55 
 
 Pork, per bl 9-00 18.25 102 
 
 Standard granulated sugar. 
 
 per lb .03.74 .04.46 19 
 
 Wool, Ohio fleece, per lb .17H .253^ 42 
 
 Tin, Straits quality, per lb.. •13.40 .28.30 ill 
 
 Lead, per lb .03.05 .04 32 
 
 Zinc, per lb 03.27 .04.42 34 
 
 Tin plates, Bessemer, per lb. . .03.60 .04.20 17 
 
 The foregoing wholesale prices are confirmed by the 
 different trade periodicals of the different years. With 
 regard to retail prices it is difficult to go backward and 
 accept the unwritten reports. When estimating prices the 
 wholesale are more reliable than the retail, because the 
 former are more regularly and officially preserved. The 
 experience of a number of men and housewives has been 
 obtained, and they state that prices at retail in cities for 
 many of the necessaries of life have more than doubled 
 within the past seven years. It may be fairly assumed 
 that the retailers' prices have increased more than the 
 wholesale. The report of the Anthracite Coal Miners 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 81 
 
 Comtnission states that the retail prices in the mining dis- 
 tricts of Pennsylvania have increased thirty cents on the 
 dollar between 1900 and 1902. 
 
 The foregoing articles are needful for food, clothing, 
 housing, and for transporting and utilizing the essentials 
 to live, and they enter into the everyday life, more or less, 
 of all the people of the United States who spend dollars. 
 Neither scarcity of raw materials, excepting tin, nor 
 diminished sources of supplies, nor impaired means of 
 production, nor shorter hours of labor, nor inferior ma- 
 chinery, explain these increases in the prices. On the con- 
 trary, supplies have been abundant, and it may be gener- 
 ally stated that the average costs of production of the 
 foregoing twenty articles, which so largely form the neces- 
 saries of life, are by means of labor-saving appliances and 
 other utilities, lower than ever known, and that the aver- 
 age costs of them were considerably less in 1902 than in 
 1895. Were there any dearth of supplies of these com- 
 modities it would be reasonable to expect that England 
 and other foreign countries, not so naturally provided with 
 them as the United States, would be sufferers by higher 
 prices in a greater degree. But not only was there no 
 dearth of supply, but the average increase in prices of the 
 principal commodities which form the necessaries of life 
 were in England, France and Germany increased less than 
 two cents on the dollar between 1895 and 1902. In Eng- 
 land the prices of commodities in 1905 were so much less 
 than in 1880 that one dollar would buy as much in 1895 
 as 143 cents would buy in 1880. 
 
 The British Board of Trade report, issued by the Brit- 
 ish Government in 1903, states that the price of the best 
 bread, made from the best American flour, was sold in 
 London for two and a half cents, which are sold in the 
 cities of the United States for from five to eight cents. 
 Also, that the best refined sugar was retailed in London 
 
82 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 in 1902 for three cents, which was retailed in American 
 cities for five cents, and that a good habitable room is 
 rented in London for five dollars a month, two rooms with 
 modern conveniences for six dollars a month; and that 
 three such rooms are let for seven dollars a month. Jacob 
 Riis has publicly stated that one small room, without air 
 or light, except by the doorway, is rented in New York 
 City for eight dollars a month. The same report of the 
 British Government states that the quality and quantity 
 of coal, equivalent to the anthracite coal of Pennsylvania, 
 is sold in London for nine cents, which is sold in Philadel- 
 phia for twenty cents. The supplies of sugar, of bread, 
 of coal and house rent, and the other necessaries of life are 
 not more plentiful in England than in the United States. 
 They are actually less plentiful in London, and the supplies 
 are vastly greater in the United States than in England, 
 but wrongful means have been employed in this country to 
 make higher prices. 
 
 The increases on prices in the United States are not 
 confined to the necessaries of life. They permeate the 
 entire framework of the trade of the country, and from 
 the bottom, reckoning from the year i860, when the 
 charging of bogus capital upon the country's resources 
 commenced, it is a conservative statement to declare that 
 prices generally have been doubled. In the lawsuit. 
 Wormser vs. The Metropolitan Street Railroad of New 
 York City, in June, 1903, President Vreeland made the 
 sworn statement that his company had paid increases in 
 prices for railroad supplies, varying up to 80 cents on 
 the dollar, within the last five years. In the yearly report 
 of the New York Central Railroad, of June 30th, 1903, 
 the increases in operating expenses for the year were 
 $6,701,909, "owing to the constantly growing cost of ma- 
 terials and for supplies for improvements and renewals." 
 Numerous examples could be given to show the enormous 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 88 
 
 increase in costs of nearly all the articles of commerce of 
 the United States. The cause is easy to find. 
 
 During the five years of 1899 to 1903, approximately 
 twelve thousand million dollars of bogus capital vs^as 
 charged upon the means of production of this country, 
 besides bogus capital which was charged to railroads, and 
 charged as real money, when there were only about two 
 thousand million dollars of the country's industrial re- 
 sources to be incorporated, supposing that all the indus- 
 trial resources of the country were intended for incorporat- 
 ing into stock companies. In the census of 1900, 60 cents 
 of every dollar of the country's means of industrial pro- 
 duction were then under the control of stock corporations. 
 According to the same census, all the capital invested 
 in all our industries for land, buildings, machinery and 
 implements, without cash, was only 5,020,000,000 leav- 
 ing only about two thousand million dollars to be in- 
 corporated, supposing that all were put into capital stock 
 and mortgage bonds. But all the industrial resources of 
 the country have not yet been incorporated, and yet the 
 capitalizations have been increased about seven times, 
 without including any amounts for mortgage bonds, which 
 often have exceeded the costs or values of the properties. 
 
 The foregoing is a simple explanation of the real 
 cause which increases the prices for products in our coun- 
 try, and explains why the exports of manufactures and the 
 existence of a merchant shipping and reasonable prices for 
 the necessaries of life are impossible. But the same sys- 
 tem has been used to enslave the country's resources for 
 fifty years. We could fill our pages with the details of 
 bogus capital charged as real money upon the resources 
 of the country, upon which the nation is dependent for its 
 very existence. In 1902 the capital, mostly bogus, charged 
 by the Steel Trust to produce a dollar's worth of steel 
 products was $2.67, but in 1899, before the Steel Trust 
 
84 BEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 was created, the capital required to produce a dollar's 
 worth of steel products, by all the different establishments 
 of the United States, was only 73 cents, and then twice the 
 weight of steel products was delivered for a dollar, mean- 
 ing that double the capital was necessary to produce a 
 dollar's worth then, and in 1899 there was considerable 
 bogus capital in the steel industry charged as real money. 
 Thus we see that a hundred dollars' worth of steel deliv- 
 ered by the Steel Trust would weigh one half of the hun- 
 dred dollars' worth delivered in 1899, and yet the capital 
 charged by the Steel Trust to produce a hundred dollars' 
 worth of steel products was $267, while the capital to 
 produce double the quantity of steel products by all the 
 different establishments of the country in 1899 was only 
 $73. Independent of the economical developments in the 
 manufacture of steel, the capital to produce the weight of 
 steel delivered for a dollar by the Steel Trust, its actual 
 capital to produce a dollar's worth of steel products ought 
 to be less than 30 cents, instead of $2.67. 
 
 The charge to produce a dollar's worth of locomotive 
 products in 1890 was 80 cents, which was fictitiously in- 
 creased to $1.17 in 1899, and again increased to $3.25 in 
 1902. Thereby the rate for capital was increased from 
 $1.00 in 1890 to $4.00 in 1902. 
 
 The charges for capital to produce a dollar's worth of 
 shipbuilding products were in 1850 31.72 cents, which 
 were fictitiously increased to $1.03 in 1899, ^^^ rein- 
 creased by the Shipbuilding Trust to more than $4.00 in 
 1902, thereby increasing the rate for capital from $1.00 in 
 1850 to $11.90 in 1902. 
 
 The charge to produce a dollar's worth of agricultural 
 implements products was 54.5 cents in 1850, which was 
 fictitiously increased to $1.55 in 1899, ^nd refictionized 
 again in 1902 to $3.10, thereby increasing the rate for 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 85 
 
 capital from $i.oo in 1850 to $2.57 in 1899, and to $5.50 
 in 1902. 
 
 The charge to produce a dollar's worth of all the textile 
 products was, in 1880, 75 cents. This was fictitiously in- 
 creased in 1900 to $1.13, and thereby the charge for cap- 
 ital was increased from the rate of capital from $1.00 to 
 $1.50. 
 
 The charge to produce a dollar's worth of manufactured 
 cottons was 71 cents in 1870. This was fictitiously in- 
 creased to $1.38 in 1900, thereby increasing the rate of 
 charge for capital from $1.00 to $1.94. 
 
 The charge__ for capital to produce a dollar's worth of 
 manufactured woollens was 59 cents in 1880 and 99 cents 
 in 1900, increasing the rate of charge for capital from 
 $1.00 to $1.69. 
 
 The charge for capital to produce a dollar's worth of 
 lumber products was 69.08 cents in 1850 arid $1.08 in 
 1900, thereby increasing the rate for capital from $1.00 in 
 1850 to $1.56 in 1899. 
 
 The charge for capital to produce a dollar's worth of 
 glass products was 73 cents in 1850, which was increased 
 to $1.09 in 1899, thereby increasing the rate of charge for 
 capital from $1.00 in 1850 to $1.49 in 1899. 
 
 The charge to produce a dollar's worth of paper prod- 
 ucts was 71 cents in i860, and $1.31 in 1900, thereby in- 
 creasing the rate of charge for capital from $1.00 to $1.84. 
 
 The foregoing show only a small part of the fiction 
 which exists in these industries. There were increases of 
 bogus capital since 1900, and many of these increases of 
 capital are not included in these figures. 
 
 It will be seen by the American people that when the 
 country's resources are charged with bogus capital as real 
 money the country's means of producing commodities are 
 debilitated and enslaved, and so long as such fictitious 
 charges exist they never can do justice to the people by 
 
86 DEPEAVED TINANOE. 
 
 giving loo cents' worth for a dollar, and never can com- 
 pete in the virorld's great markets vjrith our manufac- 
 tures, and never can do justice to our farmers who pro- 
 duce our food stuffs, while for transportation and every 
 other thing they do not grow, they are blackmailed to 
 provide dividends for a bogus capital. 
 
 When we see that in 1899 the capital required to produce 
 double the weight of steel products for a dollar was 73 
 cents, and that in 1902 the charge for capital by the Steel 
 Trust to produce half the weight of steel products for a 
 dollar was $2.67, in order to provide dividends for bog^s 
 capital, is it not more than natural that the prices for 
 steel products were doubled, and that the steel-workers 
 were reduced in their wages? The system which would 
 make bogus capital would as readily make grinding ma- 
 chines of human beings. Is it not natural that with 
 higher prices for steel products the demand for them was 
 prohibited, and that steel works had to close, and that 
 steel-workers had to be thrown on to the streets ? When 
 we see the charge for capital in shipbuilding is increased 
 by bogus capital stock from 31.33 cents to produce a dol- 
 lar's worth of shipbuilding products in 1850, to $1.03 in 
 1899, and to $4 in 1902, is it not natural that the mer- 
 chant shipping of the country has been nearly extin- 
 guished, and is it not a crime that the Higher Price Gov- 
 ernment proposes to take out of the people's treasury to 
 give a subsidy of $4 per ton of each ship loaded with 
 bogus capital stock, in order to provide it with dividends ? 
 
 Whenever an American industry can be found which 
 is not infested with bogus capital, it is superior to that of 
 the same in all countries. For example, the shoe industry 
 has a charge for capital to produce a dollar's worth of 
 shoes of only 38 cents, and consequently, it is without a 
 rival in any country. 
 
 Statements are frequently made that the payments made 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 87 
 
 for wages are the cause of the general high prices of the 
 necessaries of Hfe and other commodities in this country. 
 No statement could be less warranted. No wage-earners 
 in any country, in either agriculture or manufactures, 
 produce so many dollars worth of output per dollar of 
 wages. The United States Census of each decade, which 
 are so authentic because they are disinterested, show the 
 wages paid to the men, women and children in the differ- 
 ent industries, and the average is at first incredible. In 
 the different industries of the United States in 1900, with 
 512,254 establishments, and 5,308,406 wage-earners, the 
 wages paid to the men were $9.88, to the women $5.40, 
 and to the children $3.20 per week, and these rates ex- 
 clude all the lower wages paid to men, women and chil- 
 dren in the industries of the South. These are the aver- 
 age wages of all the industries, excepting those of the 
 South, which are considerably lower. By average wages 
 means that some are more and some are less, and that the 
 mean of all are the wages given. 
 
 The payments for wages on a ton of steel rails is $2, 
 or 7 cents per dollar of the selling price of $28. The cost 
 price of a ton of steel rails is, according to C. M. Schwab, 
 less than $12 per ton, including wages. Bogus capital 
 obtains upon a ton of steel rails about 50 cents on the 
 dollar of selling price, after allowing for all manufactur- 
 ing costs, freight $1.75 per ton, commission for selling 
 50 cents, and 10 per cent, interest upon real capital, 60 
 cents. The payment for a ton of labor on a ton of steel 
 billets is $2, or 6 cents on the dollar of the selling price 
 in 1902. In 1902 the selling price for steel billets was 
 $35 per ton, and in 1895 the selling price was $15 per 
 ton. In 1902 bogus capital received 70 cents on the dollar 
 of selling price, and more than $20 per ton upon actual 
 cost. Thus we see that bogus capital and its accessories 
 
88 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 have been taking more than loo cents of the dollar on the 
 cost price. 
 
 According to the census of 1900, the coke workers have 
 been receiving $1.30 per day, or $7.80 per week, and they 
 were reduced 17 cents on the dollar of their wages in 
 1903, although the price of coke was 90 cents per ton in 
 1895 ^"d $2.25 per ton in 1902. Therefore, coke was 
 increased in price 150 cents on the dollar, and wages were 
 reduced 17 cents on the dollar. 
 
 According to the census of 1900 the workers in sugar 
 refineries were paid $9.60 per week to the men, $4.24 per 
 week to the women, and $3.03 per week to the children. 
 Were the wages of the men increased in proportion to the 
 74 cents on the dollar increase in the price of sugar in the 
 United States above the price which the same sugar is sold 
 for in England, the wages of $9.60 per week would be 
 more than $17 per week. In other words, were the neces- 
 saries of life reduced by 74 cents on the dollar, less than 
 $4 would buy more than $9.60. 
 
 The American people should discard these misrepresen- 
 tations upon the wages paid to the work-people, because, if 
 they were considerably more than they are, they would 
 have a diminutive general effect upon the costs of produc- 
 tion, or upon the costs of commodities, or upon the volume 
 of trade, in comparison with the enormous charges for 
 bogus capital which so largely exists upon the means of 
 production and distribution of this country. 
 
 Were Americans to address themselves to the economics 
 of labor they would see that wages are the most important 
 factor for enabling the masses of the people to consume 
 the quantity of the country's products, so as to make the 
 nation truly prosperous, and that bogus capital is the most 
 hindering and oppressive of agents in preventing econom- 
 ical production, as well as real progress of the nation. 
 Were the labor in producing a ton of steel rails free, the 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 89 
 
 cost of them would be $io per ton, and the selHng price 
 would be $26 per ton. 
 
 John Stewart Mill, in his "Political Economy," states 
 that "General high wages never cause any country to 
 undersell rivals, nor did general high wages ever hinder it 
 from doing so." Of course, when a tradesman or manu- 
 facturer pays higher wages than his competitors, the cost 
 of products must be increased. If the high wages are 
 general and about uniform, the advantage to all is great 
 and more than compensating. With high wages the wage- 
 earner can become a large consumer, and then the general 
 advantage is great. Proof abounds that where wages are 
 high, in proportion to the costs of the necessaries of life, 
 the general advantage and well-being are great. And 
 when wages are low, in proportion to the costs of the 
 necessaries of life, the general disadvantages are great 
 and the impoverishment of the many is enormous, and the 
 corresponding condition of trade is evident. Russia pays 
 the smallest wages in Europe, and she reaps all the dis- 
 advantages of diminutive national earnings and diminu- 
 tive foreign trade, per head of the population. England 
 pays the highest wages, and reaps the greatest advan- 
 tages, by enormous national earnings and enormous for- 
 eign trade, and a mercantile marine upon which the world 
 is largely dependent. The earnings of the entire Russian 
 people, by their agriculture and manufactures, their mines 
 and forests, their trade and transportation, their rentals 
 of houses and buildings, their domestic and public ser- 
 vice, and their receipts from all their professions, were 
 in 1895 less than $50 per year per head of the popula- 
 tion, or less than $1.00 per week. 
 
 The earnings of Germany from the same sources, by 
 high wages, are $124 per head of the population, and the 
 earnings of the United Kingdom, from the same sources, 
 by still higher wages, are $180 per year per head of the 
 
90 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 population. The United Kingdom, in proportion to the 
 costs of the necessaries of life, pays the highest wages of 
 all countries, and per head of the population has the largest 
 of all earnings, the largest production of all manufac- 
 tures, and the largest foreign trade of all countries. Eng- 
 land gives the most physical comfort and greatest well- 
 being for the money. By general high wages and trade 
 freedom, with all the disadvantages of limited natural 
 supplies of raw material, except coal and iron, the produc- 
 tions and manufactures by the United Kingdom amount 
 to $iio per head of the population, while Germany, with 
 lower wages, has a production of only $65 per head of the 
 population, and Russia, with the lowest general wages of 
 all, has a production of manufactures of only $19 per head 
 of the population per year. The foreign trade of these 
 countries illustrates the same economic truth upon wages. 
 The foreign trade per head of the population per year of 
 the United Kingdom is $83; of the United States, less 
 than $30 ; of Germany, $37 ; of Russia, less than $5. High 
 wages are necessarily beneficent to the people, and then to 
 the nation, when other full economies are secured and all 
 fictitious charges are eliminated. General high wages are 
 the food of trade; they mean consumption of products, 
 they lead to demand for larger production. High wages 
 mean trade activity, more factories, the employment of 
 more labor. Low wages mean an impoverished people 
 and small demand for manufactured products, for farm 
 products, for home-making materials, for transportation, 
 as well as for other necessaries. Of course, the advan- 
 tages of high wages are more than negatived when ficti- 
 tious charges for bogus capital take so vastly larger an 
 amount than would be required for real money invested. 
 When perpetual tribute, like interest and dividends for 
 spurious capital, must be drawn from all products by 
 charging higher prices ; then all economies become disor- 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 91 
 
 ! ganized, and in the end there is economic chaos. The 
 wages become inadequate to buy, and therefore the prod- 
 ucts cannot be consumed. The prices are so high as to 
 forbid a general use, and for the export trade the high 
 prices are prohibitive. When spurious capital is charged 
 as real money upon the industries, the prices of the prod- 
 ucts must pay the yearly charges for the spurious capital, 
 as if it were real money. Then the industries are crippled. 
 The same with raw materials, appliances and methods, 
 trade and transportation. When enormous sums are 
 charged for capital which never existed, and when the 
 yearly charges are made upon bogus capital as if it were 
 real money, ultimate demoralization and disaster cannot 
 be averted. When fictitious capital is charged in this 
 manner the payments for wages and for all other essential 
 items cease to be of importance, for then all ideas of 
 economics must be abandoned, and a state of trade chaos 
 is only a matter of time. No compensating advantage, no 
 counterbalancing good can make up for the pernicious and 
 disastrous consequences of charging an industry or rail- 
 road or other resources of the country, in perpetuity, for 
 vast capital which was only the creation of a nefarious 
 imagination, for which charge the industry does not, and 
 cannot, receive any benefit. The tirades made upon the 
 hindering of trade by payments made to labor are as ab- 
 surd as they are untrue. When the charges for capital are 
 actual and legitimate, when they represent actual money 
 and not spurious paper, when the industry obtains an 
 equivalent for all the charges it has to carry and provide 
 for, the prices of the necessaries of life will be uninflated, 
 because they have not to include yearly charges for divi- 
 dends for bogus capital. Then the inaccurate assertions 
 of the hindering payments for wages will be demon- 
 strated. In no period of past history, not in any history, 
 has the worst of governments mulcted trade or oppressed 
 
92 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 the people so much or more nefariously than has been 
 done by bogus creations of capital in this country. 
 
 Under natural conditions, when all charges are real, 
 when all economies are active, high wages act like fertil- 
 izers put into the soil. They enable the country to recon- 
 sume and reproduce, with compound advantageous re- 
 sults. Low wages act like withholding fertilizers. Con- 
 sequently, production is lessened and the consumption is 
 less and less. In Russia the nobles are able to use double 
 the quantity of fertilizers used by the peasants. In conse- 
 quence, the nobles reap fifteen-fold for their seed, and the 
 peasant reaps only six-fold. Chinese labor is cheap, but 
 it is of little use to the manufacturers and the farmers and 
 transportation and trade. We have seen thousands of 
 Chinese on haciendas in Peru, receiving a pound of rice 
 with a half pound of meat per day, with wages of a dollar 
 per week, and housed in a hovel unfit for a horse, while 
 the haciendado derived great profit from their labor. But 
 the Chinese needed no manufactures and few other prod- 
 ucts, and consequently they fostered no trade, and the 
 system collapsed, not because they were not cheap, but 
 because they were economically bad for trade. 
 
 A rapidly increasing rich class enriching itself mostly 
 by schemes, which gives riches for nothing, without hon- 
 est trade equivalents, produces a corresponding impover- 
 ishment of the people who do the work, and by the bogus 
 capital class the national life is becoming more and more 
 abnormal, and means that the country is on the road to 
 life becoming intolerable to all who are not rich. This 
 will be more and more apparent as the system is more and 
 more developed. It will be more evident as American 
 products are more and more shut out of foreign markets 
 by fictitiously high prices. As the country becomes more 
 dependent upon its own trade, with wages so small that 
 consumption of products must be limited, the trade of the 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 9B 
 
 country will be diminished, and the disability and im- 
 poverishment will increase. When a nation is dependent 
 largely, if not wholly, upon its wage-earners for the prin- 
 cipal part of the consumption of its products, how ruinous 
 is the policy of depriving them of the means of buying ! 
 How uneconomic for a nation to depend upon its em- 
 ployees for consumption, when the prices are so fictitiously 
 high and the wages are so relatively low as to prohibit 
 them from consuming. 
 
 The uneconomic treatment of labor is illustrated by a 
 factory in Connecticut. The manager jauntily says : "I 
 pay the men 15 cents an hour, and as soon as they begin 
 to want more I ship them and get others. We never have 
 any strikes. The labor is plentiful." The manager cares 
 nothing for humanity and forgets the economic side of 
 the question. When these men are paid 1 5 cents an hour, 
 how can they be useful consumers of the country's farm 
 and industrial products, without which there is no real en- 
 richment and wealth-making? Were better wages paid 
 generally, especially in view of such increases in prices, 
 the benefit all round, including this factory, would be 
 enormous. We have no examples of decayed nations 
 which do not prove that wealth for a few, and increasing 
 poverty for the many, was the principal cause of their 
 decay. When the most of the people are ground down 
 into servility by the class which wealth always enervates, 
 the fiber of the nation must become flabby. The afore- 
 mentioned factory pays without hesitation, because re- 
 monstrance with all monopolies is useless, the excessive 
 charges for transportation to the New York, New Haven 
 and Hartford Railway Company, in order to provide its 
 bogus capital stock with dividends of $8 per $100 share 
 every year. This $100 share of this bogus capital stock 
 has been sold upon the New York Stock Exchange for 
 $225. No system was ever more uneconomic or illegiti- 
 
94 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 mate or more disastrous to the core of a nation than that 
 monopolies of production and supply, as well as transpor- 
 tation, should be allowed to invent all kinds of pretexts 
 to create fictitious charges and then invent other pretexts 
 for continually increasing the market value of the fic- 
 titious charges. With regard to wages, suppose Andrew 
 Carnegie and C. M. Schwab, or J. D. Rockefeller and 
 J. P. Morgan were adventurers of labor, as they have 
 been of bogus capital, which has been charged as real 
 money. Suppose that these men were to become more 
 than adventurers of labor, and one were to become the 
 active president and the other the active treasurer of the 
 wage-earners of the Steel Trust, and were to do for these 
 wage-earners all that the makers of the Steel Trust did for 
 bogus capital. Then the president would call them to- 
 gether and address them as follows : 
 
 Members of the Steel Workers' Union : 
 
 Gentlemen — We have had enough of this bogus capital, 
 charged as real money. We have been giving honest labor 
 for long hours, for small wages. For every ton of steel 
 rails, which costs less than $12, including wages, which 
 are sold at $28, we have been receiving 7 cents upon the 
 dollar of the selling price, while bogus capital is receiving 
 more than 50 cents upon the dollar of the selling price, and 
 more than 100 cents upon the dollar of cost price. In 
 other words, we have been receiving $2 to produce a ton 
 of steel rails, while bogus capital has received $13. Bogus 
 capital is only a fraudulent pretension to capital, and yet 
 it receives so largely. This bogus capital system is unfair 
 to us. No feudal times ever oppressed so much. These 
 Trust-makers are looking upon us as mules to produce 
 dividends for a capital which never existed. My recom- 
 mendation to you is, that we make a claim, and unless it is 
 granted, refuse to work. The claim is that labor shall be 
 
DEPKAVED EIJSfANOE. 96 
 
 put in the same position as bogus capital, and that one 
 thousand million dollars of bogus labor stock is created 
 as a perpetual charge upon the steel industry, and entitled 
 to dividends, just like the bogus capital stock. Then we 
 can sell it upon the Stock Exchange also, and scamper off 
 into millionaire life, and play with racing studs, steam 
 yachts, and palatial houses with flunkies, regardless of the 
 users of steel products, or of the consequences to the na- 
 tion, or to trade, or to commerce. 
 
 We have indicated the conditions of the workers in the 
 steel industry while bogus capital was being created and 
 charged as money in enormous amounts. The condition 
 of the coal workers in the coal mining is worse, and the 
 condition of the workers of the cotton manufacturing is 
 still worse. 
 
 According to the report of the Anthracite Coal Strike 
 Commission, in 1901 the average payments for labor to 
 all the men and boys engaged in coal mining in that year 
 were less than 16 cents per hour for every hour of work, 
 whereas the wholesale price of anthracite coal was in- 
 creased $2 per ton between the years 1879 ^^'^ 1902, and 
 the six railroads which control the output of 72 tons of 
 every 100 tons are charged with more than $500,000,000 
 of bogus capital stock and mortgage bonds as real money. 
 In 1 90 1 these six railroads, illegally operating a monopoly 
 of the anthracite coal, refused to pay the miners more 
 than the aforementioned wages, and insisted upon charg- 
 ing the miners $2.75 for powder which cost only $1. The 
 hard conditions of mining anthracite coal will be under- 
 stood when, according to the Strike Commission's report, 
 which Commission was appointed by President Roosevelt, 
 3,821 miners in and out of the mines were killed in the 
 ten years preceding 1901. 
 
96 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 The condition of the workers of the cotton industry- 
 can be estimated by the following : 
 
 The cotton industry of the United States is a specially 
 favored industry. It has the best of cotton workers, for 
 the longest hours, for the least of wages. It has the best 
 of machinery. Its motive power is frequently water, 
 which is cheaper than all others, because its cost is nom- 
 inal. The raw material is grown in the country. It is 
 specially protected by tariff law, by which it can charge 
 high prices without interference. But nearly all the pro- 
 duction of cotton manufactures is under the control of 
 stock corporations, and bogus capital is charged as real 
 money, almost without exception. Consequently, divi- 
 dends have to be provided for brain creations of capital, 
 instead of being limited to charges for real money. The 
 result has been that although the tariff law protects prices 
 so largely, the imports of manufactured cottons consider- 
 ably exceed the exports of cotton manufactures. The ex- 
 ports of cotton manufactures were $33,000,000 in 1902, 
 and the imports were $39,000,000 in the same year. In 
 the same year the exports of manufactured cottons by 
 England were $175,000,000. The disabled condition of 
 the cotton industry, for which it needs the protection of a 
 tariff law, and by which it is then unable to export as much 
 of cotton manufactures as are imported, is not due to 
 payments made for wages. In 1900 more than one-half 
 of the wage-earners employed in the cotton industry of 
 the United States were women and children. In that year 
 there were 351,677 women and children, and 288,871 men 
 employed in the cotton manufacturing industry. The 
 avei"age wage paid to the wage-earner in the cotton in- 
 dustry of the United States was, per week, $6.75 to the 
 men, $5.12 to the women, and $2.76 to the children. 
 
 Hayes Robbin, Dean of the American Institute of Social 
 Economies, has publicly stated: "I have seen scores of 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 97 
 
 little people work in the dust and din of the spinning loom, 
 seen scores of others on their way to the mills before day- 
 light, who would not come out until after dark, the hours 
 of labor varying from eleven to twelve ; have been in the 
 homes of these people and learned something of how they 
 live and the wages they receive — wages of less than $1.50 
 per week. The average in most cases ranged from 30 
 cents to 40 cents per day, the older children getting the 
 larger sum." 
 
 The Rev. J. A. Baldwin, of Charlotte, N. C, says : 
 "The mother has to get up at 4 130 in the morning to get 
 breakfast for the day hands, so they can be at the mill at 
 six ; she has to have dinner ready for the day hands. The 
 night hands get up and eat from four to five, so as to be 
 ready to go to work for the night at six; she also gives 
 them a lunch to be eaten at midnight. The mills usually 
 run sixty hours a week at night, that is, the operatives 
 work twelve hours from Monday night to Friday night, 
 inclusive, and Saturday get up at two o'clock, before they 
 have had enough of sleep, in order to work at three. Then 
 they work until nine at night; as a matter of fact, it is 
 usually ten or eleven when they get out. 
 
 "Night work is much worse in summer than in winter. 
 In the winter they go to bed, cover up and sleep soundly. 
 In summer it is difficult to sleep, because of light, heat, 
 flies and noise. In summer, while they usually go to bed, 
 it is a very familiar sight to see them lying across the 
 bed with their work-clothes on, or on th'e pallet in the pas- 
 sage, or on the porch. Their sleep is fitful and unsatisfy- 
 ing, and they never feel bright and fresh from the begin- 
 ning to the end of the week." 
 
 The high prices in our cotton manufactures, which pro- 
 hibit their exports and reduce the consumption at home, 
 is not owing to the inability of the American people, with 
 the raw material on the spot, with the best of labor and 
 
98 DEPRAVED FRANCE. 
 
 machinery. It is true that every appliance, and necessity 
 almost, is charged more or less with bogus capital as real 
 money, and that therefore a cotton mill costs about double 
 the amount of the same mill in England or Germany. But 
 about 90 cents of every dollar of our cotton manufactures 
 are produced by mills under the control of stock com- 
 panies which have more or less of imaginary capital 
 charged as the real. 
 
 In the interval between 1870 and 1900 the economies 
 of manufacture, by labor-saving methods and appliances, 
 have so increased that a dollar of capital will produce 
 about double the manufactured cottons. Therefore, the 
 capital in 1900 to produce a dollar's worth ought to be 
 about 30 cents. 
 
 How can any reasonable person suppose that the exports 
 of manufactures can be otherwise than dwarfed by bogus 
 capital being charged as real money? In proportion to 
 production, the exports of cotton manufactures, in which, 
 because of the raw material and low wages paid for long 
 hours, we ought to be the foremost of all countries, were 
 considerably less in 1900 than in 1870. In 1870 we ex- 
 ported 17.4 cents of every dollar of our production of our 
 cotton manufactures, and in 1900 we exported only 10.3 
 cents of every dollar of our production. 
 
 The quality and abundance of the country's raw ma- 
 terials, of American machinery and labor-saving appli- 
 ances, and the quality and quantity of output of American 
 labor, are declared on every hand. The United States 
 Census Report of 1900 states that every industrial worker 
 of the United States produces, on average, nearly five 
 times the amount of industrial products that is produced 
 by the average British industrial worker. In 1900 the 
 average industrial worker of the United States produced 
 $2,450, while the average industrial worker of Great 
 Britain produced only $500. With such facts as these 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 99 
 
 forcing themselves upon the inquirer at every turn, every 
 underfed, ill-clothed and badly-housed worker is a severe 
 condemnation of the United States Government for not 
 giving effect to those laws, and if necessary, enacting 
 others, which will prevent the non-producing, scheming 
 stock-juggler from corraling all the resources of the coun- 
 try under the control of bogus capital, and thereby placing 
 the American worker in the position of getting the least 
 for his dollars of any countr}? of the world. Every under- 
 fed worker is using too little farm products and other 
 products, by reason of prices being too high, in order to 
 provide dividends for the bogus capital. Every ill-clothed 
 worker is using too little of our industrial products, and 
 he is prohibited from using them, because a capital which 
 never existed must be provided with dividends. Every 
 worker with a miserable home is using too little of our 
 unused building materials, not because he is not a desirable 
 user, but because they are under the lock and key of bogus 
 capital, which must be provided with dividends before 
 they can be released. 
 
 When the workers are impoverished by high prices and 
 wages are not advanced up to them, the consumption of 
 farm products and all other products must be scant, and 
 the general injury to the trade in all the products becomes 
 enormous. The low wages and higK prices mean less 
 consumption; less consumption means less demand; less 
 demand means the stoppage of factories and the discharge 
 of the work-people. It is only by production and con- 
 sumption that the genuine well-being of the nation can 
 be evolved, and these only can create real wealth and well- 
 being for an industrious people. All schemes not con- 
 tributing to production and consumption can fictitiously 
 increase prices and charges, and may show paper preten- 
 sions of wealth, but they are actual incumbrances, no more 
 real than bogus capital. 
 
100 DEPEAVED FnSTANCE. 
 
 If products are to be consumed, if trade is not to be 
 stagnant, the people must have the means to buy, by in- 
 creased wages or lower prices. The producer and the 
 consumer and their auxiliaries make wealth; the bogus 
 capital only encumbers and consumes wealth, and is more 
 pernicious, because more demoralizing and costly, than a 
 ^number of thieves in a penitentiary. 
 
 The export trade in manufactures is so diminutive that 
 it would be inexplicable were there no bogus capital ob- 
 taining dividends in the prices for our exports. The in- 
 ternal trade of the country appears large, but it is counted 
 in dollars, and actually every dollar represents only about 
 fifty cents' worth of commodities, because prices have been 
 so advanced in order to provide the dividends for the cap- 
 ital which never existed. When a dollar's worth of prod- 
 ucts is only one-half, only one-half the labor, one-half the 
 buildings and machinery and transportation are used. In- 
 dustries, to be solidly prosperous, must produce, not small 
 quantities at high prices, but large quantities at low prices. 
 Then there will be consumers to consume, as well as 
 producers to produce. Whenever the workers receive too 
 little, when supplies are plentiful, means that schemers and 
 non-producers are somewhere taking vast amounts with- 
 out giving equivalents, and the government which fails to 
 prevent the plundering is culpably negligent; and when 
 a government facilitates the taking of millions of dollars 
 for nothing, by means of bogus capital, which obtains 
 dividends from high prices, it becomes an active accessory . 
 to the wrong-doing. 
 
 All trade and commerce in all products depend upon 
 their costs. Is there an American ignorant enough to sup- 
 pose that, were the prices of our manufactures all right, 
 that foreigners would hesitate to buy them? 
 
 The British shipping and cotton industries are great 
 and invulnerable, because of their low costs. The French 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 101 
 
 silk industry and all other strong industries are strong 
 because of their economies of production and distribution, 
 and the elimination of all the fictitious and unnecessary. 
 Every increasing cost is an increase in prohibition for both 
 home and foreign markets. The United States can do all 
 that can be done in any other country, and more, but all 
 its advantages, and more, have been grasped by sets of 
 men who have corraled them for stock- juggling purposes, 
 and then pledged them and left them in debt for vast 
 amounts. The United States can build ships, it can do 
 almost everything that every other nation can, and gener- 
 ally can turn out a larger quantity for a dollar of cost, but 
 because of charges for fictitious capital the shipbuilding 
 materials and the shipbuilding methods, as well as the 
 costs of the necessaries of life for the seamen and their 
 families, are increased so much as to be prohibitive, and 
 therefore the United States cannot provide the necessary 
 shipping for its own commerce, and pays about five hun- 
 dred thousand dollars a day to foreigners for its hire. 
 
 Nothing stands in the way of this country possessing 
 the most economical means for producing and providing 
 its people with the cheapest commodities in the world, and 
 thereby enabling them to possess the greatest means of 
 comfort and happiness. 
 
 The condition of the United States merchant shipping 
 is the cause of great perplexity and disappointment to 
 Congress and the nation. 
 
 It is in the public prints that Senator Frye has declared 
 that the United States pays about $180,000,000 per year 
 to foreigners to carry American products, which the 
 United States is disqualified from doing for itself. This 
 would appear the greatest anomaly ever presented by com- 
 merce. When we see a nation with vast natural resources, 
 in incomparable quality and quantity, almost equal to 
 every requirement ; with the best of labor and the best of 
 
102 DEPRAVED FIXxiNCE. 
 
 machinery, actually outclassed, and unequal, and practi- 
 cally prohibited from possessing a great shipping industry, 
 there must be some exceptional and deep-seated cause. 
 The cause exists in the bogus capital charged as real 
 money. This disqualifies every day the trade and com- 
 merce of the United States. When shipbuilding materials, 
 shipbuilding appliances, shipbuilding methods, transporta- 
 tion of shipbuilding supplies, and the necessaries of life 
 for the seamen and their families are wanted, charges for 
 bogus capital are included in the cost and prohibit their 
 use. Why is the American nation, with its population of 
 80,000,000, with all its extraordinary advantages, unable 
 to possess its own shipping? Why is an American ship 
 so rarely seen upon the high seas? The hindrance is not 
 by payments made to labor. The labor and the labor- 
 saving appliances are claimed to be the best in the world, 
 and for the quantity of output per dollar are more and 
 better than the output of all other countries. The pay- 
 ments for labor per dollar of output value of ships were 
 actually less in 1900 than in 1850, when the merchant 
 shipping of the United States was comparatively so much 
 larger. They were 35.71 cents in 1850; were 33.72 cents 
 in i860; were 32.43 cents in 1870; were 34.54 cents in 
 1880; were 34.37 cents in 1890, and were 33.22 cents in 
 1900. When we compare the old-fashioned means of 
 handling shipbuilding with the capital necessary to pro- 
 duce a dollar's worth in 1850, with the labor-saving appli- 
 ances and modern methods which have been utilized since, 
 it is within the mark to state that the capital necessary to 
 produce a dollar's worth of shipping, under a state of 
 modern efficiency, should be no niore than 20 cents, or one- 
 fifth of the charge for capital in 1900, and about one- 
 twentieth of the charge for capital in 1902. In other 
 words, were bogus capital, with all its yearly charges, ex- 
 tinguished, the costs of ships, of their maintenance, would 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 103 
 
 be so transformed and rejuvenated that the United States 
 could possess the ablest and most economical shipping in- 
 dustry in the world, and the $500,000 per day which it 
 pays to foreigners for the hire of their shipping would be 
 saved. 
 
 In view of the blighting disease which has been made 
 to permanently infest the steel and other industries, and 
 permeate all the trade and commerce, how can we hope 
 for an untrammeled use of steel and other products allied 
 to steel? How can we expect, under these conditions, a 
 development of United States shipping or of a foreign 
 trade in manufactures? That a country like the United 
 States, with its vast i^esources, with its excellence of 
 human and mechanical means, with its administrative 
 business qualities, should be shut off from all the great 
 consuming markets of the world, except for raw cotton 
 and petroleum, and a temporary trade in food stuffs, and 
 should exorbitantly overcharge its own people for the 
 necessaries of life, is becoming and proper only to a nation 
 whose people are stupid and tame. 
 
 The percentage of vessels owned by the United States 
 to carry its exports and imports of products was 92.5 
 tons in every 100 in 1826; 66.5 tons in every 100 in 
 i860; 35.6 tons in every 100 in 1870; 17.4 tons in every 
 100 in 1880; 12.9 tons in every 100 in 1890; 9.3 tons in 
 every 100 in 1900; and 8.8 tons in every 100 in 1902. 
 In other words, in 1902 the United States was so in- 
 capable, because of high prices, that it was dependent upon 
 the citizens of other nations to find 91.8 tons in every 
 100 tons of the vessels necessary to carry the imports and 
 exports of its commerce. This deplorable condition of the 
 United States shipping exists with no other of the great 
 commercial nations of the virorld. All this, demonstrated 
 by these facts upon the state of shipping, could be adduced 
 for nearly every other industry and for nearly all the ele- 
 
104 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 ments of which our trade and commerce consists. Every 
 article of trade suffers more or less under the load of 
 charges for bogus capital. 
 
 When Americans can trade free from American law, as 
 can be done with shipping, every other American is thrown 
 overboard, because everything is so costly, and shipping 
 and other products of foreigners, costing less, by being 
 free from bogus capital, are given the preference. 
 
 A buoyant and public writer upon the condition of the 
 export trade of the United States wrote for publication: 
 "For a firm grasp of the world-wide markets American 
 travelers and American shipyards are wanted." Both 
 these elements exist in large measure. Both American 
 shipyards and American travelers are idle. Both could do 
 the best work in the world if they had fair play. Trade 
 drummers are in such excess that those out of employment 
 have formed a society to promote their use. Shipbuilding 
 yards are in excess. A number of shipyards in the United 
 States are constantly in a financial hospital, not because 
 there are not plenty of shipbuilding materials, or superior 
 shipbuilding workmen, but because bogus capital has 
 grasped the materials, the means of transportation, as well 
 as the shipbuilding methods, and consequently ships can- 
 not be built, except at such costs as to be useless. No 
 commercial machinery can obtain orders when prices are 
 higher than those of the competing countries, and none 
 but dazed minds would suppose that products can be sold 
 when charges for bogus capital are included in the selling 
 prices. 
 
 The politician who expects a merchant shipping for the 
 United States, while bogus capital remains unextin- 
 guished, are like the men who expected to find ice in the 
 tropics. How can a shipping industry be fostered and 
 be placed upon a healthy foundation when men charge five 
 million dollars' worth of shipbuilding appliances and 
 
DEPEAVED EINANOE. 106 
 
 plants with seventy-five million dollars of bogus capital as 
 ixal money, with the real object of scampering off with 
 the money and leaving the debt to be provided with divi- 
 dends and interest by inordinate charges for ships ? This 
 is the scheme of the Shipbuilding Trust. Can Americans 
 obtain an honest or successful nation-making industry 
 from a band of fraudulent conspirators, such as those who 
 created the fraudulent prospectus, and bought and sold 
 the fraudulent plants, and the fraudulent everything, 
 which were intended, not for economical shipbuilding, but 
 for stock-juggling plundering, as is shown by the scramble 
 to be the first to unload the products on the Stock Ex- 
 change.? 
 
 The hindrance in the way of the United States posses- 
 sing its own merchant marine is not in securing materials ; 
 we have them all in incomparable abundance. The cause 
 is more discreditable. Every natural and mechanical ad- 
 vantage has been cornered and put under the control of 
 pawn-tickets, and the pawners have taken the money, and 
 left the pledges to pay the y-early interest, and to provide 
 these payments prices have been put up so high as to be 
 prohibitive. The best of all means to prohibit an indus- 
 try is to increase prices, and the most effectual means of 
 maiming an industry is to put it largely in debt for money 
 which it never received, and for which it never received 
 any advantage, like the charge for bogus capital, which 
 is positively fraudulent. 
 
 The Republican Convention held in Nebraska in 1903 
 formulated a demand that such legislation should be put 
 on the statute books of this country as shall "Make the sea 
 give evidence that American built, American manned, and 
 American owned ships are carrying American foreign 
 commerce to the four corners of the earth." 
 
 How volatile and absurd are these words, addressed to 
 the intelligence of the American people, in view of the 
 
106 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 actual cause which strangles and incapacitates the mer- 
 chant shipping and all the industries of the country ! These 
 politicians seem not to grasp that when prices are doubled 
 to provide dividends for capital which never existed, the 
 industries are disabled and the dollar buys only one-half. 
 
 The cause of th^ debilitated condition of the commer- 
 cial shipping of the United States is the same as that 
 which makes the cost excessive for all the products of our 
 industries, of the transportation of all our railroads, and 
 makes dollars buy so little. The industries and railroads 
 and other resources of this countr\- ought to be conserved 
 for the people. 
 
 The consequences of such an unsound and illegitimate 
 state of trade and commerce not only creates a large num- 
 ber of idle non-producers who spend extravagantly, in- 
 creasing every year, but fewer in every hundred of the 
 workers are compelled to provide the idlers with an exist- 
 ence. In 1880, 14. 1 in every 100 of the population were 
 engaged in our industries, but in 1900 only 12.9 in every 
 100 of our population were engaged in our industries. 
 We find the same falling off in numbers in the persons en- 
 gaged in agriculture. In 1880 there were 44 persons in 
 every 100 of the population who were engaged in agricul- 
 tural pursuits, but in 1890 there were only T^y, and in 1900 
 only 35, and at this rate of increase, in a few more decades 
 there will not be sufficient labor for our agricultural re- 
 quirements. 
 
 f Under such conditions of fiction and fraud there are 
 short periods of seeming prosperity in every decade, but 
 on the average the period is not one of real progression for 
 the work-people, who, thrown about like dice in a gam- 
 bling room, become more and more discontented, as well 
 •^as careless about good citizenship. 
 
 Can there be intelligent Americans who imagine that 
 there are markets abroad which will buy our commodities. 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 107 
 
 loaded as they are with their heavy charges for dividends 
 for bogus capital? Why, Americans themselves would 
 not pay the high prices which are demanded, in order to 
 feed the bogus capital with dividends, were they not com- 
 pelled to do so by a tariff law made especially to protect 
 the making of high prices. Were there no tariff law there 
 would be little or no bogus capital, for then the bogus 
 capital could not obtain the dividends from the high prices. 
 Were there no tariff law the American consumer would 
 buy in those markets where bogus capital does not exist 
 and where they could buy so much more for their dollars. 
 Does any thoughtful person suppose that if American 
 products could be sold abroad for 99 cents, for which they 
 are now paying 100 cents, that those markets would not 
 send orders for those commodities ? Does any person sup- 
 pose that the markets of foreign countries will pay Amer- 
 ican merchants one hundred cents while they can obtain 
 the products for one-quarter of a cent less? Therefore, 
 how difficult and impossible is the work to get foreigners 
 to pa)' our extra prices in order to provide our stock- 
 juggling system with dividends. 
 
 No person apprised of the facts will state the resources 
 of Great Britain are not vastly inferior to those of the 
 United States. She is subject to foreign charges of all 
 sorts, as well as efforts to get her raw material, while the 
 United States has them in abundance at home. ^Ve are 
 told that the organizing and administrative forces, the 
 quality of machinery and the vigor of labor are inferior, 
 and that her working people work shorter hours. We 
 are told that in comparison with American machinery the 
 machinery of England is old and obsolete. All this should 
 be true. Therefore, where are all the advantages of the 
 United States absorbed ? Do not the high prices declare ; 
 do not the prohibitions upon our industries declare; do 
 not the almost stagnated conditions of our foreign com- 
 
108 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 merce declare; do not the fictitious charges declare, that 
 the country's resources are being enslaved by a vast sys- 
 tem of financial grasp, which pledges them and takes the 
 money without having a pretence of an equivalent ? Since 
 we cannot compete with Great Britain with her shipping, 
 nor with her textiles, nor in any other branch of com- 
 merce, except in raw cotton, petroleum and food stuffs, 
 where is the bleeding done which draws off such a vast 
 quantity of vital blood ? There is only one answer. There 
 are commercial parasites in the United States which have 
 applied themselves yearly to blackmailing its trade and 
 commerce, and juggled real money into their own pockets 
 in exchange for fictitious pieces of paper which are per- 
 manently charged as a debt upon the country's resources, 
 which must be provided with interest and dividends every 
 year. 
 
 In 1902 the exports of agriculture were only $10.50 per 
 head of the population, but in 1880 they were $13.60. In 
 1902 the exports of breadstuff s, per head of the popula- 
 tion, were only $2.70, but in 1880 they were $4.20, and 
 were the wages not taken by bogus capital all the people 
 would be better fed, and they would consume all the 
 breadstuffs which are now exported. AVhen breadstuffs 
 cease to be exported the country will be more dependent 
 upon manufactures for exports, and with the prohibitive 
 costs of them, because of the high prices necessary for the 
 bogus capital, there will be none for export. Then we 
 shall have such a state of congestion in the labor market 
 as will develop the worst of discontent, and then bogus 
 capital may be extinguished by rude force and not by 
 choice, with consequences to the authors such as are pain- 
 ful to contemplate. 
 
 The unsatisfactory commercial situation in this country 
 is pictured by the Secretary of the United States Treasury 
 in a speech delivered in Boston on Ihe 29th of October, 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 109 
 
 1903. He deplored that foreign markets would not take 
 American manufactures, and this is only too true, for the 
 exports of American manufactures are only $5 per head of 
 the population. He deplored the condition of American 
 shipping, and that Americans could get the best of ships 
 in foreign countries for considerably less money, where 
 they have inferior supplies of materials, inferior produc- 
 ing appliances, inferior labor, which in foreign countries 
 works for shorter hours and produces less for the dollar. 
 
 Actually, Americans refuse to employ American ships, 
 and whenever they can smuggle foreign goods into the 
 United States, in order to evade the extravagant prices, 
 they do it. These are perplexing anomalies until we 
 examine them. The reason that the American will not 
 employ the American ships, and why Americans smuggle 
 foreign goods into the United States, and why a costly 
 army of detectives to watch and prevent smuggling is 
 required, is because the charges and prices are so high in 
 this country. The charges and prices are not high natu- 
 rally ; they are not high by scarcity ; nor are they high by 
 incompetent means of production, but they have been made 
 high in order to enrich one class, which makes bogus cap- 
 ital and charges it as real money, and to impoverish an- 
 other class which does most of the producing. All the 
 great products by which trade and commerce are fed are 
 in incomparable abundance, and they are produced by the 
 best and most economical of all means, and in proportion 
 to output value are produced by the cheapest labor in the 
 world, but every natural and artificial advantage has been 
 corraled. 
 
 High prices disable and degrade a nation. They act 
 like taxes, but are vastly more oppressive. High prices 
 are a restraint upon trade, because they prohibit the use of 
 products; they reduce consumption, because the people 
 cannot buy as much ; they diminish demand for labor, be- 
 
no DEPRAVED FIlsANGE. 
 
 cause less labor is needed ; and they mean insufficiency for 
 the great mass of workers upon whom the nation depends 
 for the production of its actual wealth. When the in- 
 creases in prices, amounting to lOO cents on the dollar, as 
 the increases have approximately grown since i860, by the 
 creation of bogus capital and charging it as real, the op- 
 pressive and enslaving effect upon the people, upon the 
 industries, upon commerce, is enormous. High prices are 
 pernicious in every way, and without a redeeming feature. 
 They make the rich richer, and they make the poor poorer. 
 The increase in cost of an article costing 10 cents to 20 
 cents causes the demand to be smaller, and many people 
 of limited wages must consume only one-half. If the con- 
 sumption is one-fourth less, the amount in dollars, at the 
 rate of doubled prices, will be more. The high prices are • 
 the harvest for the rich class, ^^'^ith only one-half the 
 quantity there is only one-half the cost of production, only 
 half the labor, machinery, buildings and transportation 
 are required, and the other half remain idle. 
 
 This explains the nvimber of idle factories in this coun- 
 ti y. According to the United States Census of 1900, in 
 only nine of the hundreds of industries there were 118 
 plants idle, representing land, buildings and machinery of 
 o\er $42,000,000. In other industries there were 2,296 
 establishments idle, representing a motive power of 210,- 
 461. There w ere 123 iron and steel plants idle, represent- 
 ing $25,000,000. The estimate of the country's internal 
 trade by dollars, when prices have been doubled, means 
 that there are the aggregate of dollars, but for only half 
 the products, and consequently there is only one-half of the 
 production, as well as only one-half the consumption, and 
 thereby the worst of uneconomies are used. Only half the 
 labor, machinery, buildings and transportation are used. 
 When the costs of articles of general consumption have 
 been fictitiously increased by tariff protection, in order to 
 
DEPKAVED riNANCE. Ill 
 
 get dividends for bogus capital, there is necessarily a seri- 
 ous economic derangement, which will sooner or later be 
 productive of disaster and sufifering. There is an oppres- 
 sive profit created by increasing the price from lo cents 
 to 20 cents, and a large amount has been obtained without 
 giving an equivalent. 
 
 When the mass of the people have to face such high 
 prices as give only about one-half of the necessaries of 
 life for the dollar, there must be enormous personal suffer- 
 ing, as ^^■ell as great trade disorganization, to be revealed 
 as time goes on, although a few are made enormously 
 wealthy. 
 
 Under these conditions the farm products consumed 
 must be diminished, and the demand for other commodi- 
 ties must fall off, to be followed by less clothing, worse 
 homes, and by increasing privations, and often the des- 
 peration of want. The proceeds from the increases in 
 prices are vast, and the creation of millionaires by them is 
 easy, but the widespread evil created is indescribable. 
 
 High prices are as pernicious and oppressive, and home 
 destructive, and trade destroying, as the worst of taxes for 
 a state of war, and when so permanent and so enormous 
 as in the United States by means of bogus capital charged 
 as real money, they are as injurious to the national life, 
 as well as to the individual and to the home-life, as a 
 permanent state of war, which constantly extracts many 
 cents from every dollar. 
 
 An ideal Republic consists of workers, and not of loung- 
 ers, and the fewer the Commonwealth has of these, the 
 better for its health and economic development. Of the 
 great nations there are few which cannot produce at one 
 price or another, but the weak can only produce at high 
 prices. The measure of health in a nation is its power 
 to produce without being trammeled, so that its people 
 can get the most for their dollars. The nations are few 
 
112 DEPKAVED FINANCE. 
 
 which cannot produce industrial products, but wherever 
 tariff laws are most protective of high prices, as in the 
 United States and Russia, there the costs of production 
 are the greatest and the people are most oppressed and 
 obtain the least for their dollars. 
 
 The high prices which exist in this country, created 
 mostly by stock- jugglers by means of bogus capital 
 charged as real, means vast poverty-making for the Amer- 
 ican people, especially for the wage-earners. They mean, 
 very often, less food, less clothing, less housing, and often 
 the annihilation of all home-life, as well as mental degra- 
 dation for millions, who, but for the oppression of higher 
 prices for bogus capital dividends, would be better mem- 
 bers of the community and better American citizens. The 
 proceeds of the bogus capital-making, for which real 
 money has been wrongfully taken in such enormous quan- 
 tities, are viciously wealth;making for an indolent, non- 
 producing, luxury-using class, which is so often unfit for 
 wealth. This is illustrated by prominent men who, upon 
 the opening of a palatial stable, seek coarse notoriety by 
 an equestrian dinner in the form of a cavalier tourna- 
 ment; by women who are absorbed how they can spend 
 money upon some novel and coarse social function; by 
 females dressed in costly apparel throwing hundreds of 
 dollars into a Madison Square Garden cycle race; by 
 women purchasing porterhouse steaks for their dogs ; by 
 a scion of a great bogus capital juggler making the best of 
 the proceeds by spending a hundred thousand dollars, 
 night after night, in Canfield's gambling house, while, in 
 consequence of bogus capital being charged as real money, 
 prices for the necessaries of life are so high that many 
 industrious in our cities are surrounded by hunger and 
 want. 
 
 Under economic conditions, especially under a Democ- 
 racy, the people who constitute the nation are paid wages 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 113 
 
 for more than a struggling existence, by which they be- 
 come degraded citizens and non-users of those industrial 
 and farm products by which the nation is enriched, and 
 the people are improved in their well-being. The people 
 are paid wages in a real democracy for national develop- 
 ment, for individual well-being, as well as for sustenance, 
 and the more these are provided for, the more prosperous 
 are the industries, and the greater is the real progress of 
 the commonwealth. That higher wages can be afforded 
 by the actual costs of production of the country's products 
 is proved by the fact that dividends are so largely and 
 regularly provided for capital which never existed, and 
 which does no work, and has no legitimate value or claim. 
 
 The best and most beneficent of governments is not that 
 which would be distinguished by sharp practices with 
 foreign countries, or for its tinsel and lace, or which advo- 
 cates a large standing army. The best and most benefi- 
 cent of governments is that which protects its industrious 
 poor against the graspings of the rich, and so administers 
 adequate laws, as well as the public purse, whereby the 
 people can get the most for their dollars. The worst and 
 most oppressive of all governments is that one which fos- 
 ters and protects the making of high prices and shares the 
 plunder with the men who use the high prices to make 
 dividends for spurious capital, which has been charged 
 upon the country's resources as genuine money. 
 
 The first concern of a faithful and competent executive 
 of the nation will be to provide, or at least set in motion, 
 those economic conditions by which the people can obtain 
 the most for the least, and undo the practices of former 
 governments whereby the people have been compelled to 
 receive the least for the most. The duty of the executive 
 of the government is the suppression of all abuses, the 
 maintenance of purity in all departments, the cutting out 
 of all corruption, and the making of such I9.WS, and en- 
 
114 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 forcing the operation of them, as will preserve the weak 
 and poor, and the industrious worker, from the piracy of 
 the strong and rich, and secure especial punishment for all 
 who have enslaved the industries, as well as their workers, 
 by charging bogus capital as real money for themselves. 
 The country's resources, by which the nation exists and 
 upon which all the people are dependent for employment 
 and gain, ought to be free from all bogus encumbrances, 
 and all who have created them and taken the money ought 
 to be forced to disgorge and be brought under the crim- 
 inal law. The common interest, as well as the prime 
 necessity of all the American people, is the preservation 
 of the country's resources from the dishonest manipula- 
 tions of the stock-juggling class. Hitherto the common 
 practice has been to neglect the industrious and protect 
 the scheming plunderers, if they would only share their 
 plunder. This has been so developed, with the co-opera- 
 tion of governments, that 71 cents of every dollar of the 
 country's resources or wealth were grasped by a few be- 
 fore 1 90 1, and the principal engine of the grasp has been 
 the creation of bogus capital and charging of it as real 
 money. When a government fails to prevent men from 
 taking thousands of millions of dollars by charging the 
 resources of the country with bogus capital, it becomes an 
 accessory to taking cents from the people's dollars, and 
 thereby making their lives harder and more difficult. In 
 a country with a strong and wholesome public opinion the 
 people would at once demand an inquiry into the moral 
 competency of an executive of the nation, which was in- 
 different and passive while the steel industry of the nation 
 was being charged with more than a thousand million 
 dollars of bogus capital as real money, and the proceeds 
 were being pocketed. The widespread enslavement of 
 trade and commerce, and of the millions of the industrious 
 American people, is incomparably more vast in its im- 
 
DEPKAVED FINANCE. 115 
 
 portance than the comparatively finikin discourses upon 
 race suicide and strenuosity, while under our unwhole- 
 some industrial conditions more than two million children 
 are being forced to overwork, for a bare existence, in 
 order to make dividends for a capital which never existed. 
 By the creation of thousands of millions of bogus capital 
 and charging it as real money, economic disorganization 
 is inevitable, and prices must necessarily be increased, so 
 that the dividends can be provided for the imaginary cap- 
 ital. Prices have been increased and in many instances 
 wages have been reduced. As consumers must necessarily 
 buy less, because prices are prohibitive, so factories must 
 close, and wage-earners must be put on to the streets ; so 
 exports must necessarily fall off, and they have fallen .off, 
 and the imports of jewelry and precious stones will natu- 
 rally increase, as they have increased, until they in 1902 
 amounted to one-third of the exports of steel products. 
 
 Were the people living under a government which 
 would enforce the law against bogus capital and bogus 
 capital-makers, every one who spends dollars in the United 
 States would then get the same necessaries of life for 60 
 cents which now cost $1. Were the wage-earner then paid 
 a fair proportion of the earnings he could buy more of 
 the products of the farms and industries, and the pros- 
 perity of the country would be real and unprecedented. 
 
 Even in view of the widespread corruption in politics 
 which is announced in the newspapers from day to day, it 
 is surprising that the members of Congress and the dif- 
 ferent States Legislatures are willing for the people to be 
 alienated from the country's resources by the creation of 
 bogus charges, and protected by a tariff law which pro- 
 tects the making of higher prices, in order to provide the 
 bogus charges with yearly payments. This bogus capital 
 charged as real, turns back the people's clock of civilization 
 and progress, and makes them poorer, makes them work 
 
116 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 more, and obtain less for their dollars. These bogus 
 charges make more remote, if not impossible, the time 
 of the enrichment of the people's lives by art and litera- 
 ture. All the advancements of science in the economy of 
 production do nothing for the elevation of the people, 
 because they are grasped by bogus capital, and the costs 
 of them are prohibitive, because they have to provide 
 dividends for an imaginary capital. 
 
 It is not too much to state that almost every con- 
 trivance has been invented to bleed the American people 
 and take cents from their dollars. The railroads, although 
 declared by the Supreme Court to be inalienable public 
 property, have been charged with more than six thousand 
 million dollars of bogus capital, and some of this is re- 
 ceiving $io a year for every $ioo, and in order to supply 
 these dividends the costs of transportation have been in- 
 creased, and in consequence the costs of the necessaries of 
 life are increased. 
 
 The same with the American people's industries and 
 other resources. They have been charged with thousands 
 of millions of bogus capital as real money, and in order to 
 provide dividends for these prices are increased and wages 
 are reduced. In this manner the lives of many Americans 
 are very hard and their privations are very severe, in a 
 land abounding with plenty and with the means of com- 
 fort and happiness more than enough for all. 
 
 Besides the bogus capital enslavement of the people 
 there is the enslavement by the politicians, which also 
 makes the dollar buy less. Every gi^ab is so much of a 
 tax, to be paid yearly, and to be paid mostly by the people 
 who do the working and the producing of the nation. 
 We are enslaved by a political system which, by an un- 
 written canon of political law, dominates the political 
 party which is in power and gives "spoils to the victors." 
 By this there is a tacit understanding between leaders in 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 117 
 
 politics that the victors and their henchmen who aid in 
 their victory shall get official power afterward, and plun- 
 der as they please, provided it is done secretly. The oper- 
 ation of this system is very far-reaching, and is fraught 
 with the worst of consequences, and often costs many 
 cents of the dollars. The people's conscience is asleep, 
 and consequently the political plunderer gets more than 
 his own, and in consequence dollars are bereft of so many 
 cents. The political victors, under this popular regime, 
 account spoils as rewards due to themselves and their 
 supporters for their services; and they fix no limit upon 
 the amount, and then there is no limit to their plunder, 
 unless they can be found out. The plunder is of all sorts ; 
 public franchises of enormous value are given away to 
 sets of men for private reward, and afterward the fran- 
 chises are turned over to syndicates, and then to Trusts; 
 and in these ways many cents are taken from the people's 
 dollars. The people's property is alienated by every pos- 
 sible means for private gain. The politicians shut their 
 eyes and are paid for it, while great stealings are com- 
 pleted. Then the henchmen of the victor claim official 
 positions as a means, not to get salaries, but of getting 
 plunder. Salaries are only a semblance of the rewards to 
 political supporters, and are considered insufficient for 
 their services; opportunities for pillaging are a part of 
 the transaction. In the Postoffice, opportunity has been 
 given to charge salaries for people who never lived, for 
 office furniture which never existed, for traveling ex- 
 penses for journeys which were never made, for new ap- 
 pliances which were never needed, and for all kinds of 
 pretexts, in order to give spoils to political bleeders of the 
 people, and the head and tail of the system sail in the 
 same boat. A book might be easily filled to show how in 
 every direction spoils of plunder are acquired by political 
 victors and their henchmen, by this pernicious political 
 
118 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 sj'stem, ending alwa3's in taking cents from the people's 
 dollars. Never in any country, not under any monarchy, 
 not under any other Republic in all the world's history, 
 have the people's resources been so bled or so freely mis- 
 appropriated as by these vicious systems. 
 
 The insurance of inordinate profits by inordinate prices, 
 by a tariff law, has enabled the same class to anticipate 
 and capitalize these profits and charge them as real money 
 in perpetuity, as if they were a real and not a fictitious 
 creation. By the tariff act Congress created at one stroke 
 thousands of millions of dollars for a wealthy class to 
 become ^^•ealthier at the expense of the poor class becom- 
 ing poorer. It is to be regretted that all this pernicious 
 business is the product of one political party, which may 
 be called the Capitalization party, which capitalizes the 
 illicit gains of a diabolical law. Some of the leaders of 
 this party are not only willing to enslave the industrious 
 millions, but would enslave them more by paying subsidies 
 to ships with bogus capital, whereb)' they can be pro- 
 tected in the same uneconomic wa}', to produce earnings 
 by exorbitant rates, which can be anticipated and capi- 
 talized into bogus charges, and then treated as real money. 
 By the tariff law protection is provided for privileged 
 men to continuall)- increase prices, so that the bogus cap- 
 ital can be provided with dividends indefinitely. 
 
 No system ever used by a king or an emperor ever made 
 nobles so quickly and made them so wealthy, and made 
 them to oppress and bleed the people so much, by giving 
 the people who work less and less of the necessaries of 
 life, for the dollars of their wages. The evil effects and 
 widespread punishment are inevitable. As the prices are 
 made higher, the ^\'ages buy less and less of the products 
 of the factories and of the farm and other products. Then 
 there is excess of manufacturing products and of other 
 products ; then factories must close, workers must be dis- 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 119 
 
 charged ; then the products which they are unable to buy 
 are not sold, and other factories must close and other 
 working people must be discharged ; while the privations 
 and want of the people and stoppage of factories and trade 
 become such a national calamity as to produce personal 
 and commercial ruin. The system is so devised in its 
 details that it is the interest of rich men to produce these 
 periods of ruin, if they can be anticipated, and an article 
 which is high in price can be sold for future delivery. The 
 seller need not possess or own, he has merely to sell fu- 
 tures, and be responsible for deliver)' when prices have 
 fallen after the wreckage. 
 
 Since every four million dollars a year extracted from 
 the people by higher prices and lower wages will provide 
 sufficient dividends for every hundred million dollars of 
 bogus capital charged as real money, to be unloaded upon 
 the Stock Exchange, every inducement is created to make 
 the number of four million dollars a year as many as pos- 
 sible, regardless of the engineering costs to the entrails 
 of the American people. 
 
 Secretary Shaw, of the United States Treasury, advo- 
 cates the payment of subsidies of about $4 per ton of 
 freight to pay the ships in order to establish a merchant 
 shipping which, by the charging of bogus capital as real, 
 has been made so costly as to be prohibitive. The mer- 
 chant shipping of the United States has been killed by the 
 weight of charges upon it, but in order to bring it into life, 
 Secretary Shaw purposes a kind of charitable payment. 
 The high prices which the American objects to and tries 
 to evade by smuggling, apply to shipbuilding, to shipbuild- 
 ing materials, and to shipbuilding appliances, as well as to 
 the food, clothing and housing of the seamen and their 
 families. Consequently, shipbuilding and the maintenance 
 of shipping is, in the United States, the most costly of all 
 countries, therefore Americans discard them and employ 
 
120 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 ships of foreigners, just as good for considerably less. 
 But for the tariff law, which protects and fosters the cre- 
 ations of bogus capital, the prices in the United States 
 would be the lowest in the world, and the people would 
 obtain more for a dollar than in any other country. 
 
 All these apologies for a lame shipping industry, and 
 all these pleadings for a charitable fund to pay that which 
 they are unable to do for themselves, is made in a country 
 which has the best of all means. The monetary nursing 
 of ships is to make up the plunder which has been taken 
 by bogus capital and charged as real money. How much 
 better would it be for the country, for the Government, 
 and for its people, if Secretary Shaw would frankly admit 
 the truth and confess that stock-juggling promoters have 
 so overloaded everything with bogus capital charged as 
 real money, that there must be an extinguishing of the 
 bogus capital, or that the industries carrying the bogus 
 capital must have monetary nursing every year by subsi- 
 dies. Why is the plain truth about bogus capital withheld 
 from the American people ? Do the politicians think the 
 American is too degraded and stupid to care for the actual 
 truth, or are they afraid of the stoppage of supplies by the 
 bogus corporations ? It should not be forgotten that every 
 four million dollars which the United States Government 
 takes out of the people's treasury, and gives to shipping 
 made lame by bogus capital, will pay dividends at the rate 
 of 4 per cent, per year upon one hundred million dollars of 
 more bogus capital, which will not be for the people who 
 work, but for the wealthy class, for which the capitalizing 
 political party is always solicitous. The Ocean Marine 
 Trust has about one hundred million dollars of bogus 
 capital charged as real money, and if it can only induce the 
 Government to pay it out of the people's treasury four 
 million dollars a year, the hundred million dollars of bogus 
 capital will be vitalized, and can be sold for about eighty 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 121 
 
 million dollars in gold on the New York Stock Exchange. 
 Every subsidy in the past and every subsidy in the pres- 
 ent and future must be a payment in charity, but with 
 inferior motives, and must come out of the many to en- 
 rich the few. 
 
 The American shipping has been made so costly by 
 means of charges for bogus capital that it could not be 
 produced or maintained to compete with the merchant 
 shipping of other countries, and consequently could not do 
 business, and has become almost extinct. That bogus 
 capital charged as real money upon the American mer- 
 chant shipping and upon the materials and methods, by 
 which ships are built and maintained, should annihilate 
 it, is according to the most natural of laws. The Amer- 
 ican merchant shipping has been killed by fictitious charges 
 making prohibitively high costs. These high costs made 
 it impossible for the American shipping to live, and, as it 
 deserved, it was killed. When bolstered up wrongfully, 
 and intended to bleed the people by the process, it would be 
 unfortunate for natural laws not to come into operation. 
 The breach of the same natural law is seen in steel, it is 
 seen in every direction. The same prenicious programme 
 of bleeding the people was applied in steel in the period 
 from 1871 to 1883. In these thirteen years the steel mak- 
 ers were able to charge the American people for steel 
 products 186 cents, which the English people were buying 
 at the same period for 100 cents. The same protective 
 system was applied to copper. Between 1875 ^"^ 1884 
 all the copper sold in the United States was 30 cents on 
 the dollar highei- than the same quality of copper was sold 
 for in England. In other words, the same quantity and 
 quality of copper could be bought in England for 100 
 cents which costs 130 cents in the United States on the 
 average of these ten years. 
 
 Every intelligent American will see that when prices 
 
122 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 are protected in order to supply dividends for a capital 
 which never existed, the industries are interfered with in 
 producing economically, and are thus made incapable for 
 doing their duty to the nation. 
 
 Shipping subsidies have failed^ like all subsidies have 
 failed in every countr}-, to make robust industries, and 
 they have succeeded largely in making robust millionaires. 
 The American flag is protected on the coastwise trade of 
 the United States, and consequently the American people 
 must pay high prices when they want shipping transpor- 
 tation within these privileged precincts. This means that 
 American shipbuilders and shipholders are protected to 
 make high prices in these areas. This is another contri- 
 bution of Congress toward making the prevailing high 
 prices of the country; it is another chance for the privi- 
 leged rich to bleed the oppressed producers of the nation 
 by overcharges. Secretary Shaw, \\hen ad\'Ocating sub- 
 sidarial privileges for the shipowners and shipbuilders, 
 said : "I am not ignorant of the argument that foreign 
 countries are willing to subsidize ships to carry our 
 freight." England is the only country which can be said 
 to do any important ship-carrying for the United States, 
 and its shipping is the only shipping that interferes with 
 the American merchant marine. It does so not by sub- 
 sidies, but because the bogus capital charges in the United 
 States, charged as real money, are not in operation in 
 England. It would be strictly correct to state that Eng- 
 land pays no subsidies whatever to shipping. The sup- 
 posed strengthening of an industry, even when it is weak, 
 as the American merchant shipping industry is claimed to 
 be, by protecting and subsidizing it, is a worn-out fallacy 
 which has been proved again and again. The navigation 
 laws of England, abolished in 1849, ^vere intended by pro- 
 tection and subsidizing to enable the English Mercantile 
 Marine to secure the entire mercantile supremacy of tlie 
 
DEPEAVED PINANCE. 123 
 
 seas. As soqn as these subsidizing and protective laws 
 for shipping were abohshed, the economies and efficiencies 
 of the mercantile marine of England increased enor- 
 mously. The mercantile marine of England was only 
 3,596,000 tons under the subsidizing law in 1840. In 
 1880 the tonnage of the mercantile marine of England, 
 without subsidies or protection, was 17,850,000 tons, hav- 
 ing increased nearly five-fold ; and had the protection and 
 subsidizing been continued, the mercantile marine of Eng- 
 land would have been weaker and more costly, and less 
 able to compete with that of other countries. 
 
 The following details show the payments of the British 
 Government to all its diversified shipping. They show 
 that the "tramp" steamers, which are the freight-carrying 
 steamers of the ocean^ do not receive any assistance or 
 payments whatever for mail services : 
 
 Payments by the British Government to Its Merchant 
 Shipping for Carrying the Mails. 
 
 Payments yearly to the fortnightly Jamaica 
 and Bristol Line, half being paid by Jamaica 
 and the other half by the British Govern- 
 ment $200,000 
 
 Payments yearly to the Peninsular and Orien- 
 tal Steamship Company for the mail service 
 to the East Indies. (This company earns 
 by these payments for mail freight nearly 
 10 per cent, of its annual earnings) 1,650,000 
 
 Payments made yearly to the Oriental Steam- 
 ship Company 425,000 
 
 Payments yearly to the Royal Mail Steamship 
 
 Company 400,000 
 
 Payments yearly to the Canadian Pacific 
 Steamship Company 300,000 
 
124 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 Payments yearly to the Pacific Steam Naviga- 
 tion Company 161,500 
 
 Payments made yearly to the London, Chat- 
 ham & Dover Railroad Company for mail 
 service between Dover and Calais 125,000 
 
 Yearly payments to the British India Steam- 
 ship Company 45>ooo 
 
 The British Goverrmient pays for the option of per- 
 emptorily employing certain ships built to naval specifica- 
 tions, using naval officers, to be employed in case of war. 
 
 The foregoing shows the payments made by England to 
 its merchant marine for mail freight. It is evident that 
 the representations upon subsidies paid by England being 
 the cause of the annihilation of the United States mer- 
 chant marine are completely fallacious, and must have 
 been made for bogus capital purposes. The merchant 
 marine of England consists mostly of steam "tramps," of 
 which there were in 1902, 8,352, with a carrying tonnage 
 of 13,625,455. The entire earnings of the English tramp 
 steamers average $650,000,000 a year. The average earn- 
 ings of all the English liners, other than tramps, is less 
 than $350,000,000 a year. It is unfortunate that men are 
 so willing to be misled and to misrepresent in order to 
 develop the erroneous and uneconomic policy of a political 
 party. The nursing of trade by protection and subsidies 
 is illustrated by French experience. In i860 a Cobden 
 treaty, reducing tariff charges, was inaugvirated in France, 
 and in the interval between i860 and 1869 the exports 
 and imports increased more than 50 cents on the dollar. 
 In 1872 M. Thiers adopted trade protection, and between 
 1873 ^nd 1894 the exports fell off nearly 20 cents on the 
 dollar. At the same time, in 1872, Thiers began to sub- 
 sidize shipping with the intention of building up a French 
 merchant marine. When the subsidizing commenced iii 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 12S 
 
 1872 French shipping was in carrying power, 18 tons in 
 every 100 greater than the merchant marine shipping of 
 Germany. Without subsidizing, Germany has competed 
 with France, which had subsidies. In 1894, under the 
 subsidizing system, the merchant shipping of France was 
 70 tons in every 100 smaller than that of Germany with- 
 out subsidies. Protection and non-protection are illus- 
 trated further by Victoria and by New South Wales, in 
 Australasia, where the former used protection and the 
 latter non-protection. With trade protection between 
 
 1873 ^nd 1893, Victoria declined in its foreign trade 30 
 cents on the dollar, while New South Wales, without pro- 
 tection, increased in its foreign trade 55 cents on the 
 dollar. 
 
 The total output of all American steamships for the 
 foreign trade of the United States is not equal in tonnage 
 to that of one small British shipyard. This is because 
 costs have been inflated to provide dividends for bogus 
 capital which has been charged as real money. 
 
 All the disabilities of American merchant shipping are 
 not because in the United States there are inferior sup- 
 plies, or inferior labor, or inferior machinery. The cause 
 is more discreditable and pernicious. It is because so 
 many cents of every dollar in shipbuilding materials, in 
 ship maintenance, and in everything else, are taken to 
 provide dividends for bogus capital. How can a ship 
 industry be maintained, how can ships be built, how can 
 economic laws have fair play, how can the American 
 people be treated with justice when the capital to produce 
 a dollar's worth of shipbuilding was 31:72 cents in 1850, 
 $1,037 in 1900, and $4 in 1902 ? Is it not worse than in- 
 fantile folly to expect the shipping or any other industry, 
 to be able to live in a state of health when it has to carry 
 enormous burdens of fictitious capital, when, like shipping, 
 it has to compete with the honest productions of countries 
 
126 DEPEAVED PIlSrANOE. 
 
 where the bogus is not charged as the real, and to com- 
 pete even with countries which have not the natural, or 
 labor, or machinery advantages which are possessed by 
 the United States. 
 
 One eminent political leader, who has been enriched 
 enormously by protection, says that the United States can 
 have a merchant shipping if it will pay the price. He 
 means a price in the same ratio as steel products. He 
 means that if the working people can be squeezed 
 more, especially for a merchant marine, that the United 
 States can possess a merchant marine. In other words, 
 if the American people will subscribe annually out of their 
 earnings, any costly white elephant, any overcharged in- 
 dustry, any fictitious business, can be kept going in a 
 state of ill-health and feebleness, if the country will only 
 consent to be impoverished by the price of supporting it. 
 
 C. H. Cramp, in order to secure subsidies, has made 
 public statements to the effect that Great Britain has al- 
 ways been the greatest of all subsidizers. This is mis- 
 leading, if not more than inaccurate, as we have shown 
 by the payments of the British Government to shipping. 
 
 C. H. Cramp's administration of shipbuilding failed 
 because the commodities he used were infested with bogus 
 capital charged as real money. He says the cost of two 
 steamers in the United States was $1,460,000, and 
 that the cost of two steamers of the same specifications in 
 the United Kingdom was $1,000,000, and he over- 
 looks the fact that the difference has arisen, not by the 
 absence of the material, of efficient and cheap workingmen, 
 or of machinery in the United States, but by the presence 
 of bogus capital charged as real money upon the resources 
 needed to build ships. If such a difference exists in the 
 cost of building ships, it is proof that there is something 
 radically wrong, that there is some debilitating disease 
 somewhere, which ought to be eradicated. All the subsi- 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 127 
 
 dizing of shipping will not rectify such defects in the cost 
 of building ships. 
 
 The country is so interwoven with the disease of creat- 
 ing bogus capital, and in control of the men who do it, 
 that men prefer to be dishonest with themselves and the 
 industries with which they are identified rather than be 
 honest and in antagonism to the exalted plunderers of the 
 nation. For example, the Shipbuilding Trust was formed 
 in 1902, and the beginning and end of the programme 
 was the creation of bogus capital to charge as real money. 
 It took a shipbuilding plant under its wing which was 
 insolvent to the extent of $210,000, and paid for it with 
 all its deficits the sum of $470,000. In other words, the 
 shipbuilding industry was charged by the process $680,- 
 000 for a worn-out, incapable shipyard, more than it was 
 worth, and with this defective and limited instrument it 
 was proposed to build a mercantile marine which would 
 compete with England. In order to assist it Secretary 
 Shaw and President Roosevelt proposed to subsidize it, so 
 that sickness may be restored to health by payments out 
 of the people's treasury. Another lame factory, which 
 never produced anything but seven experimental quadri- 
 cycles, was merged into the Shipbuilding Trust, and 
 $300,000 in cash and $800,000 in bonds and securities on 
 its other properties were paid for it. Then it was closed 
 up and placed on the shelf as being more ornamental than 
 useful. Before it was merged it never earned a cent; 
 after being merged it was incapable of earning a cent. 
 These were for the shipbuilding industry to produce cheap 
 ships, to be comprised in a United States Mercantile Ma- 
 rine. These facts are not exceptional. They are usual 
 and general. Worse instances than these can be named. 
 These are the causes of disease and infirmity of American 
 shipping as well as of American industries. 
 
 When Secretary Shaw advocates a foreign trade, does 
 
128 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 he think that in courtesy, foreigners will pay tribute to 
 the bogus capital upon our industries, in order to provide 
 them with dividends? Does he think that with bogus 
 capital charged as real money, a foreign trade can be de- 
 veloped ? Does not every American evade paying Amer- 
 ican prices as much as possible ? Is it not true that thou- 
 sands of Americans go to Europe, knowing that their ex- 
 penses and more will be saved by purchasing in foreign 
 countries, where dividends for bogus capital have not to 
 be provided ? The question of a foreign trade are selling 
 prices. When the prices are as low, or lower, than those 
 of foreign countries, the buyers will find the means of 
 transportation. When the prices are so high as to be 
 prohibitive, because dividends for bogus capital must be 
 provided, a foreign trade is as reasonable as railroading 
 the moon. The same cause of failure exists with Amer- 
 ican shipping. The shipping of Great Britain is large and 
 successful, because the costs of the shipbuilding materials 
 and the shipbuilding and shipping systems are not made 
 prohibitive by bogus capital, and the food and clothing 
 and housing of the seamen and their families are not 
 under charges for yearly dividends for fictitious money. 
 It is stated by the New York Evening Post that a piece 
 of rascality occurred on the North River front in New 
 York City, and we submit to our readers whether the 
 creation of the Copper Trust and the Steel Trust and other 
 discreditable makings of Trusts are any better or less 
 atrocious. By making the Copper Trust and the Ship- 
 building Trust, as well as the Steel Trust, thousands of 
 honest and industrious and helpless workingmen with 
 families have been thrown upon the streets into poverty 
 and want. By the same performances thousands have 
 been denuded of their savings and landed in debt, and 
 often in ruin. Imagine also the thousands of confiding 
 investors putting their savings under the control of pocket- 
 
DEPEAVED EINANCE. 129 
 
 riflers, some looking to old age and a provision for it, and 
 others to the formation of a home, and all to be bereft of 
 their hopes as well as their money by the plundering de- 
 signs of men who affect purposes of charity, by ostenta- 
 tiously doling out to charities minute portions of their 
 plunder. 
 
 "On West street, the strapping Swede came out from 
 the West, with his blue eyes shining and his hopes high 
 with anticipation. He had been in the copper mines in 
 Montana, a big, fine, upstanding man, with a heart like a 
 child. His buffalo coat came to his heels and his fur cap 
 was on his blond curls, which were slick and glossy. His 
 money, some two thousand dollars in gold, was in a belt 
 strapped over his barrel-like chest. He had dolls for the 
 flaxen-haired, blue-eyed children at home, a soft shawl and 
 a silk dress for the old mother, and gimcracks of various 
 sorts for his old friends. He was proud of his success. 
 The ship that was to take him homeward was to line up 
 next morning, and he came down to the dock the night 
 before to be sure that it did not sail without him. With 
 some of his fellow-passengers he went across to the grog- 
 gery opposite the pier to pass a final merry evening. In 
 the simple pride of his heart he spoke of the things that 
 lay nearest to his thoughts — his home, his people, and 
 especially his gifts, slapping the great chest until the 
 golden money jingled under the heavy coat. The old 
 mother should work no more, he boasted, and the little 
 ones should have warm dresses and pretty things. Cer- 
 tain human wolves who lay around along the river front 
 for such as have simple hearts and unworldly minds, heard 
 the jingle of his gold, and doctored the giant's hquor, so 
 that he was as one dead. When the police found him in a 
 huddled heap, he had been stripped of the last farthing. 
 His buffalo coat was gone, as well as his glossy cap. His 
 money belt had been slit, and all the contents were gone. 
 
130 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 Blood was on his face. When he awoke long after his ship 
 had sailed he had sickness in his heart, but he gave no 
 sign. The police heard the story and sought for his as- 
 sailants, but nothing came of it. The steamship gave him 
 back his money he had paid for his ticket, and. with it he 
 bought a railroad ticket and turned with indescribable 
 sorrow and disappointment toward the West, to work and 
 try again." The human wolves that denuded this man of 
 his all gave him nothing. They gave him no equivalent. 
 Are the human wolves which create bogus capital and 
 charge it as real money, and create it often when there is 
 no asset value, any better or less nefarious than the human 
 wolves who robbed the Swede ? Are the human wolves of 
 bogus capital of a higher order than the human wolves 
 which frequent the groggeries on the river side? It is 
 currently stated that twenty thousand investors in the 
 bogus capital of the Steel Trust have been placed in pov- 
 erty, and some in ruin, and many are in debt, and in con- 
 sequence different banking institutions have been wrecked. 
 The human wolves which created the Shipbuilding and the 
 Steel Trusts, and passed off bogus paper as real money, 
 heard the jingling of the gold, and by a politer brigandage 
 they determined to get hold of it, and they created a 
 thousand million dollars of bogxis capital stock, and then 
 distributed knockout drops of boom and bluff. And the 
 following and subsequent Sundays the same men could be 
 seen in pews, pulling sanctimonious faces and trying to 
 evade the facial lines of avarice and moral decay. 
 
 The United States has acquired its great wealth by its 
 great natural resources of agriculture and minerals, the 
 excess of production over consumption, and the export of 
 the agricultural products has been the principal source of 
 the wealth of the United States. Almost unlimited acres 
 of soil and incomparable climate have combined with 
 vigorous farming to make the United States especially 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 131 
 
 strong in agricultural products, but the demands upon the 
 agricultural products are yearly arriving at the point 
 where the demand will be larger than the supply. The 
 population is increasing enormously by emigration from 
 foreign countries. But farmers are leaving this country 
 in large numbers for Canada, where high prices for other 
 than farm products do not exist. The United States is 
 now the largest feeder of all countries to the population 
 of Canada. In 1902 twenty thousand farmers left the 
 United States for Canada. Each decade requires more 
 agricultural products, and per hundred of the population 
 the number of the persons engaged in agriculture dimin- 
 ish. In 1880 of every hundred of the gainfully employed 
 population of the United States, 47 were engaged in 
 agricultural pursuits. In 1890 there were only 37, and in 
 1900 only 35. These are ominous figures, with portentous 
 meaning for every reflecting American. These figures 
 mean that the country must produce more manufactures, 
 and that these must be exported, if the labor market is not 
 to be terribly congested and glutted. The country must 
 develop its manufacturing industries, but this will be im- 
 possible until such economies are employed as will make 
 costs lower in order to compete in foreign markets. The 
 cause of high costs in manufactures are the charges for 
 bogus capital charged as real money. At present Amer- 
 ican manufactures are practically prohibited from foreign 
 markets because of their high costs, due to charges for 
 dividends for bogus capital charged as real money. The 
 cause is not the inefficient labor, or the high wages, or the 
 inferior machinery. How absurd is the attempt to com- 
 pete in foreign markets while the industries are so vastly 
 overcharged with bogus capital as real money. If more 
 manufactures are not produced, and more labor employed 
 by the factories, the labor supply will be more and more 
 excessive, and then wages will be more and more re- 
 
132 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 duced, until the proper consumption of the country's prod- 
 ucts at home will be impossible. Then, as the wages are 
 reduced, the demand for products will be reduced, and 
 then the dividends will need still higher prices. 
 
 The people are suffering because their money buys so 
 little and because they obtain so httle for their dollars, and 
 so little money for their work. The factories are suffering 
 because there are not sufficient buyers, and commerce is 
 suffering because the high prices are prohibiting our 
 manufactured products from entering the great foreign 
 markets of the world. 
 
 It would be as absurd as it would be untrue to state 
 there are no consumers. Our own people could eat more 
 farm products and then the farmer could buy more manu- 
 factured products. Our people could clothe more, and 
 then more factories would be wanted and the many cloth- 
 ing factories would not be idle. Our people could house 
 better, and then trade would be better. There are millions 
 of our own people waiting to consume more, but the lock 
 and key of bogus capital has been turned upon our com- 
 modities, unless at such impossible prices as will provide 
 dividends. The foreign markets are waiting for our sup- 
 plies, but they are naturally unwilling to provide divi- 
 dends for our imaginary capital, which has been charged 
 upon our means of production and distribution as real 
 money. In the great East Indian market, where there 
 are more than three hundred millions of consumers, the 
 consumption of our products is a pigmy in comparison 
 with the smallest of the other countries. Those of Bel- 
 gium are more than double, those of Russia are three 
 times as much, and all countries have access to this mar- 
 ket upon the same free terms. 
 
 It is the first interest and duty of a nation that its 
 workers are well paid, in order that their well-being may 
 be great, and that their power to consume the country's 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 133 
 
 products may be large. It is the bounden duty of a nation, 
 as well as its primary interest, to prevent all persons from 
 charging bogus capital as real money, and to prevent all 
 persons from acquiring wealth for nothing, or for nominal 
 equivalents. All the derangements of trade and commerce 
 will be found, upon inquiry, to have been caused by men 
 acquiring vast wealth for nothing, and this is largely the 
 cause of so much poverty and vast riches. In nearly every 
 instance it will be found that the vast riches have been 
 obtained by schemes of no commercial value, but a posi- 
 tive encumbrance to the nation. Nearly all, if not all, of 
 the financial operations of some of our stock-juggling 
 financiers have created nothing but debilitating burdens 
 upon the country's power to produce products and dis- 
 tribute them, without ever creating one cent's worth of 
 wealth or enrichment of society. When a railroad or in- 
 dustry is corraled and charged with millions of dollars of 
 bogus capital as real money, the railroad and industry are 
 enslaved, and intended to be enslaved, to the extent of 
 their charges, and they never can again do the work of 
 carrying freight, or producing products so cheaply, as 
 without these charges. When a railroad is charged with 
 bogus capital as real money, its transportation charges 
 must be more than if these bogus charges did not exist. 
 When charges for transportation are high to provide the 
 bogus capital with dividends, a prohibition is put upon the 
 use of the products which it transports. When a prohibi- 
 tion is put upon the use of products the people are not 
 only debarred from using them, but they are debarred 
 from the proper opportunities to produce them. 
 
 This atrocious system, so easy and cheap to work, is 
 vastly more oppressive, as it is vastly more taxing, than 
 all the known imposts of royal or seigniorial plunder. By 
 these methods the modern jugglers can perpetrate schemes 
 which can bleed the people every time they eat or clothe. 
 
134 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 or shelter for sleep, or move. By these methods the people 
 have no choice but to provide dividends for brain crea- 
 tions of spurious money for which the authors have pock- 
 eted gold dollars as freely and as costlessly and as justly 
 as the knockout men who took the Swede's money. 
 
 When the prices are doubled, when the ill-paid worker 
 gets only 50 cents' worth for his dollar, the oppression 
 is so great, the infliction of wrong is so deep and wide- 
 spread, that no shackles in past history can be found so 
 burdensome to an industrious people, so poverty-making, 
 so home-destructive, so life-degrading. Gaunt features 
 and haggard faces, in human form, of men and women 
 and children, are not made so by scarcity in this plentiful 
 country, and are ill-fed, under-clothed and badly housed, 
 because men plunder so largely. The poor who work are 
 not made poor, and never are they placed in a condition 
 of starvation in this country by a famine; they are starved 
 in the midst of abundance, they are starved because prices 
 of the necessaries of life are so high as to be prohibitive 
 to the workers for wages; they cannot reach the neces- 
 saries of life because the prices are so high, in order that 
 dividends can be made for capital which was never real 
 money, nor representations of any value. In order to 
 provide for fictitious capital charged as real money, the 
 prices are so high that the people's wages will not buy 
 enough for a proper existence; then the consumption is 
 prohibited, and the demand falls off. Then factories must 
 shut down. Then labor must be foodless, and must clothe 
 less, and house less, and starve. Later, more factories 
 must shut down because the remaining workers are cut in 
 their wages, wherefore they must use less because the}' 
 must buy less. Then every movement accentuates the 
 tragedy wrought by men who create bogus capital and 
 charge it as real money. 
 
 Were a man to systematically obtain money for butter 
 
DEPKAVED FINANCE. 135 
 
 and deliver soap, he would be indicted and sent to prison. 
 This is done by the action of the police. But the public 
 would obtain the same protection in Turkey. When a 
 man systematically creates bogus capital and charges it as 
 real money, there is the same act of thievery, the same 
 design to obtain honest money out of the pockets of the 
 people, and there is the same nature of oppression in 
 making bogus capital as making bogus butter. The only 
 difference is the small amount of the one and the large 
 amount of the other. The bogus capital man obtains vast 
 millions and the bogus butter man obtains only a little. 
 There is as much misrepresentation and fraud by the one 
 practice as the other. 
 
 No honest person who is made familiar with the evil 
 consequences to the nation of sets of men plundering the 
 resources of the country by bogus capital, and charging it 
 as real money, will contend that it is not of the first im- 
 portance to the American people, just as it would be to the 
 tradesman were he despoiled of all his property without 
 obtaining any compensation, by a set of card-sharpers. 
 No intelligent American will honestly contend that the 
 making of higher prices and the reduction of wages, in 
 order to make up the amount which has been wrongfully 
 taken by bogus capital, charged as real money, is not only 
 iniquitous but impolitic, and that to permit it is to be 
 guilty of abject folly. We have shown the bad effects 
 upon trade by high prices- — how they prohibit consump- 
 tion, how they take from the wage-earner wrongfully, and 
 how they wrongfully enrich the wealthy and produce a 
 class of indolent loungers, who are more and more intoler- 
 able as they are seen by men who are more and more sane 
 and right-minded. When the producers are impoverished, 
 ill-remunerated, overworked, or worked at an inhuman 
 pressure, it is not for the good of the nation, although it 
 may wrongfully benefit those who do not work, but ex- 
 
13« DEPEAVED EINANOE. 
 
 travagantly consume that which they do not earn. The 
 prevailing high pressure and speed is uneconomic for the 
 human family, and its results are not economic except to 
 the avaricious grasper who would convert all humanity 
 into a get-rich-quick machine. The mental, the moral, and 
 the heart atmosphere are impaired and degraded, and they 
 are made incapable of the best by the present mechanical 
 get-rich-quick process. Everything — the air we breathe, 
 ideals of living, the duties to each other, are being ad- 
 justed to get only dollars and luxuries and become noto- 
 rious as possessing millions of dollars. All these are 
 symptoms of the rottenest state of society which proceeded 
 the decay of the nations which have gone down, and they 
 must be changed for the United States or it will go down 
 in the same way. Luxury and wealth, indolence and ava- 
 rice, are the active causes of national decay, in the twen- 
 tieth century, as they were of Rome and the other Italian 
 republics. 
 
 Was any past cataclysm more awful to contemplate, in 
 the height and depth and breadth of its devastating conse- 
 quences, as the great industrial enslavement of the Amer- 
 ican people by creating bogus capital and charging it as 
 real money.' What are these dividends for? Are they in 
 exchange for something? They give not of the ^-alue of 
 air to the American people. They are made for the pri- 
 vate purposes of men who have audacity and turpitude 
 enough to secure their inordinate wealth in the way that 
 the poor may be poorer, that the worker may work more, 
 and the under-fed may under-feed more, that the under- 
 clothed may be under-clothed more, that the badly-housed 
 may be badly-housed more, and that for the poor, home- 
 life should be still more scant ; that the sufferers by pover- 
 ty, privation and hardship may suffer more ; that tlie diffi- 
 culty of good citizenship and home-life may be more diffi- 
 cult; that in every sense the condition of the American 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 13Y 
 
 people, excepting a few, may be made worse. Have 
 these men so burdened the different industries, and so 
 corraled the American people, done nothing to earn this 
 inordinate wealth from bogus capital ? Absolutely noth- 
 ing of value or interest for the American people. They 
 have given in return only brain creations of paper, bogus 
 capital for which they have taken money without giv- 
 ing an equivalent or a pretence of value, in exchange. 
 The men who have done this have not found money. They 
 have only taken money. The men who formed the Steel 
 Trust did not use their own money. They borrowed 
 money on the steel plants to pay for them, and then 
 pledged them for more than a thousand million dollars, 
 and took the proceeds. 
 
 When human beings who produce wealth, who are to 
 use the products, and so increase wealth, are intentionally 
 dehumanized by inadequate nutrition and degrading en- 
 vironment, because of the increased cost, as well as made 
 to overwork under inhuman conditions, is not the nation 
 being debilitated in the most expeditious way ? Are these 
 conditions to be maintained and perpetuated as the makers 
 of bogus capital intended? The monster has grown to 
 such proportions that it will cause the submerging of the 
 American people if something is not done. 
 
 The uneconomic nature and atrocity in the making of 
 the Steel and other Trusts will be seen in the fact that the 
 yearly earnings of the five million farmhands of the 
 United States in 1899 were $365,305,921, or about one- 
 third of the amount taken by the making of the Steel Trust 
 alone, and for loading it with disadvantages and injury. 
 
 Can any thoughtful American suppose that these thou- 
 sands of millions of dollars charged to the country's re- 
 sources, in order to create schools of royal millionaires, 
 unexampled in their non-producing and vast consuming 
 powers, especially with useless luxuries, mostly from for- 
 
138 DEPEAVED EINANCE. 
 
 eign countries, are without grave consequences to both the 
 country and nation? Is it not natural, as well as inevi- 
 table, that the adjustment of the balance sheet must come 
 from somewhere ? When we see prices put up in a royal 
 manner, and wages put down, in order to make dividends 
 for an imaginary capital, so that the proceeds can feed 
 grasp and greed, for nothing, is no ultimate disaster being 
 forged in the most efficient of furnaces? Can the fac- 
 tories sell their products when the largest number of con- 
 sumers have fewer dollars to buy with, and when their 
 dollars buy less? Can the exports of manufactures be 
 hoped for when costs are increased, in order to provide for 
 larger capital, which only exists in the stock-juggler's 
 brain ? 
 
 The great aim of the Trust system, backed by the capi- 
 talizing political party, is to establish a large trading ma- 
 chine, and give human forms mechanical positions in the 
 machine work system, dictated, it may be, by a resident 
 in a foreign country. 
 
DEPEAVED EINANCE. 139 
 
 EXAMPLES OF TRUSTS. 
 
 THE OIL TRUST HOW THE SINEWS OF WAR HAVE BEEN 
 
 EXTRACTED FROM OIL. 
 
 Every monopoly is an abuse, because it is designed and operated 
 to extort, by its monopolistic power, from the powerless people, 
 for dividends for its bogus capital. Every abuse of the people is 
 an abuse of the nation. An increase in the wholesale price of re- 
 fined petroleum, in the ten years from 1893 to 1902, from $5.30 to 
 $8.50 per barrel, as reported by the wholesale prices of the United 
 States Treasury, means an increase in price of 60 cents on the dol- 
 lar, and means that many are restrained from using petroleum, 
 and many must be without light. Every such monopolistic opera- 
 tion is in restraint of trade, and comes directly under the Sherman 
 law, and it is the duty of the Government to put the law into 
 operation. 
 
 The mineral oil industry of the United States is of 
 great importance to the American people. In 1902 the 
 exports of mineral oil, besides other oils and valuable by- 
 products, were 842,829,170 gallons, amounting to $53,- 
 390,345, and the home consumption was enormous, which 
 is not included in these figures. The United States and 
 Russia practically control the mineral oil industry of the 
 world, and a monopolistic Trust controls nearly all in the 
 United States. The improved means used now for refin- 
 ing mineral oil have reduced the cost greatly, and the by- 
 products, such as naphtha, gasolene, vaseline, and others 
 obtained in the process of refining are of immense value, 
 which reduces the cost of refined petroleum very consider- 
 ably. According to the wholesale prices of the United 
 States Treasury, the wholesale price of refined petroleum 
 
140 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 in the ten years from the first of January, 1893, to the 
 first of January, 1902, increased from $5.30 to $8.50 per 
 barrel, or more than 57 cents on the dollar. This would 
 mean that the increase in profit upon the exports alone, by 
 an increase in price of 57 cents on the dollar, since 1893, 
 are nearly thirty million dollars a year, besides the by- 
 products and the new economies in oil refining. The in- 
 creases in prices of petroleum for export alone, of more 
 than thirty million dollars a year, will provide dividends 
 for seven hundred and fifty million dollars of bogus capi- 
 tal, which could be charged as actual money, and then sold 
 upon the New York Stock Exchange for about this 
 amount. This profit of thirty million dollars a year does 
 not include the other profits before the prices were in- 
 creased, and which are very large, nor the profits upon 
 by-products produced in the refining of petroleum, such as 
 naphtha, gasolene, and other valuable products. 
 
 It is within the mark to state that the Oil Monopoly of 
 the United States, held by the Standard Oil Co., forges 
 wealth out of the people by work and sacrifice, every year 
 amounting to more than makes fifty millionaire families, 
 or a thousand every twenty years, which the workers of 
 the nation have not only to provide for with the neces- 
 saries of life, but with the most extravagant of luxuries, 
 often purchased in foreign countries. Had the represen- 
 tatives of the people been faithful to them, this oppressive 
 monopoly would have been impossible, and these enor- 
 mous squeezings would have been for the well-being of all 
 the people, enabling them to use more farm and industrial 
 products. Moreover, these fifty million dollars, acquired 
 by squeezing the people under the authority of a monop- 
 oly, are used again and again to enthral and impoverish 
 the people by creating such Trusts as those of Copper and 
 Steel, of Gas, Electricity, Railroads, and other necessaries, 
 and creating bogus capital for them and putting up prices 
 
DEPEAVED riNANCE. _ 141 
 
 aild cutting down wages to provide the bogus capital with 
 dividends. According to the United States Census Re- 
 port of 1900, children and women are employed in the oil 
 refining industry, and the average wages paid in that year 
 were $2.71 per week to the children, $4.53 per week to the 
 women, and $10.75 per week to the men. 
 
 The Standard Oil Trust has an eventful history, not 
 always of sweetness and light, but always productive of 
 the sinews of war in extraordinary measure, and they 
 have been used for oil and other American commodities in 
 Napoleonic fashion. Two of the greatest engineers in 
 the history of bluff and grasp, Jay Gould and Commodore 
 Vanderbilt, contributed largely by their modern financial 
 contrivances to the development of the Standard Oil Com- 
 pany into a commanding monopoly. Afterward it became 
 a monopolizing engine, and whenever or wherever in the 
 United States a monopoly could be engineered into being 
 for American commodities, which could be laid under 
 tribute by the creation of bogus capital and charged as 
 real money, from oil up to copper, and from steel down to 
 paint, the Standard Oil Company has had the necessary 
 sinews awaiting the bugle of the Christian soldier, who 
 with eagle eyes and ravenous heart was ever ready in 
 marching armor for war. 
 
 The Standard Oil Company has braved and out-weath- 
 ered every storm of moral indignation and popular dis- 
 content, because leading men, especially politicians, have 
 preferred the sweetness of monetary sugar more than the 
 people's well-being. The Standard Oil Company took 
 advantage of fictitious capital for itself, before it used it so 
 often, for other American products. No device has been too 
 mean or degrading to use for its unholy purposes. It has 
 been often like a cyclone in p'eaceful places of industry, 
 and after its cyclonic wrecking it has appropriated the 
 wreckage for itself. Wherever it has been able to place its 
 
142 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 cloven foot it has been able to get the control and use it 
 for its own purposes. 
 
 It has bribed and debased Legislatures ; it has corrupted 
 public officials and degenerated them; it has bought the 
 officials of railroads at the cost of the shareholders. Its 
 diabolical system has ruined the honest efforts of trades- 
 men. It has blighted the hopes and the lives of its honest 
 competitors, and then fattened on their remains. Its col- 
 lapse would have been seen years ago, by its inherent 
 rascality and disease, but for the share of the plunder 
 which it distributed to its henchmen, in the shape of law- 
 yers and legislators, in every part of the country where it 
 could stifle opposition. 
 
 The Standard Oil Company was incorporated in Cleve- 
 land, Ohio, when incorporations of industries were in 
 their infancy. The programme was a plot of a ring, not 
 then to control oil, but to control oil transportation. The 
 first move was to corrupt and purchase the railroad offi- 
 cials, by payments which did not go into the treasuries 
 of the railroad companies, and were thereby prevented 
 from going to the stockholders. By these means it se- 
 cured contracts with three trunk lines, then controlling the 
 oil regions. They were the Erie, the New York Central, 
 and the Pennsylvania. These contracts gave them power 
 to demand rebates of from 40 cents to $3.07 per barrel 
 of oil. The proceeds were shared in predetermined pro- 
 portions. To achieve these results the Standard Oil Com- 
 pany formed an irresponsible dummy company, called the 
 South Improvement Company, by which it thought its 
 own cloven feet would never be seen. An arrangement 
 was made between the South Improvement Company, of 
 which the centrepiece was John D. Rockefeller, of the one 
 part, and Jay Gould, Cornelius Vanderbilt and the presi- 
 dent of the Pennsylvania Railroad, of the other part. But 
 the public crime leaked out. Then there was widespread 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 143 
 
 publiCxindignation and the contracts were canceled. But 
 the pur^ses of the contract remained, and were carried 
 out surreptitiously. The controllers of these three rail- 
 roads, and^ not the stockholders, had committed them- 
 selves to schemes of plunder, which were to put money 
 into their own pockets and into the treasury of the Stand- 
 ard Oil Company, by the deception and swindling of their 
 respective shareholders. Secret rebates and allowances, 
 prearranged by the conspirators, were shared, and the 
 amounts appropriated by each were enormous. Nearly 
 all the receipts for freight for oil from the oil regions 
 were excluded from the treasuries of these three railroad 
 companies, and were put into a private pot, to be shared 
 as previously agreed upon. Mr. H. J. Cassatt, the pres- 
 ent president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, stated on 
 oath before the New York Legislative Investigating Com- 
 mittee in 1883 that the plunder so appropriated and di- 
 vided in a period of eighteen months exceeded $10,000,- 
 000, and there was much that could not be, traced. 
 
 In 1874 these three railroads were committed to a ne- 
 farious monopoly for the Standard Oil Company, by 
 which it was to enrich itself and the other conspirators, 
 and crush all competitors. The State of New York ap- 
 pointed the New York Legislative Committee to investi- 
 gate, and the records of its proceedings are the blackest 
 of commercial doings in all times. Although all was then 
 disclosed, no restitution was ever made to the wronged 
 shareholders. With the principal share of this plunder 
 the Standard Oil Company had abundance of money to 
 purchase, to corrupt, and kill off antagonists and all trade 
 opposition. It could, by the privileges obtained from the 
 railroads, without the consent and at the cost of the share- 
 holders, annihilate all competition. The conspirators ac- 
 tually made the railroads give rebates to the Standard Oil 
 Company upon freight paid by other competitors. These 
 
344 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 rebates were redivided. In this manner it could a«d did 
 undersell, and kill off, until it commanded oil refining 
 works producing 95 per cent, of all the refined oil of the 
 United States. It then acquired control of the pipe-lines 
 within the oil regions, as well as the lake transportation 
 from Cleveland. 
 
 By its position, after annihilating its competitors, the 
 Standard Oil Company became the only purchaser of 
 crude petroleum, and could pay as little as it pleased, and 
 could charge as high as its conscience of India rubber 
 would permit. It could and did crush every new birth of 
 independent oil supply. In order to have no interference 
 with its methods it employed unlimited capital, squeezed 
 out of the people, as if it were an autocratic Emperor, to 
 corrupt and purchase the States Legislatures. It con- 
 trolled the three great States of the Union. It nominated 
 Senators. It was the Caesar of the world's oil industry, 
 and its programme was intensely Csesaric. It extorted 
 exorbitant profits. It crushed all independent effort. It 
 treated competition as rebellion. All oil trading was ex- 
 tinguished, except by it and in its own imperial way. 
 
 Public meetings were held in Pittsburg to protest 
 against this plunder and oppression. Then it paid large 
 sums of money for leaders in the newspapers to attack the 
 meetings, and employed crowds of bulldozers to howl down 
 the speakers. The commercial tyranny was seen in dif- 
 ferent parts of the country, ^^^^en a struggling grocer 
 claimed the private right to sell independent oil, the Stand- 
 ard Oil Company established a grocery store and sold oil 
 and groceries at less than cost until it had obtained sub- 
 mission to its imperial oil system. \A'hen a coal dealer 
 began to sell other oil than that of the Standard Oil Com- 
 pany, the huge Oil Trust started a coal and oil store along- 
 side of his and began underselling him. After crushing 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 145 
 
 him m this way it would commence again, with its arbi- 
 trary conditions and extravagant prices. 
 
 In cities and centres of population, when the retailers 
 became discontented or desired to assert their indepen- 
 dence of the intolerable monopoly, the huge dictator put 
 oil-tank wagons in the street near to the disobedient stores 
 to sell petroleum at retail for prices which would anni- 
 hilate the trade and business of all who were not loyal 
 and obedient. In Baltimore the retail dealers were pun- 
 ished in this way by the Standard Oil Company selling 
 from its own oil tanks at retail for prices less than it 
 charged elsewhere to jobbers at wholesale. It is not sur- 
 prising that with such engines of destruction it has 
 amassed one thousand million dollars, and that its one 
 hundred dollar shares of capital stock have been sold for 
 more than eight hundred dollars. 
 
 The capital stock of the Standard Oil Company in 1872 
 was one million dollars. Most of the actual capital had 
 been acquired by a loan. In 1878 the capital stock was 
 increased to thirty million dollars. In 1887 the capital 
 stock was increased to one hundred million dollars, and 
 were all its bogus and real securities of every other stock 
 corporation to realize their face value, the monetary re- 
 sources of the Standard Oil Company would exceed one 
 thousand million dollars. 
 
 A man, or set of men, or company, in New York City or 
 other large cities of the Union, can get an advance of 
 ninety cents on the dollar of value of any securities ten- 
 dered as collateral for a loan. Under such a system by 
 the banks and banking trusts, by which they lend the 
 deposits of their customers, it will be seen how extensive 
 and far-reaching is the power of the Standard Oil Com- 
 pany to dominate the resources and people of the Amer- 
 ican nation. Nothing would be more terrible, more disas- 
 trous, more eis^aving than the cornering of the entire 
 
146 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 manufacturing industry of the United States, with aU its 
 machinery, buildings, land, and the power of manufactur- 
 ing its products, with an invested capital of five tliousand 
 million dollars, and employing more than seven thousand 
 working people. But the Standard Oil Company has the 
 monetary means to do it, as well as the necessary grasp 
 and greed. When a company has one hundred million 
 dollars of collateral it can borrow nine hundred million 
 dollars more, and if it practically dominated banks and 
 Banking Trusts, it could borrow more than the value. 
 Were the Standard Oil Company to set about capturing, 
 by ordinary Trust methods, the entire manufacturing in- 
 dustry of the United States, which means the power to 
 produce everything that is manufactured in the country, 
 the Standard Oil Company possesses the monetary means 
 to do it. The people of the United States could decide 
 otherwise by a law, but before they could suppress this 
 by the ballot box the deed could be done. 
 
 The Standard Oil Company can always produce a thou- 
 sand million dollars of face value of collateral, and by 
 pledging and repledging, could secure money and credit 
 for an indefinite amount. That such a medium of such 
 terrible proportions for good or for evil is in the hands 
 of one man, whose foresight and insatiable greed is Napo- 
 leonic, is as terrifying as it is deplorable. 
 
 Already the Standard Oil Company can do and does 
 with banks, railroads and Trusts, as it formerly did with 
 coal dealers and grocers who declined to buy its oil. It 
 can run alongside them a bank or banking Trust, or rail- 
 road or industrial Trust, and enforce a surrender. When 
 a bank stands in its pathway it buys secretly a majority 
 of the bank's stock and places the directors on the street. 
 The bank directors know this, and they are scared from 
 time to time by some mysterious Standard Oil move, and 
 look for it as for an earthquake, and dare not make a 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 147 
 
 show of resistance. When an industrial railroad, mining, 
 or other Trust is refractory, or specially prosperous, the 
 Standard Oil Company's scouts are ready in secret to 
 purchase the control of the capital stock, which can be 
 done for a limited period so easily after a depressing stock 
 operation has been applied. 
 
 The same with coal lands, iron ore lands, controlled by 
 or free from capital stock, commodities of all kinds, if 
 they were only needful for the existence of the people, and 
 providing they could be charged with perpetual bogus 
 capital as real money. 
 
148 DEPEAVED EINANCE. 
 
 THE COPPER TRUST— HOW BEATITUDINAL 
 
 WINDOWS WERE EXTRACTED FROM 
 
 COPPER. 
 
 When men juggle money out of the pockets of the credulous 
 and unwary, by the manipulation of bogus capital stock, it would 
 be for the enrichment of society were the public to combine to ob- 
 tain the aid of the law to put the wrongdoers in jail. 
 
 The last chapter demonstrated how a thousand million 
 dollars of securities have been acquired by the Standard 
 Oil Company, first, by bulldozing the oil industry of the 
 United States and then numerous other industries, prop- 
 erties and railroads. It has control of railroads, mines, 
 industries, banks, banking Trusts, and it decrees and 
 grasps with no consideration for humanity. It has scooped 
 wealth into its coffers which, if distributed among inde- 
 pendent tradesmen, and circulated among the American 
 people, would have made tolerable, and brighter, and 
 nobler, thousands of American lives. Its imperialistic rule 
 and its present day methods may be shown by its modem 
 operations in copper. 
 
 The consumption of copper by the United States for 
 electrical and other purposes increased from 96,000 tons 
 in 1896 to 124,000 tons in 1898. The production of cop- 
 per in the United States increased from 98,000 tons in 
 1896 to 156,000 tons in 1898. The price of copper in the 
 United States was 9 3-4 cents per pound in 1896, and 
 II cents per pound in 1898. 
 
 The rapid increase in the use of copper and the cer- 
 tainty that copper would be required in increasing quan- 
 tities for electrical and other uses, led the Standard Oil 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 149 
 
 Company, by its president, Henry H. Rogers, to con- 
 ceive that the copper supphes in the United States could 
 be cornered, monopolized, and then bled profusely. For 
 how could electrical work proceed without copper, just as 
 how could the American people proceed without food? 
 The first move was to secretly get hold of the majority 
 of the capital stock certificates of the different copper 
 companies, like the Anaconda Company, and thereby con- 
 trol them. This was easy. A man with ten thousand dol- 
 lars can always, by means of a stock broker, use the de- 
 posits of banks as loans. With these he can buy a hun- 
 dred thousand dollars' worth of securities with ten thou- 
 sand dollars. Were the man the Standard Oil Company, 
 with its own banks and banking institutions, no money 
 displacement would be necessary. An order to the stock 
 broker to buy is all that is needed. Of course, before the 
 command to buy is given a previous command to the 
 broker to bombard and bear prices has been delivered, 
 often by selling shares below the market price. Often the 
 directors of the different companies are brought into the 
 swim. Often they are induced to cook the accounts and 
 pass dividends, to make a bad showing of earnings, or to 
 use other devices which will frighten the investing share- 
 holders into selling below values. In this way many of 
 the copper stocks were corraled. 
 
 It was discovered that the owners of some of the big 
 copper mining companies, like the Calumet & Hecla, the 
 Copper Queen, the United Verde, and the Rio Tinto Cop- 
 per Company, had some honor and some concern for their 
 future safety, and would not lend themselves to the 
 scheme. This did not daunt Henry H. Rogers, who is the 
 man Friday of the Standard Oil Company. When it was 
 convenient he bought or controlled copper grounds which 
 had never been worked, like the Washoe Company, and 
 the more of these the better, because they could be counted 
 
150 _ DEPEAVED EINANCE. 
 
 in the number of copper companies which would appear 
 in the programme. Having proceeded in this manner 
 sufficiently for cornering and monopolizing purposes, hu- 
 man instruments were employed in Boston and New York 
 and other cities to begin putting up copper prices, and to 
 talk of the scarcity of copper. In this way the prices of 
 copper were put up from 1 1 cents per pound in 1898, when 
 the programme started, to 19 3-8 cents in 1899. This is 
 how prices are boomed and made available for dividends 
 for bogus capital stock, which cost only the paper and 
 printing. 
 
 When copper reached 19 3-8 cents per pound the scheme 
 was to continue booming copper and talk of its scarcity, 
 and the great and increasing demand for electrical and 
 other purposes, and the certainty that copper would go up 
 to 25 cents per pound and more. People were galvanized 
 and copper was the galvanizing instrument, and the man 
 behind the fence was Henry H. Rogers. There was then 
 a sensational hunger for copper, then was the time to 
 strike. And how did he strike? He struck in a way 
 entirely different to any known strikes of labor. Copper 
 had reached 19 3-8 cents per pound on the first da)- of 
 April, 1899, and people had been brought to believe that 
 copper would go up to more than 25 cents per pound, and 
 on the 27th of April, 1899, the Amalgamated Copper 
 Company was put out with a capital stock of $75,000,000, 
 later to be increased to $135,000,000. The first issue of 
 $75,000,000 of capital stock consisted of 750,000 shares 
 of the par value of $100, and before the capital stock cer- 
 tificates were issued about twenty million dollars' worth 
 of copper mining companies, and stoclc certificates of cop- 
 per mining companies which had been cornered, were 
 turned into the Amalgamated Copper Company, and based 
 on the price of copper at about 100 cents per pound. No 
 declaration was made of the constituent companies which 
 
DEPKAVED FINANCE. 151 
 
 formed the Amalgamated Copper Company. For outside 
 investors it was a blind game. But the professional boom- 
 ers who had been employed so talked and wrote letters to 
 the newspapers of the scarcity of copper and the future 
 dearth of copper, that every one of the bogus capital stock 
 shares of wind was sold for $ioo. In order to promote 
 and assist the unloading, the New York bank baby of the 
 Standard Oil Company, the City National Bank, boomed 
 the capital stock by declaring its readiness to make loans 
 upon small margins. This practically published that the 
 bogus capital stock certificates had quality. Every pos- 
 sible device was used in order to unload these seventy-five 
 million dollars of capital stock certificates, which repre- 
 sented less than twenty-five millions of actual cost, and 
 some of these were only controlling portions of their 
 capital stock. This was delectable for the authors, and 
 they decided to increase the dose, and it was brought about 
 in this wise. 
 
 Mr. A. S. Bigelow, of Boston, was a successful copper 
 mine owner. Anticipating the advance in the price of 
 copper, he secured capital stock of certain copper mining 
 companies and pledged them with the Globe National 
 Bank of Boston. Under the weight of these and other 
 tie-ups of its reserved capital, in 1900 the Globe National 
 Bank had to suspend and never again opened its doors. 
 Mr. Bigelow had to find another loan, and to find it when 
 copper stocks were under a cloud, because of the closing 
 of the Boston Globe National Bank. Mr. Bigelow applied 
 to the Standard Oil Company for a loan upon his copper 
 stocks. Henry H. Rogers, seeing the situation, like a 
 born pawnbroker, he at once began to act like a born 
 Shylock. He was willing on behalf of the Standard Oil 
 Company to lend Bigelow on the selection of his copper 
 stock certificates, providing he could have the option of 
 taking them himself within a limited period, if he so de- 
 
152 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 sired. This was an option of purchase of certain Bigelow 
 copper stocks, during a copper stock crisis, which a Shy- 
 lock could use with unerring certainty. At the right mo- 
 ment the option was used, and Henry H. Rogers did, for 
 the Standard Oil Company, take possession of these 
 Bigelow stock certificates. Of course, the copper boom 
 had then been developed to its highest point. These cop- 
 per stocks were of the Boston & Montana Mining Com- 
 pany and of the Butte & Boston Mining Company. It is 
 important to note that he obtained only a majority of the 
 shares of capital stock of these companies, and by these 
 the Standard Oil was able to control the two companies. 
 The entire capital stock of the Boston & Alontana Mining 
 Company was $3,750,000, consisting of 150,000 shares of 
 the par value of $25 each. The entire capital stock of the 
 Butte & Boston Mining Company was $2,000,000, con- 
 sisting of 200,000 shares of the par value of $10 each. 
 Then commenced an historic piece of depraved finance. 
 
 In 1 90 1 the Amalgamated Copper Company increased 
 its capital stock, mostly fictitious, from $75,000,000 to 
 $155,000,000, by the creation of 800,000 more shares of 
 capital stock of the par value of $100 per share. 
 
 All this time Henry H. Rogers was the president of the 
 Amalgamated Copper Company, and in 1901, for "ap- 
 pearance sake," he retired from the presidency of the com- 
 pany for six weeks, and Anson Flower took his place. 
 In this historic six weeks the deed was done. The six 
 weeks were an incubating period. The majority, and only 
 the major part of the capital stock of the Boston & Mon- 
 tana Mining Company, and the majority, and only the 
 major part of the capital stock of the Butte & Boston 
 Mining Company were transferred by Henry H. Rogers, 
 or his nominee, to the Amalgamated Copper Company, to 
 provide the new capital for the increase of $80,000,000 of 
 capital stock. In other words, the majority of the capital 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 153 
 
 stock of the Boston & Montana Company, and the Butte & 
 Boston Company, were transferred to the Amalgamated 
 Copper Company at just the prices they pleased and the 
 directors approved. For example, the capital stock of the 
 Boston & Montana Mining Company of the par value of 
 $25 was exchanged at the rate of 5 shares of capital stock 
 of the Amalgamated Copper Company of the par value of 
 $100 per share, which were then selling for $128 for every 
 share. In other words, the Boston & Montana capital 
 stock of the par value of $25 were charged to the Amal- 
 gamated Copper Company at $500, and the selling price 
 of these 5 shares had been boomed up to $128 per share, 
 or $700 for the 5 shares. In other words, H. H. Rogers 
 obtained $700 in cash for each share of the Boston & 
 Montana Company which had been charged to the Amal- 
 gamated Copper Co. The Amalgamated Copper Com- 
 pany's shares afterward fell in price to $33. Thus, the 
 shares of the Amalgamated Copper Company for which 
 Rogers, for the Standard Oil Company, obtained $700, 
 were afterward sold for $165, and the difference of $535 
 for every 5 shares went to the treasury of the Standard 
 Oil Company, and thereby the American public were im- 
 poverished and made less capable for using the products 
 of the country, and many were actually ruined. Before 
 this, H. H. Rogers, on behalf of the Standard Oil Com- 
 pany, had charged 800,000 shares of the Anaconda Cop- 
 per Company to the Amalgamated Copper Company at 
 $60 per share, which had been bought at less than $30 per 
 share, and of which the par price was $25 per share. The 
 Anaconda shares were afterward boomed up to $72 per 
 share. All this bluffing and pocket-rifling was the method 
 used to grasp the money of the public, and every intelli- 
 gent American will perceive how this nefarious bluffing 
 is injurious to all honest and legitimate trading, and how 
 easily the country's resources and wealth are being ac- 
 
154 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 quired by persons who are morally unfit for either posses- 
 sion or control. 
 
 The transfer of the Butte & Boston shares and the 
 Boston & Montana shares had been delayed until the high- 
 est point of price of the Stock Exchange for Amalga- 
 mated Copper Company shares could be boomed. That 
 was the time when this transfer was completed, and the 
 time that H. H. Rogers retired for six weeks from the 
 presidency of the Amalgamated Copper Company. When 
 this work was completed the Amalgamated Copper Com- 
 pany's capital stock had been boomed up to $128. Every 
 possible device and pretext was used. A copper selling 
 company was exploited. The object of this company was 
 to keep secret all sales of copper and all productions of 
 copper, so that the increased output of copper by the mines 
 because of high prices, and the diminishing sales of cop- 
 per because of high prices, could be kept in the dark, and 
 not disturb the booming of the Amalgamated Copper 
 Company's capital stock. Meanwhile, the stocks of copper 
 had increased and the consumption of copper had de- 
 creased. The natural law of diminished demand by a 
 fictitious inflation of price came into active operation. 
 Then was found the time for selling at $128 all the shares 
 of capital stock. And then was the time to begin selling 
 Amalgamated Copper Company's capital stock at high 
 prices for future delivery, which the Standard Oil 
 Company had not, but which it would buy later when 
 prices had fallen. Short selling for future delivery 
 of capital stock, which it had not, commenced in 
 batches of twenty thousand shares a day. This meant 
 a gain of a million dollars a day without any invest- 
 ment of capital. This is what is called selling short. 
 It is like selling cotton in January at 10 cents per pound, 
 when you know that in June you can buy it for 5 cents per 
 pound, and then make delivery. To promote a slump in 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 155 
 
 prices the banking baby of the Standard Oil Company, the 
 City National Bank, which declared how readily it would 
 advance on Amalgamated Copper Company's stock when 
 they were first issued, now refused to advance upon them, 
 and looked upon them with a sneer, and thereby gave them 
 a black eye. When shares of bogus capital stock, costing 
 only paper and printing, can be boomed up to $128 and 
 then sold, every thousand shares will give a net profit of 
 nearly $128,000. This is just what was done with the 
 bogus capital stock shares which the Standard Oil Com- 
 pany had manufactured. In common Stock Exchange 
 parlance, this is selling long. But the selling long is 
 always completed before the commencement of the "selling- 
 short." Selling short is then commenced, followed by a 
 bombardment and bearing of prices, the banks increase 
 their rates for loans upon the "beared" stock, the stock- 
 juggler announces to the investor on margins that the 
 stock must be sold; the price then falls, the seller who 
 sells short has not a single share. But he sells just be- 
 low top-notch prices and makes delivery of shares 
 by borrowing, and buys after the wreckage, at wreck- 
 age prices, and makes delivery then of those which he 
 has borrowed. This was a splendid part of the bear oper- 
 ation by which, after Amalgamated Copper Company's 
 bogus capital stock had been boomed up to $128, and then 
 sold, the authors were able to sell short at about this price, 
 and borrow to make delivery until the prices fell. Then, 
 after the fall, they were able to purchase around $50, and 
 then replace those which they had borrowed. When a 
 share of bogus capital stock can be boomed to $128 and 
 sold at this price upon a cost of only paper and printing, 
 the plunder is great. When 20,000 shares at $127 can be 
 sold per day, for future delivery, for the seller to buy later 
 at $57, after the wrecking, the daily gain is about $1,400,- 
 000. The entire loss to the Iambs and others who have 
 
156 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 been cajoled into buying Amalgamated Copper stock at 
 $128, upon the 1,550,000 shares was $129,000,000, and 
 the gain to Henry H. Rogers and others would be the like 
 amount. 
 
 The problem would be interesting, how much vice and 
 how much virtue, and how far hereditary predisposition, 
 and how far habitual practices control the morals in opera- 
 tions like these, which so devastate innocent and confiding 
 people's homes and lives; and to what extent is the com- 
 pensation made to these sufferers and the public whose 
 rectitude has been so violently offended by the erection of 
 colleges and churches with beatitudinal windows. 
 
DEPRA.VED FINANCE. 167 
 
 THE STEEL TRUST. 
 
 HOW THE PLUNDER WAS EXTRACTED FROM STEEL. 
 
 Always, when prices are low, the consumption is increased, and 
 then more factories are wanted, and more labor is necessary. Al- 
 ways, when prices are increased, fewer factories and less labor 
 are wanted. 
 
 Whenever higher prices are squeezed from the people, and lower 
 wages are ground from the wage-earners, to provide dividends for 
 bogus capital, the people must buy less, and the wage-earner 
 must have less to buy with. When less steel products are used, 
 because of higher prices, less steel products are produced. When 
 less steel products are produced, factories must close, and the 
 steel-workers must cease to work. When fewer factories arc 
 wanted less labor is used, and then there are fewer consumers of 
 the country's products. Then, less must be produced. Then, other 
 factories must close, and other workers must be turned ofif, and 
 then the suffering and privation are increased at a compound rate. 
 
 The steel industry of the United States is of vast im- 
 portance to the nation. By the production and deHvery 
 of steel products at economical costs it can promote the 
 comfort and well-being of the people, as well as provide 
 larger employment to wage-earners generally, whose con- 
 sumption of American products can benefit other workers 
 and the country at large. Next to agriculture the steel 
 industry ranks the foremost and is the largest of all the 
 manufacturing industries. 
 
 The improvements in the manufacture of steel by labor- 
 saving appliances and modern utilities during the last 
 twenty years have been very great. Fewer workers now 
 produce more products, and it may be generally stated 
 
168 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 that the cost of making steel products in 1902 was consid- 
 erably less than half the cost in 1870. In one important 
 branch of the industry the means of production have been 
 so improved that within the past few years the costs have 
 been reduced more than 60 cents on the dollar. In the 
 modern, up-to-date manufacture of steel the iron ore is 
 now run in from the mines by machinery, then worked by 
 machinery, until it comes out by machinery in the finished 
 product. 
 
 In 1870 the amount of steel products of the United 
 States was $207,208,696, and the capital charged by the 
 different steel, establishments of this country was $121,- 
 772,074. Therefore, the average capital charged in that 
 year to produce a dollar's worth of steel products was 
 58 cents. But some of this capital was fictitious, although 
 charged as real. In 1899 the amount of steel products of 
 the United States was $804,034,918, and the total capital 
 charged by the different steel establishments was $590,- 
 530,484. Therefore, the average capital charged in that 
 year to produce a dollar's worth of steel products was 73 
 cents, and then there was more fictitious capital than in 
 1870. In 1902 the Steel Trust had made its first year's 
 production of steel products, and the amount was $560,- 
 510,474, and the capital charged to produce it was $1,- 
 437,949,862, as the "cost of properties owned and oper- 
 ated by the several companies," besides other liabilities, 
 altogether approximating $1,500,000,000. Therefore, the 
 average capital charged by the Steel Trust to produce a 
 dollar's worth of steel products was $2.67. But in 1902 
 the Steel Trust, by doubled prices as compared with 1899, 
 delivered only one-half the weight of steel products for a 
 dollar, and therefore required only one-half the capital 
 to produce them. Thus, we see that the charge for cap- 
 ital by the makers of the Steel Trust was practically $5.34 
 to produce a dollar's worth of steel products, which in 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 159 
 
 1899 were produced by all the different steel establish- 
 ments for 73 cents, an increase of more than seven-fold. 
 This means that for every dollar of actual and fictitious 
 capital which was in the steel industry in 1899 there were 
 more than six dollars of bogus capital charged in the 
 Steel Trust in 1902. Of course, men could not pay ran- 
 dom prices, such as those paid to Andrew Carnegie and 
 others, as well as to themselves, in order to get the chance 
 of juggling charges on to them for more than one thou- 
 sand million dollars of bogus capital, and charge it as 
 actual money, without serious consequences. The whole 
 was a grand and successful scheme to corral a big slice 
 of the country's resources or wealth by men who never 
 had ownership or possession, who were not handling their 
 own money or property, and the game was to bleed the 
 American people, and it was done in unexampled propor- 
 tions. In order to perfect the blackmailing programme 
 this bogus capital of the brain had to be provided with 
 dividends of money. In order to provide the dividends 
 of money for the bogus capital of the brain, the prices 
 for steel were doubled and the wages of the steel workers 
 were reduced, and the bogus capital stock was un- 
 loaded upon the New York Stock Exchange up to $99.50 
 for a share of the face value of $100. Was ever bleeding 
 so vast or atrocious ? Coulci any poverty-making engine 
 in any period of the world's history be compared with this 
 for its vastness and atrocity? Would any Senator or 
 Congressman who voted for a tariff law to create high 
 prices and produce conditions like these be unwilling to 
 confess that they are undoing the framework of the na- 
 tion, and that the climax is only a matter of time? Will 
 any Senator who is not in for his pocket say that the 
 doubling of prices of steel products, and inordinate prices 
 for other products, are otherwise than ruinous for the dif- 
 ferent industries, such as shipbuilding? 
 
160 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 It was important to the makers of the Steel Trust that 
 they obtained possession of the Carnegie steel plants, and 
 co£t was of no consideration, because the people would 
 have to provide all, whatever the amount might be, and 
 Andrew Carnegie knew this. The larger the combination 
 which can be formed when making a Trust, even when 
 the properties are paid for by mortgage bonds, as in the 
 case of the Steel Trust plants, the larger is the amount 
 for which bogus capital can be created and charged as 
 actual money. This was the scheme in the colossal crea- 
 tion of bogus capital, charged as real money upon the 
 plants of the Steel Trust. 
 
 In proof of the prices of steel products having been 
 doubled, in order to provide dividends for the bogus capi- 
 tal, the following are examples : The United States 
 Treasury issues the reports of wholesale prices. In 1895 
 the wholesale prices for steel billets was $15 per ton. In 
 1902 the wholesale prices for steel billets was ^Tiy per 
 ton, an increase of 166 cents on the dollar. In other 
 words, $1 would buy as much of the same steel billets in 
 1895 as $2.66 would buy in 1902. As proof of the ex- 
 travagant profits obtained by the Steel Trust, the lowest 
 price for steel rails was $28 per ton in 1902. In 1903 
 the steel rail pool, dominated by the Steel Trust, fixed 
 $28 per ton for 1903 and 1904. Charles M. Schwab, the 
 former manager of the Carnegie Steel Company, and later 
 the president of the Steel Trust, in his published corro- 
 spondence of May 15th, 1899, with Henry Phipps, then 
 an important partner with Andrew Carnegie in the Car- 
 negie Steel Company, stated that the cost of a ton of 
 steel rails was less than $12 per ton. 
 
 It must not be supposed that payments made for wages 
 cause these high prices, or any pretext for them. The 
 wages paid by the Steel Trust in 1902, to all its foremen 
 and other steel workers, averaged $2.27 per day, suppos- 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 161 
 
 ing they all worked six days a week, whereas some worked 
 seven. The payments for wages in the steel industry of 
 the United States, for tlie different decades, per dollar of 
 output value, was less in 1900 than any previous decade. 
 One dollar of wages in the steel industry of this country 
 produced steel products of the value of $5.11 in 1870; 
 $5.34 in 1880; $5.44 in 1890, and $6.65 in 1900. There- 
 fore, the steel worker produced 121 cents' worth of steel 
 products for his dollar of wages more in 1900 than 1870. 
 In recent years the wages paid to the steel workers have 
 had no relation to costs or selling prices. This may be 
 said of all the industries which are protected by a tariff 
 law to charge high prices, whereby the consumer is de- 
 nuded of so many cents of his dollars. The wages paid 
 in the production- of a ton of steel billets is $2, but the 
 selling price in 1902 was $^y per ton, and in 1895 only $15 
 per ton. The same applies to incidental products. In 
 1895 the price of a ton of coke was 90 cents per ton; in 
 1902 the price was $2.25 per ton, or an increase of 150 
 cents on the dollar. In January, 1904, the wages of the 
 coke industry were reduced 17 cents on the dollar, and 
 the price for coke was maintained. The wages for a ton 
 of steel rails are $2 per ton, or 17 cents on the dollar of 
 cost, while bogus capital and its auxiliaries receive $13.41 
 per ton, or more than 100 cents on the dollar of cost. 
 
 In the United States prices have seldom any relation to 
 costs or wages. The price depends largely how much 
 tariff law protection can be purchased, and all in excess of 
 actual costs are good for dividends for bogus capital. The 
 tariff law is a formal permit of the Government given to 
 bogus capital-makers to charge high prices, in order to 
 provide bogus capital with dividends. This is shown in 
 sugar, as well as steel and every other protected industry. 
 The bogus capital makers see dividends just as far as they 
 can obtain protection to squeeze higher prices. Steel rails 
 
162 DEPEAVED EINANOE. 
 
 have been under the protection of the tariff law for a long 
 period. In 187 1 the average price of steel rails in the United 
 States was $91.70 per ton, and in England in the same 
 year the average price was $57.70. In 1880 the average 
 price for steel rails in the United States was $67.50 per 
 ton, and the price in England at the same time was $36 
 per ton. Copper also was under the protecting hand of 
 the tariff, and in 1880 the average price of copper in the 
 United States was 20 cents per pound, and at the same 
 time copper in England was 13 1-2 cents per pound. All 
 this protection was unnecessary, but it accomplished all its 
 designers intended. It gave dividends for bogus capital, 
 which, without protection by a tariff law, would be with- 
 out dividends, and consequently worthless. Tariff law 
 protection has given vast wealth to a class which obtained 
 the privilege of making high prices without interference, 
 in order that they could bleed the American consumers and 
 provide their bogus capital with dividends. 
 
 It is without parallel how an intelligent Congress 
 can be found, even for its rewards, to enact a law 
 which is especially designed to take cents from the 
 people's dollars and at the same time disable our 
 industries in their duty to give their products at 
 the lowest possible prices, so that they could be within 
 the reach of all the American people in proper quantity. 
 A complete proof of the injustice of the tariff law is 
 shown by the Census Report of that government which has 
 been mostly the author of the existing tariff law. The 
 Census Report states that in 1900 the average value of 
 output per wage-earner in the United States was $2,450, 
 while the average value of the output per wage-earner in 
 Great Britain in the same year was only $500. If the 
 American wage-earner can produce five times as much as 
 the British wage-earner, why is the tariff law required, 
 except to increase the prices inordinately, and thereby 
 
DEPEAVED riNANOE. 163 
 
 provide those dividends for bogus capital which ought not 
 to exist? It is clear that no protection is needed but to 
 make exceptionally high prices so that the people could, 
 by such means, be fleeced of so many cents from their 
 dollars. 
 
 In the making of a Trust, bogus pretexts to make 
 charges are of next importance to that of making the 
 bogus capital, which is never made, except to be charged 
 as the real. As the making of a Trust is the pretext for 
 making bogus capital, so underwriting is a pretext for 
 making a charge, as if some actual work of value had 
 been done. It would be a curiosity to discover any 
 Trust which has not bogus capital charged as real money, 
 and which has not a charge for underwriting for the bogus 
 capital. Were bogus capital made impossible by law there 
 would be no Trusts. Ignorant and knavish Trust-makers 
 talk of economies by making Trusts. No Trust was ever 
 made without bogus capital charged as real money. When 
 there is bogus capital there must be dividends for it, or it 
 is worthless. Dividends for imaginary or bogus capital 
 cannot be obtained except by higher prices, or reduced 
 wages, or both. Can any but imaginary or bogus econo- 
 mies be obtained by these processes. When the prices are 
 higher the dollar buys less. When the wages are lower 
 there are fewer dollars to buy with. When prices are 
 increased and wages are decreased to provide bogus cap- 
 ital with dividends, the people are plundered at both ends, 
 as now. When the people are plundered so systematically 
 and widespread the nation becomes disabled, the due con- 
 sumption of products becomes impossible, and the mem- 
 bers of the commonwealth become degraded, and the plun- 
 derers themselves become enervated and debased. 
 
 Underwriting in the process of Trust-making is a prom- 
 ise among the conspirators that the scheme shall go 
 through, that the bogus capital shall be realized, not for 
 
164 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 the Trust's treasury, but for the Trust-makers. When 
 the Trust-makers underwrite their bogus capital stock, 
 as in the case of the Steel Trust, they guarantee them- 
 selves, for themselves, by themselves. The steel industry 
 of the United States required no bogus capital, nor the 
 underwriting of the bogus capital, and yet the charges 
 made and taken in cash for the underwriting of the Steel 
 Trust were more than two hundred million dollars. There 
 were other charges made, such as promoting, organizing, 
 and christening, all done for the benefit exclusively of the 
 bogus capital-makers, and these may be contemplated in 
 dreamland, although every one of the authors, had they 
 been alongside of Whittaker Wright in the English crim- 
 inal court, would have been more severely reprimanded, 
 and would now be serving a long period of penal servi- 
 tude. 
 
 As an example of how the brigands feasted in the mak- 
 ing of the Steel Trust, we will record some of the facts 
 of the Tin Plate Trust, which is a part of the Steel Trust. 
 The tin plate industry is mostly useful for canning pur- 
 poses, by which the people can use through the year the 
 preserved meats, fish, fruits and vegetables from their 
 seasons. By political engineering and corruption tin 
 plates were taken under the tariff law, whereby the prices 
 could be increased, and the proceeds put into dividends 
 for bogus capital. In 1889, according to the Census Re- 
 port of 1900, the invested capital in the tin plate industry 
 of the United States was $6,790,047, but some of this was 
 bogus capital stock. This industry was corraled, first by 
 getting options of purchase upon the plants. The opera- 
 tors never owned or possessed the properties, but they 
 saw how the tariff protection, which had been secured, 
 would allow of such increases in selling prices as would 
 provide dividends for about forty millions of bogus cap- 
 ital to be charged as actual money. They then created a 
 
DEPKAVED FINANCE. 165 
 
 stock company and christened it the American Tin Plate 
 Company, then created capital stock for $46,325,000, and 
 juggled this amount on to the tin plate industry. The 
 charge for underwriting the transaction was $13,355,000 
 in cash. Thus, the underwriting charges were more than 
 double the actual money invested in the industry. The 
 underwriting was for their bogus capital, the proceeds of 
 which entered their own pockets, and yet the industry was 
 charged extra for the performance of being robbed. The 
 tin plate industry required no underwriting, it required no 
 bogus capital, but the makers of the bogus capital, by 
 which $6,790,047 was made into $46,325,000, decided 
 that the bogus capital would be better with a dose of 
 underwriting, and therefore they gave it one, and then 
 took $13,355,000 in cash for it. This was the manner 
 and the proportions of the bleeding of the American people 
 by the creation of the Steel Trust. The foregoing was the 
 charge for only one department of bogus capital-making, 
 for which the people obtain nothing. 
 
 In the creation of the bogus capital charged as real 
 money by the makers of the Steel Trust it is impossible 
 to find a redeeming feature indicating any advantage or 
 justification. The United States steel industry and the 
 American people are called upon every year to make up 
 the exorbitant plundering of the few individuals whose 
 gains were so enormous. The advantages were only for a 
 few; the disadvantages were for the entire American 
 people, less the few. The few gave nothing, and never 
 pretended to give anything, except to make bogus capital 
 and charge it as real money for themselves. When we 
 include the $50,000,000 charged for underwriting, and 
 taken out of the treasury of the United States Steel Cor- 
 poration, after all the charges for promoting, for organiz- 
 ing and for underwriting had been paid for creating the 
 different Steel Trusts which constitute the parent Steel 
 
166 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 Trust, and after the charges for promoting and organizing 
 had been paid by the Steel Trust for itself, and add this 
 sum to the whole amount paid for underwriting, the total 
 charge exceeds $200,000,000 for only underwriting the 
 United States Steel Corporation and its composite Trusts. 
 
 When we examine the luxurious swing shown in the 
 administration charges of the United States Steel Cor- 
 poration for 1902 as they appear in its balance sheet of 
 that year, and compare them with the administration 
 charges of the entire United States steel industry in 1899, 
 before the United States Steel Corporation existed, they 
 are no more encouraging than the creation of its bogus 
 capital. To produce and distribute only $560,000,000 of 
 steel products, when the price was doubled, making the 
 quantity of steel delivered one-half, the United States 
 Steel Corporation required, for administration, selling and 
 general expenses, $13,222,398, or 2 4-10 of the amount 
 of its sales ; whereas the entire steel industry of the United 
 States, with 669 plants and 222,607 employees on steel 
 products, amounted to $804,000,000, required in 1899 for 
 administration, selling and general expenses, only $11,- 
 741,758, or I 4-10 per cent, on the amount of its sales, for 
 about double the weight delivered for a dollar by the 
 United States Steel Corporation. This is a significant 
 difiference in the cost of administration, being nearly four 
 times as much per pound of steel delivered under a Trust 
 as against a partial Trust and private ownership regime. 
 
 The examination of every feature is a convincing proof 
 that the Steel Trust was created with no other purpose 
 than to victimize. All Trusts fully refute the arguments 
 invented in favor of Trust combinations and monopolies. 
 The human heart is never fit, and cannot be made fit for 
 equitable doings, when in possession of the power to make 
 bogus capital and charge it as real money, especially when 
 monopolies can be grasped and then protected by a tariff 
 
DEPEAVED riNANOE. 167 
 
 law, any more than an oligarchy in politics is safe without 
 legal constraints. When these combinations are made, 
 greed and grasp are rampant, and morals are forgotten, 
 except by putting up a beatitudinal window afterward. 
 
 But it may be urged that this is only an odd Trust, 
 where the plunderings are so incredible. The extent of 
 the plundering is not exceptional ; it is ordinary, and these 
 doings are an everyday event. It may be urged that the 
 United States Steel Corporation, the parent Steel Trust, 
 has some reputable names on its directory and is the most 
 respected of Trusts. Let us examine another of its com- 
 posite Trusts. According to the United States Census 
 Report for 1900, the steel and iron pipe industry of this 
 country, with all its establishments, had a total invested 
 capital of $18,343,000, but much of this was bogus capital 
 stock, and chai^ged as real money. Their plants were cor- 
 raled in the usual way, and $80,000,000 of capital stock 
 was created, and the whole was charged to the pipe in- 
 dustry as real money. When the American users of steel 
 and iron tubes had to obtain them they had to pay in- 
 creased prices to provide dividends for these fictitious 
 charges for capital, and steel and iron tubes were so ad- 
 vanced to provide, and did provide, dividends upon all this 
 bogus capital, to the extent of more than 5 per cent, per 
 year, up to the time the National Tube Trust was ab- 
 sorbed by the United States Steel Corporation. It may 
 be urged that only the Steel Trust had the audacity and 
 turpitude to issue such creations of the brain, representing 
 only air, to be charged as real dollars to the American 
 people. But most Trusts are worse than this. Whoever 
 examines will see the effect, the punishment, and the pri- 
 vation created for the American people by the different 
 Trusts, and how they inflate the costs of production and 
 make dollars worth less. The foregoing statements upon 
 these representative Trusts show vast sums of money 
 
168 DEPEAVED FINA^S'OE. 
 
 which non-producing stock-jugglers put into their pockets 
 for nothing, obtained by practices no better than those of 
 card-sharpers and policy shop owners. The resulting loss 
 to the entire American people, in the aggregate, by the 
 making of this one Trust, is equivalent to taking all the 
 dollars obtained by the exports of all our manufactures 
 for two years, and giving them to sets of men who would 
 use them to enslave all the others, and produce indolent 
 and ostentatious and non-producing families. 
 
 It is true that the plunderers buy products in the United 
 States, but they are mostly luxuries, and often the money 
 is spent in foreign countries. When we consider the gains 
 by the underwritings of the subsidiary companies of the 
 United States Steel Corporation, the underwriting of 
 themselves, for themselves, to be paid to themselves, 
 by themselves, out of the resources of the coun- 
 try for nothing, we must dismiss from our miriiis 
 all the other gains and confine ourselves to the 
 gains by the underwriting process purely. We 
 are not informed that the underwriting of the United 
 States Steel Corporation was a guarantee of the pro- 
 gramme. Were it so it would be highly advantageous for 
 the respective shareholders of the United States Steel Cor- 
 poration, under eventualities which ought to be inevitable, 
 and will be when the moral sense of the people is properly 
 awakened. The bogus capital is charged to the steel in- 
 dustry as real money upon the false pretences that the cost 
 of the properties of the Steel Trust was $1,437,494,862. 
 In the report of the United States Steel Corporation of 
 the 17th of February, 1901, signed by twenty-four direc- 
 tors, the two first being J. P. Morgan and J. D. Rocke- 
 feller, the balance sheet of that report states that the "cost 
 of properties owned and operated by the several companies 
 is $1,437,494,862." Of course, this is a versatile piece of 
 Trust bluff, which, were it made by a set of needy boot- 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 169 
 
 blacks, would have created no surprise. The two figure- 
 heads of the balance sheet know well that this sum was 
 never paid, and that nothing like it was ever pretended to 
 be paid, and that the costs never were as stated. It is 
 difficult to discover where was the discretion of its au- 
 thors. Where were their morals ? Where was the legal 
 advice of the lawyers when such a bogus statement, of 
 such far-reaching consequences, was made ? Some assets 
 of its authors exist in England, as well as some of the 
 bogus capital stock certificates, and in that country the 
 law is painfully clear and summarily operative with the 
 creators of bogus capital and the misrepresentations and 
 fraud used to unload the bogus capital stocks. All these 
 twenty-four directors who vouched for the statement that 
 the properties owned and operated by the United States 
 Steel Corporation on the 17th of February, 1901, did cost 
 $1,437,494,862, are responsible by their persons and prop- 
 erties to the past as well as the present shareholders for 
 all and every loss. All of the bamboozled shareholders 
 can recover at law from these directors, and it is likely 
 that the intelligent jurors will make them liable to the full 
 amount of the capital stock, as well as for the $50,000,000 
 taken for underwriting, after the date of the creation of 
 the bogus capital, and then give them back the properties 
 they have vouched for. This is only American, English 
 and Roman simple jurisprudence. The motive for making 
 this significant misrepresentation of actual cost, by the 
 directors of the United States Steel Corporation, is not 
 difficult to find. The spurious could not be transformed 
 into the genuine money without an effort and a particular 
 kind of bluff. And the method and the bluff are of the 
 kind we have explained. 
 
 When we digest the figures showing the many appro- 
 priations of the authors of the Steel Trust we labor in 
 vain to discover any pretended services rendered to the 
 
370 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 United States steel industry ; and when we see the burdens 
 which stock-jugglers have put upon the American people 
 for no equivalent intended and designed to be perpetual, 
 the mind wonders however the audacity could be devel- 
 oped, and however the American people could be so quies- 
 cent and tame under such conditions. 
 
 The United States Steel Corporation, known as the 
 Steel Trust, has an interesting progeny. It comprises the 
 Carnegie Company, the Federal Steel Company, the 
 United States Steel Company, the American Steel and 
 Wire Company, the American Tin Plate Company, the 
 American Steel Hoop Company, the American Sheet Steel 
 Company, the American Bridge Company, and some half 
 dozen other smaller companies. All these were Trusts, 
 in the ordinary sense of that word, before they were re- 
 Trusted by the Rockefeller-Morgan element. All of them 
 had fictitious mortgage bonds when they were independent 
 Trusts, before they were combined and further fictionized 
 under the name of the United States Steel Corporation. 
 
 The Carnegie Steel Company was a model of efficiency 
 and economical production in the steel industry. It had 
 incomparable facilities. It had its own iron ore, its own 
 steam railroad for transportation, its own coal supply, its 
 own coke ovens, and the time can be recalled without bur- 
 dening the memory when its incorporated capital stock 
 was only five million dollars. The tariff law, which pro- 
 tected steel so largely in making high prices, has made 
 magnates of the Carnegie owners. By tariff protection of 
 high prices, steel millionaires grew like plants in the 
 tropics. In 1900 the capital stock of the Carnegie Com- 
 pany amounted altogether to $160,000,000. This was a 
 large capitalization and represented anticipated future 
 earnings by increased prices for steel, and as steel rails 
 costing $12 were sold for $35, and steel billets were raised 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 171 
 
 from $15 in 1895 to $35 in 1900, we can see how the 
 inflated capital stock could be made real. 
 
 The Carnegie Steel Company was always independent. 
 It had no mercy for its opponents. It had contempt 
 mingled with pity for its feebler competitors, which had 
 been formed into the Steel Trust and burdened by enor- 
 mous creations of bogus capital stock, which had, by all 
 means, to be provided with dividends. The United States 
 Steel Corporation was created to corral all the different 
 Steel Trusts which had their different steel plants. All 
 possible plants had been corraled by the control of their 
 capital stock by the United States Steel Corporation. But 
 there was one formidable rival which was not a Trust but 
 a private concern, in which the fictitionized capital was 
 comparatively small, and therefore it was less encumbered 
 than any of the plants of the Steel Trust. 
 
 The Federal Steel Company was one of the first com- 
 binations of steel plants into a Trust. It comprised four 
 Illinois steel companies, each of which had capital stock 
 'of its own before it was subjected to a further capital 
 stock creation, under the name of the Federal Steel Com- 
 pany, and resubjected to further stock capitalization under 
 the parenthood of the United States Steel Corporation. 
 The Illinois Steel Company was the principal company 
 constituting the Federal Steel Trust, and its previous pre- 
 carious existence and sickness under receiverships was 
 well known. When the Federal Steel Trust was born it 
 simultaneously produced $99,245,200 of bogus capital 
 stock, and with its birth and afterward it carried $26,557,- 
 056 of mortgage bonds liabilities. The professional 
 charges for promoting and organizing were duly ren- 
 dered and as readily paid. The underwriting charges 
 alone were modest and natural, only $29,500,000 in cash, 
 counting the price of preferred shares at $93.50, and the 
 common shares at $75, at which they were sold on the 
 New York Stock Exchange. 
 
172 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 The National Steel Company comprised eight steel com- 
 panies in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and upon its being 
 christened with the name of the National Steel Company 
 it gave birth to $59,000,000 of bogus capital stock, less 
 about $9,000,000 of actual value. It can be imagined that 
 the christening and birth-giving and various processes of 
 promoting and organizing and underwriting were arduous 
 and exhaustive, consequently, the underwriters' charges 
 were only a little under $16,000,000 in actual cash. The 
 amount of underwriting was settled in this way: They 
 settled for themselves that the underwriting charges 
 should be no more than 34 1-2 per cent, on the value of the 
 respective securities issued, which were $27,000,000 of 
 preferred and $32,000,000 of common shares. They were 
 sold on the New York Stock Exchange up to $99 3-8 for 
 preferred and $63 for common. 
 
 The National Tube Company was a most profitable 
 Trust creation. The United States Statistical Report 
 shows that the iron and steel tube industry of the United 
 States had an invested capital of $18,343,000, but some 
 of this was fictitious because of the capital stock repre- 
 senting considerably more than actual value. The differ- 
 ent plants were cornered prior to February 15th, 1899, 
 and under the name of the National Tube Company they 
 were christened and rejuvenated, not by new machinery 
 or any other economic improvements, but with bogus cap- 
 ital stock, to the amount of $80,000,000. These were 
 boomed on the New York Stock Exchange to $105 1-2 
 for preferred, and to $69 7-8 for common. The issue was 
 $40,000,000 of each. The professional fees for the varied 
 work of promoting and organizing and underwriting, al- 
 though not worth a cent to the industry, were duly charged 
 and as promptly paid, but the amounts have not been 
 disclosed. 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 173 
 
 The American Steel and Wire Company comprised a 
 number of wire and nail plants in eight different States of 
 the Union. Some of them had endured a very eventful 
 life and a very struggling existence, and some of them 
 were of very doubtful quality. "But the more the mer- 
 rier" is the motto of Trust manufacture, and in any event, 
 numbers meet inquiries as to asset values of the brain 
 creations of bogus capital stock. However, the capital 
 stock creations of this company were $90,000,000, and 
 the promoting, organizing, and underwriting charges, 
 without other incidentals, were an eye-opener. The pro- 
 fessional fees for underwriting alone were $32.15 on every 
 $100 of the amount of $75,000,000. The preferred sold 
 up to $106 3-4 and the common sold up to $72. If the 
 professional fees realized these prices, the actual cash ac- 
 quired for underwriting for services of no actual value to 
 the steel and wire industry was $36,000,000. 
 
 The United States tin plate industry, according to the 
 statistical reports of the Government, had an invested cap- 
 ital of $6,650,047, and by a process of conversion its 
 actual capital of $6,650,047 was interwoven with bogus 
 capital stock creations, which became altogether $46,325,- 
 000, and it had purchase money mortgage bonds besides. 
 The conversion was made in the name of the American 
 Tin Plate Company. The professional fees for underwrit- 
 ing, excluding those for promoting and organizing, were 
 $13,365,000 in cash, or more than double the amount of 
 the actual invested capital in the industry. The preferred 
 shares sold up to $92 and the common sold up to $56 1-2, 
 and both were provided with regular dividends as if they 
 represented real money. 
 
 The American Steel Hoop Company was a combination 
 of which it is difficult to discover the elements, but un- 
 mistakably it was intended for steel hoops, and being for 
 steel hoops, its capital stock was $33,000,000. It has not 
 
174 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 disclosed what the respective charges were for promoting, 
 organizing and underwriting, but in view of the treat- 
 ment received by the other babies of the parent Steel 
 Trust, it would be reasonable to expect that they approxi- 
 mated 40 per cent. 
 
 The American Sheet Steel Company comprised twenty- 
 six nail and other iron and steel producing plants in Ohio, 
 Indiana and Pennsylvania. Every ramshackle and sickly 
 business was included in these plants, and therefore the 
 capital stock was only $49,000,000, just one tmder $50,- 
 000,000, for it is important in the name of Trust not to 
 use round numerals. The Trust was duly christened and 
 the dififerent charges for promoting, organizing and 
 underwriting were duly paid, but they were not disclosed. 
 
 The composition of the American Bridge Company 
 comprised twenty-six iron and steel companies, and all 
 the States of the Union had been hunted to secure them. 
 A financial report published in 1901 states : "In the event 
 of a dissolution, the preferred shares shall receive the par 
 value and assured dividends ; but before any amount shall 
 be paid to the common stock." However near its dissolu- 
 tion it may have been, all chance of it was prevented by 
 its being taken under the parental wings of the United 
 States Steel Corporation. The same report states : "No 
 estimate can be made of its actual assets, no amount of 
 outstanding securities is known." These extracts will ex- 
 plain why the creation of the capital stock was only $75,- 
 000,000. The professional charges have not been di- 
 vulged. 
 
 The corraling of an industry or any other resource of 
 the country, by creating bogus capital and scampering 
 off with the proceeds, and leaving the entire amount as 
 a permanent debt, to be provided with dividends by higher 
 prices and lower wages, is the most destructive of all 
 means of sound and healthy trade and commerce. When 
 
BEPEAVED FINAN.CE. 175 
 
 prices are advanced, less products are used at home, and 
 exports are shut off for abroad. When demand is re- 
 duced, factories must close and v/age-earners must be with- 
 out work and compete with each other. When wage- 
 earners are without work, or when they are reduced in 
 their wages, especially when prices are high, the normal 
 consumption of the country's products is impossible. Then 
 trade becomes disorganized and later becomes paralyzed. 
 Were the steel industry for the American people, and not 
 for a few stock-jugglers, who are in it only to create bogus 
 capital and charge it as actual money, a ton of steel rails 
 could be sold for $15, and all legitimate capital and inci- 
 dental costs would be liberally provided for. C. M. 
 Schwab has stated that a ton of steel rails is made for 
 less than $12 a ton. Allowing for transportation from 
 Pittsburg to New York, Boston, or Philadelphia, $1.75; 
 for selling commission, 24 cents; for actual capital to 
 produce a ton of steel rails, $6, and allowing 10 per cent, 
 interest upon this actual capital, the total actual cost for 
 all would be $14.59, which would leave 41 cents per ton 
 as an additional payment to labor, whereby it could spend 
 more upon those industrial and farm products which 
 would largely contribute to the trade of the country. At 
 the price of $28 per ton, as fixed by the steel pool for 1903 
 and 1904, $13.41 are left for the bogus capital and the 
 other victimizing charges. 
 
 Were the bogus capital eliminated from the steel indus- 
 try of this country, the adjusted prices would create de- 
 mand, the transportation would be increased, labor would 
 be wanted, trade would be invigorated, and other depart- 
 ments of trade and commerce using steel products would 
 receive fair play and be rejuvenated. 
 
 Under such unexampled conditions a flood of in- 
 quiries involuntarily arises in the mind, and a few are 
 answered by the following replies : „ . 
 
1Y6 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 A. Did the makers of the Steel Trust own the steel 
 plants ? 
 
 B. No. 
 
 A. Did the makers of the Steel Trust obtain possession 
 of the steel plants? 
 
 B. No. 
 
 A. Did the makers of the Steel Trust pay for the steel 
 plants with their own money? 
 
 B. No. 
 
 A. Who did find the money to pay for the steel plants ? 
 
 B. The bondholders. 
 
 A. How did the makers of the Steel Trust obtain a 
 standing to begin the operations ? 
 
 B. They obtained options of purchase, to be completed 
 by the bondholders' money, regardless of all high costs, 
 because everything was for the creation of the bogus cap- 
 ital stock, which was to be charged as actual money. Con- 
 sequently, tlie general consumption becomes smaller, trade 
 disorganization is caused. 
 
 A. What becomes of the stock-juggler who has ob- 
 tained the proceeds of the bogus capital stock ? 
 
 B. There are two periods of harvest-time for the stock- 
 juggler. One is the time of boom, when he sells to the 
 lambs. The other is the time of gloom, when he slumps 
 and corrals the lambs' money. 
 
 Besides the more than a thousand million dollars of 
 bogus capital which was charged as real money to the 
 steel plants of the Steel Trust, as a stock-juggling method 
 of bleeding the American people by higher prices for steel 
 products and lower wages for the steel workers, there 
 were enormous over-payments made to Andrew Carnegie, 
 which contribute largely to accomplish the same purposes. 
 It is a conservative statement that Andrew Carnegie took 
 $200,000,000 more than was equitable and just for only 
 his 60 per cent, interest in the Carnegie steel plants, which 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 177 
 
 he sold to the Steel Trust-makers, who were indifferent to 
 the costs if they could only corral the properties for bogus 
 capital purposes. 
 
 A. How did the makers of the Steel Trust obtain the 
 power to create more than a thousand million dollars of 
 bogus capital and to charge it as real money ? 
 
 B. Because there was none to prevent them. It is a 
 customary method, which has been proceeding for forty 
 years in this country. 
 
 A. How do the makers of Trusts make up the money 
 they so appropriate from the country's resources? 
 
 B. They do not make it up. The American people 
 make it up by higher prices for the products of the indus- 
 tries and by high charges for transportation of the rail- 
 roads, which are pledged. The makers of the Steel Trust 
 doubled the prices for steel products and reduced wages 
 for producing them, and thereby dividends are made. 
 When a slip of paper, called a capital stock certificate, is 
 provided with dividends, the bogus capital maker can sell 
 them on the Stock Exchange, like corn in the corn market, 
 and the larger the dividends, the more dollars will they 
 sell for. 
 
 A. What becomes of the steel industry then ? 
 
 B. It is worked by the men who are the shareholders, 
 who have bought the bogus capital stock, and their object 
 is to make dividends for the capital stock which they have 
 paid for, and if there are no dividends their capital stock 
 becomes worthless. 
 
 A. What becomes of the steel industry then ? 
 
 B. The high prices reduce the use of steel, as the use has 
 been greatly reduced; and they prohibit the exports of 
 steel products, which are shown by the enormous falling 
 off of steel exports since the Steel Trust was created. 
 The reduced consumption of steel products means the clos- 
 ing of steel factories and the discharging of steel workers, 
 
178 DEPEAVED EINANOE. 
 
 which causes the reduction of consumption of other in- 
 dustrial and farm products. The reduction of wages 
 means that the people must possess fewer dollars to buy 
 with, and the higher prices mean that they can get less 
 for their dollars. 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 179 
 
 THE RAILROAD TRUSTS. 
 
 HOW INALIENABLE PUBLIC PROPERTIES HAVE BECOME 
 PRIVATE ESTATES. 
 
 Although the railroads of the United States have been 
 declared by the United States Supreme Court to be neces- 
 sarily inalienable public properties, they are treated as 
 private estates. It is true that there is a pretence of sur- 
 veillance by an Interstate Commission. But this is power- 
 less, and in its seventeenth annual report it practically 
 makes this confession : An offending agent of a railroad 
 can openly decline to give evidence in a court of law, and 
 by the Elkins Law, which President Roosevelt signed in 
 February, 1903, they are immune from imprisonment, 
 and only liable to fines, which are only a fraction of the 
 gains. Moreover, appointments to the Interstate Com- 
 mission are donated as spoils for political services, and it 
 is very reasonable to suppose that purchase by a railroad 
 will obtain everything, if the price is only high enough. 
 When Boss Piatt, of New York City, was being bereft of 
 his political power, which he had wielded so long, he 
 pleaded for the retention of one department, and that was 
 the control of the Railroad Commission of New York 
 State. 
 
 It is a marvel that American free men will permit a 
 "boss or even a district captain" within talking distance. 
 All are in for personal gain, and to enslave the people, and 
 make them poorer, and their lives harder and more diffi- 
 cult. That sets of men can appoint themselves to posi- 
 tions of power to make the people poor, and put them into 
 
180 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 slavery, and be accepted as political leaders for the good 
 government of the country, is discreditable to the intelli- 
 gence, as it is injurious to the well-being of Americans. 
 Every such boss or district captain is in to make the dollar 
 buy less, and were Americans true to themselves and the 
 future of the race, they would drum every political boss 
 and every district captain out of the neighborhood. 
 
 The seventeenth annual report of the Interstate Com- 
 merce Commission, constituted of bi-partisan politicians, 
 frankly confesses that the country is in the grasp of the 
 railroads, and its alarm over the inordinate and general 
 increase of their freight rates. All this is natural, and it 
 will proceed indefinitely until bogus capital stock and 
 mortgage bonds charged as real money are wiped out by 
 law. This Railroad Commission practically states that 
 there is no remedy for the exorbitant charges of railroads 
 until hard times come. This is a remarkable comment 
 upon the charges for transportation, upon the country's 
 railroads, which are inalienable public property. It ap- 
 pears that not until the American people are prostrate in 
 the throes of hard times and adversity, will the wrong- 
 doings of the men in wrongful control of the country's 
 railroads be checked, and not until then will charges for 
 transportation be just and equitable. 
 
 The report of the Commission is made at a period of 
 unexampled prosperity, when railroads were obtaining 
 larger freight and larger freight rates, and consequently 
 larger earnings, per mile than ever known. But such is 
 the insatiable greed for interest and dividends for mort- 
 gage bonds and capital stock, which ought not to exist, 
 that the Interstate Commission mentions its alarm upon 
 the inordinate increase in freight rates, upon the power of 
 the railroads to grant preferences without departing from 
 their terms, that the complaints upon transportation 
 charges are double those of the previous year, and four 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 181 
 
 times as many as the year before, and that the increases 
 are general, and amount to an enormous sum. 
 
 The general effect of these increases in freight charges 
 has been to augment the unjust tax for private purposes 
 placed upon the body of producers and consumers of this 
 country, and to put a prohibition upon our exports. The 
 report also states that the increases in freight charges are 
 usually, if not always, made after preconcerted action by 
 the different railroads. In other words, the aim for divi- 
 dends for a capital which never existed is the supreme 
 factor. 
 
 The Interstate Commission frankly confesses its help- 
 lessness and states that there is no way by which these 
 increases in charges for transportation can be prevented. 
 When President Roosevelt signed the Elkins Law on 
 February 19, 1903, all pillagers of the people, by Trust 
 greed and rapacity, are delivered from the peniten- 
 tiary, however iniquitous their doings, or whatever may 
 be the amount of their plunderings, when they hinder or 
 refuse to give evidence, or produce papers and books bear- 
 ing upon their wrongdoings. 
 
 President Roosevelt, by signing the Elkins Law, gave a 
 special license to squeeze the people, so that dividends 
 could be created for bogus capital. The intention of the 
 Sherman Anti-Trust Law was to imprison the officers and 
 agents of the Trusts whenever they refused to give or 
 produce evidence upon their Trust methods or doings. 
 With their large gains, which can be increased so easily, 
 as in the instance of the Beef Trust, a fine became of very 
 small importance, for faster than the courts could inflict 
 them the prices could be increased, so as to make the fines 
 themselves a process of enrichment. By the Elkins Law 
 the wrongdoers are preserved from imprisonment, for it 
 declares that "No penalty shall be imposed on the guilty 
 other than the fine prescribed." The Elkins Law disarms 
 
182 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 the people of the only weapon for punishing the criminals 
 who plunder them when they refuse, or get others to re- 
 fuse or hinder, the investigation of the wrongdoing. 
 
 The Interstate Commission criticizes the Elkins Law 
 and points out how the Sherman Law was intended to 
 regulate commerce and to correct two kinds of railroad 
 abuses. First, to assure the publication of tariff rates, 
 which shall be just and reasonable and free from discrim- 
 inations ; and second, to compel railroads to observe the 
 tariffs so published, without exception. Since the enact- 
 ment of the Elkins Law these conditions have been evaded, 
 as they were intended to be. 
 
 All the advantages of the improvements in the means of 
 transportation of recent years are taken by bogus capital, 
 charged as real money, and the increases in charges for 
 transportation as well. All these takings from the general 
 earnings of the public are placed in the pockets of the few. 
 
 The operating expenses of the railroads of the United 
 States for the year ending June 30, 1903, were 67.1 cents 
 on the dollar of receipts. In England the operating ex- 
 penses are 56.5 cents upon every dollar of receipts. In 
 other words, the expenses of operating railroads in Eng- 
 land can be obtained for 100 cents, whicE in the United 
 States costs 118.7 cents. The earnings of the United 
 States railroads in the same year were $1,890,150,679, or 
 $9,382 per mile, and the net earnings were $641,630,196. 
 Were the fictitious capital, represented by capital stock and 
 mortgage bonds in the industries, railroads, and other re- 
 sources of the country, extinguished by law, the operating 
 expenses of the United States railroads would be no more 
 than 50 cents on the dollar of receipts. Were the oper- 
 ating expenses of American railroads 50 cents of the 
 dollar of receipts, there would be a balance of $945,000,- 
 000 a year, and were the Government in control of the 
 railroads, by issuing government bonds for actual costs, 
 
DEPEAVED EINANOE. 183 
 
 without the bogus charges, the yearly cost for interest 
 would be only $180,000,000. This would provide $665,- 
 000,000 a year for the reduction of the costs of transpor- 
 tation, and then, how freedom would be given to trade, to 
 consumption, to production, and what a new and inesti- 
 mable impetus would be given to commerce and to the na- 
 tional life! The costs of the necessaries of life would be 
 less ; the cost of different supplies for industries and for 
 railroads would be less; then the consumption and the 
 production would be more; then the people would get 
 more for a dollar, and all around the benefits to the inhabi- 
 tants of the United States would be immense. Farmers 
 would net more for their farm products, because they 
 would not be afflicted with having to provide dividends for 
 bogus capital, and then they would spend more; manufac- 
 tures would net more for their manufactures, because they 
 would not be infested with the effects of bogus capital 
 charged as real money, and then they would compete in 
 foreign markets ; the people would get more food for the 
 dollar, as well as clothing and home-life, for were all 
 bogus charges extinguished, dividends and interest for 
 fictitious capital would cease to be demanded, like an offen- 
 sive blackmail. Moreover, the coterie of men who now 
 control the railroads for themselves have handsome niches 
 for their favorites at high salaries, as well as for them- 
 selves ; and these expenditures would be saved for the peo- 
 ple. Under the present system costs of supplies are salted, 
 and much besides would be revealed if the public knew 
 how charges are created, often after the Jay Gould- Van- 
 derbilt-Rockefeller programme of 1874 to 1883, when 
 many of the railroad earnings for freight never entered the 
 treasury of the railroads. 
 
 Every possible pretext has been devised in order to 
 create fictitious mortgage bonds and capital stock certifi- 
 cates as perpetual charges on railroads. Whenever earn- 
 
184 DEPKAVED FINANCE. 
 
 ings could be squeezed out, or even anticipated, or even 
 when they could not be squeezed out or anticipated, mort- 
 gage bonds and capital stock certificates have been created 
 by and for the exclusive benefit of a few at the expense of 
 the many. The fictionizing of railroad capital charged as 
 real money commenced as far back as 1850, and then, as 
 now, there was no constituted responsible authority in the 
 country whose fidelity was equal to stemming the tide of 
 personal aggrandizement and the consequent enslaving of 
 the country's resources. As early as the year 1883 the 
 fictitious charges upon railroads, for that year alone, ex- 
 ceeded actual costs by more than two hundred million dol- 
 lars, and actual costs were frequently excessive and some- 
 times double the amount they ought to have been. 
 
 The acquisition of the control of railroads has been 
 easy. Sets of men using loans from banks have been able 
 to acquire often only temporary control of railroads, and 
 then bleed them inordinately at will, by the creation of 
 fictitious mortgage bonds and capital stock, for which 
 there was no possible provision, except by increased earn- 
 ings squeezed from the people. 
 
 Even the resources of railroads have been used by men 
 in temporary control for their private purposes. Often 
 railroads have been made to acquire coal lands at enor- 
 mously excessive prices, indirectly, from the men in con- 
 trol of the railroad. Then the same men have mortgaged 
 the coal lands, as well as burdened them with enormous 
 amounts of spurious capital charged as real money. These 
 have thereby become perpetual charges upon the railroads. 
 Later, the railroads have formed monopolies of coal sup- 
 plies, and then charged such increased prices for coal, as 
 well as for transportation, as would provide all these 
 spurious mortgage bonds with yearly interest and all this 
 spurious capital stock with quarterly dividends. 
 
 According to the yearly reports of wholesale prices, the 
 
DEPEAVED EINANOE. 185 
 
 wholesale price of anthracite coal, monopolized by rail- 
 roads, was $2.50 per ton in 1879, and $4.50 in 1902. This 
 especially applies to the six railroads in control of the 
 anthracite coal lands, which, upon the inquiry of the Coal 
 Strike Commission, were found to be not only bleeding 
 the consumers of coal, but were bleeding the coal miners, 
 and making conditions of living for the mining district 
 more resembling the traditions of Siberia than the pursuit 
 of happiness, under the great Republic, which is to show 
 all other countries that good up-building, as well as liberty, 
 are for all its citizens. 
 
 So interwoven with the fibers of greed have these doings 
 become that the President of one of the railroads, in a 
 court of justice, openly declared in sanctimonious tones 
 that Providence had entrusted to such as himself to dis- 
 tribute the wealth of this country to the people who work 
 in this Republic, and probably he thought the creation of 
 bogus capital and charging it as real money was a divine 
 method of doing it. So steeped in iniquity and selfish 
 aggrandizement have these men become that they have 
 lost all consciousness of rectitude and conceptions of 
 morals. 
 
 When all restraints are absent men always do for them- 
 selves that which will bleed their neighbors and their 
 countrymen, especially when it is so easy and usual and 
 so enormously profitable as the creating of fictitious mort- 
 gage bonds and capital stock upon railroads, industries and 
 other resources of the country, since all can be unloaded 
 upon the Stock Exchange and elsewhere. These men not 
 only bleed the consumers and the wage-earners, to whom 
 they would parsimoniously dole out as little as would hold 
 body and soul together, but they bleed the unwary by all 
 kinds of bluff on the Stock Exchange. 
 
 Actually, the 5 per cent, mortgage bonds of the United 
 States Shipbuilding Company were unloaded at $105, 
 
186 DEPKAVED FINANCE. 
 
 having the face value of $ioo, although all the properties 
 had originally cost less than $5,000,000, and although the 
 amount of mortgage bonds was $26,000,000, and the 
 amount of capital stock certificates was $45,000,000. Thus 
 we see that economical production and foreign competi- 
 tion must be ignored, and industrial debilitation and in- 
 creased hardship and poverty for the people must be al- 
 lowed, because a few men have set no limit to their greed, 
 and lost, if ever they found, a conception of morality. 
 
 The merger of the Northern Securities Company con- 
 sists of the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, and 
 Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroads. Each railroad 
 is inalienable public property. In order to promote the 
 construction of the two former railroads, large quantities 
 of land were donated by the Government. The Northern 
 Pacific Railroad received about fifty million acres, and the 
 land was appropriated, not for the country's purposes, but 
 for private emolument. Each has been charged with ex- 
 cessive mortgage bonds and capital stock, and they are 
 controlled as if they were appanages of the men who 
 have monopolized them for bleeding the American people. 
 Immediately the Northern Securities Corporation could be 
 completed, $400,000,000 of capital stock was printed and 
 charged as actual money, and then sold on the New York 
 Stock Exchange and elsewhere. These are examples how 
 the different railroads of the country have been used for 
 private gains at the expense of the country's traffic and 
 higher charges for transportation. The same system, if 
 not worse, has been applied to the Chicago, Rock Island & 
 Pacific Railroad. These are held in proprietary by only 
 four men who were creators of nearly $200,000,000 of 
 fictitious capital of the Steel Trust. Seven years ago "two 
 were insolvent to the extent of $4,000,000. The wealth 
 of the other two could be counted by a few thousands." 
 By the proceeds of the bogus capital of the Steel Trust 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 187 
 
 these men obtained control of this important railroad and 
 then treated it like a private estate. They have created 
 vi^ithin two years hundreds of millions of dollars of mort- 
 gage bonds and capital stock, and so manipulated the con- 
 trol of it that no other management is possible than that 
 of these four men, and it is publicly stated that their an- 
 nual report for 1902 "does not bear the stamp of even an 
 independent audit of the railroad's accounts." 
 
 When men borrow $100,000,000 upon a railroad by 
 issuing 5 per cent, mortgage bonds for that sum, the trans- 
 portation charges of the railroad must pay five millions a 
 year for interest. In the same way, when men create cap- 
 ital stock, the railroad is charged with the amount, and it 
 exists as an indebtedness, just as if the money had been 
 borrowed. The same applies to industries. These are the 
 methods by which Trust-makers have corraled railroads 
 and different industries of the United States, and the cause 
 of the higher prices for all commodities, and the cause of 
 unnecessarily high transportation charges. The men who 
 have created these fictitious capital stock certificates and 
 mortgage bonds have done nothing for the people or the 
 country in exchange for the money taken by the sale of the 
 mortgage bonds and capital stock certificates which they 
 created, although they exist as permanent charges, like a 
 mortgage upon real estate. If a railroad has only the 
 prospect of earnings which can be legitimately or illegiti- 
 mately enforced, more fictitious capital stock certificates 
 and mortgage bonds are created by the men in control. 
 
 Railroads have been declared again and again by the 
 Supreme Court of the United States to be inalienable pub- 
 lic highways, for the exclusive benefit of the public, in 
 order that it can have the cheapest and most efficient trans- 
 portation. Therefore, the railroads cannot be continued 
 for the private purposes of the few. The right of eminent 
 domain exercised by the different States of the Union can 
 
188 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 be used only for public benefits and purposes, and not set 
 apart for pri\ate gain. It has been declared that were one 
 of the States of the Union to exercise the right of eminent 
 domain, so essential to the construction of all railroads 
 for private interests, its exercise thereof would exceed the 
 power which can be delegated to State Governments by 
 the United States Constitution. Therefore, railroads are 
 inalienable from the public, and when private persons 
 charge them with unnecessary or fictitious charges for pri- 
 vate purposes, such as fictitious mortgage bonds and capi- 
 tal stock, they do that which is invalid and illegal, and 
 their persons and property ought to be legally liable in law. 
 
 No process of reasoning or pleading can justly declare 
 that the tampering with railroads, as well as with the 
 other resources of this country, in order to bleed them 
 with yearly charges for interest and dividends for imag- 
 inary creations, for private purposes, is other than the 
 most effective undoing of the nation, and directly in re- 
 straint of trade, and therefore within the pale of the 
 Sherman law, and therefore illegal. 
 
 The franchises or charters given by States for railroads 
 have two powers. One is to issue mortgage bonds to 
 construct and equip, and the other is to use the right of 
 eminent domain, so as to condemn needful properties for 
 the construction of the railroads. And when either of 
 these powers are used for other than public purposes, by 
 which the public would be benefited, the powers are 
 thereby invalid and illegal. The question is not what 
 powers have been conveyed. The State cannot exercise 
 its powers of eminent domain for private purposes, and 
 when it does so, such exercise is invalid. Whatever the 
 different States may have done, or whatever may be said 
 that the different States have done, every exercise of the 
 right of eminent domain for personal benefits or private 
 purposes is invalid and illegal, and were citizens to com- 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 189 
 
 bine and proceed at law, the United States Supreme Court, 
 if not the courts below, would declare again that all rail- 
 roads are public highways and cannot be trammeled' with 
 any charges for private purposes, which so directly re- 
 strain trade. 
 
 The courts of the United States have often declared that 
 it is contrary to the Constitution to take land from its 
 lawful owners, as railroads have done, and require to do, 
 in order to construct, for other purposes than public 
 benefit. They have declared that railroads are not pri- 
 vate, and cannot be made private properties. This is 
 proven by the railroads not being altogether free from 
 legislative control. The right of the State tO' regulate 
 railroads is affirmed by numerous court decisions. It is 
 affirmed by the inability of railroads to refuse to trans- 
 port, or to charge any tolls they please. All this declares 
 that they are public institutions, and that when a few men 
 cook their accounts in order to prejudice and buy, or boom 
 and sell their capital stock and mortgage bonds, they are 
 trifling with public property, which, in any sense, cannot 
 be considered their own. 
 
 The audacity and greed of certain men who have capi- 
 talized the resources of the country appears boundless, and 
 it is apparent that they would stop at nothing short of 
 possessing the control of all the country's resources, and 
 then industrially enslaving the American people com- 
 pletely. We have continually drummed into our ears the. 
 quality and efficiency of labor and machinery in the United 
 States, the abundance and quality of raw material. All 
 these are exceptional. But all their exceptional values and 
 more are taken by dividends and interest for fictitious 
 capital stock and mortgage bonds. The same is true with 
 all supplies. There is no remedy to obtain the wholesome, 
 efficient rehabilitation of industries and railroads of the 
 Republic other than the extinction of all capital stock cer- 
 
190 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 tificates and mortgage bonds which were not bona fide rep- 
 resentations of value when they were created. When men 
 know that they can squeeze dividends by higher charges, 
 and that the larger the dividends the more they can realize 
 for their bogus creations, the inducements to create them 
 are enormous. 
 
 The defect of our Democracy is that there is no perma- 
 nent responsible authority. When men are in power they 
 are continually accommodating themselves to men's pur- 
 poses, in order to remain in power. Everybody seems 
 after financial graft, or commercial graft, or legal graft, 
 and when one is grafting the other is winking and waiting 
 for his own chance. According to the public press there 
 would have been no opposition to the merger of the North- 
 ern Securities Company but for the Democratic party 
 making the Trust issue the first plank of its platform for 
 the next political campaign, and in order to take the wind 
 out of the Democrats' sails, the Republican party started 
 an expedition after the Northern Securities Company, 
 although the Republican party, by President Roosevelt, 
 have partially negatived the Sherman Anti-Trust Law by 
 the Elkins Law. 
 
 Railroads have been charged with bogus capital in order 
 to get the certificates and deliver them for sales made 
 upon the Stock Exchange. In 1868 to 1871 Jay Gould 
 privately increased the capital stock of the Erie Railroad 
 from $17,000,000 to $78,000,000, and appropriated the 
 proceeds and then purchased the legal authorities. Later, 
 President Watson, of the same railroad, about doubled tlie 
 amount of its mortgage bonds for private purposes, and 
 these now exist as a debt upon this railroad, and trans- 
 portation charges have to provide them with dividends as 
 well as interest yearly. Often a franchise has been ol> 
 tained for the building of a railroad by one syndicate, and 
 this syndicate has salted it by vast charges for obtaining 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 191 
 
 the franchise. Then it has been turned over to another 
 syndicate for construction, and this syndicate has salted 
 it by vast fictitious charges for construction. Then it has 
 been salted for its equipment by further fictitious charges. 
 Then it has been salted again by the syndicate which was 
 to operate it, and the charges for transportation of the 
 country's products have to provide yearly interest and 
 dividends for all. 
 
 The South Pennsylvania Railroad was started by Com- 
 modore Vanderbilt by a syndicate of his clerks to con- 
 struct, and he charged $15,000,000 for construction, after 
 a responsible contractor had offered to construct it for 
 $6,500,000. But this was only the construction end of the 
 transaction, by which the construction syndicate obtained 
 the construction plunder. There was another syndicate 
 to raise the money by mortgage bonds and capital stock, 
 and when they had finished with it the railroad was in 
 debt for $40,000,000. When the railroad was completed 
 there was a charge of six dollars of fictitious mortgage 
 bonds and capital stock for every dollar of money paid 
 out. The railroad had then been loaded with $40,000,000 
 of charges, instead of $6,000,000 of charges, and the dif- 
 ference has to be carried and provided for yearly by more 
 industrial enslavement of trade and commerce, as well as 
 the enslavement of the American people. 
 
 The men who obtained the franchise for the Central 
 Pacific Railroad commenced by getting together $159,000, 
 and according to the Government report to Congress the 
 railroad was charged with $159,000,000, and it had cost 
 less than $59,000,000. Another of the many istances is 
 the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, one of the anthra- 
 cite roal railroads, which caused the anthracite coal strike, 
 and whose president stated in a court of enquiry that 
 Providence had given the wealth of the country to be dis- 
 tributed among the workers of the nation by such as him- 
 
192 DEPRAVED FINANOE. 
 
 self, whose company was then paying less than i6 cents 
 per hour to the anthracite coal miners, and was then 
 charging them $2.75 for blasting powder which cost only 
 $1. Doubtless, this example of old-time superstition be- 
 lieved that the creation of bogus capital stock, and charg- 
 ing it as real money, was the method of giving effect to 
 such gross superstition. The directors of the Philadelphia 
 & Reading Railroad have surreptitiously enriched them- 
 selves by securing properties in their private capacity, and 
 have then charged them to the railroad at enormous 
 profits. 
 
 It has been the custom for men to conspire together to 
 put railroads under a system of blackmail. Banks and 
 bankers would often be in the swim, and with the use of 
 depositors' money they would obtain only temporary con- 
 trol of a railroad, and then load it with millions of dollars 
 of fictitious charges for themselves. Often they would 
 pay dividends without regard to earnings. In 1868 the 
 New York Central paid a dividend of $80 per $100 share 
 of bogus capital stock, and eleven months later a dividend 
 of $27 per share of $100 of bogus capital. The Hudson 
 River Railroad paid one year $85 per $100 share of bogus 
 capital stock. In the years from 1870 to 1876 the Phila- 
 delphia & Reading Railroad paid dividends of $40 per 
 $100 share of bogus capital stock. Numerous other rail- 
 roads have paid large dividends without regard to earn- 
 ings, all of which were extracted from the public. The 
 Atchison & Santa Fe Railroad paid a dividend in 1881 
 of $50 per $100 share of bogus capital stock. These large 
 dividends not only enriched the men who had obtained 
 control, and often only temporary control, but they were 
 used to boom the stock market, and then the opposite was 
 done in order to depress the stock market. When Vander- 
 bilt used to manipulate the stock market he would, boom 
 the railroad stocks to inveigle the lambs in, and when this 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 193 
 
 had been completed he would manipulate the stock mar- 
 ket in the opposite direction, in order to squeeze them out 
 of the same shares at slumped prices. When Vanderbilt 
 controlled the Lake Shore Railroad, as well as the New 
 York Central, he took the traffic of the Lake Shore and 
 gave it to the New York Central. By this the earnings 
 of the New York Central were increased, and the price of 
 the stock was boomed up, and the Lake Shore had been 
 bombarded down, as they were intended to be boomed up 
 and bombarded down. Before the booming up had been 
 developed the orders to the stock broker to buy had been 
 given, and the orders to sell had been given of those 
 stocks which were to be slumped. Always before the 
 slumping was started orders had been given to sell thou- 
 sands of shares, which were to be bought after the slump 
 had been made effective. 
 
 While this seething forge is being applied to human 
 beings in order that a few can become inordinately rich, 
 and the remainder become more and more harassed and 
 poor, the stock-juggler is developing families of no more 
 actual worth to society or the nation than non-producing 
 paupers, except that their luxurious living is vastly more 
 inconvenient and costly. In the meantime, the stock- 
 juggler proceeds on his pathway of gambling rapacity, 
 more disastrous to society and the honest tradesman than 
 gambling houses. The bogus capital maker does not finish 
 with the bogus capital stock when he has charged it as 
 real money and scampered off with the proceeds. He has 
 a never-ending Zoological show in Wall Street, and before 
 they are done with all the lambs come out shorn of their 
 wool. All the predatory methods are the best which the 
 basest of human ingenuity can devise, and are free from 
 all restraints, and sometimes the Governor of the State is 
 one of the gang. 
 
 The stock- jugglers have enslaved the different resources 
 
194 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 of the country, as well as the wage-earners who produce 
 their dividends, by hard work for long hours and often 
 reduced wages. They have enslaved the general public 
 to provide them with dividends by higher prices, and then 
 they rifle the pockets of the lambs, who can be inveigled 
 into their area and bluffed into buying, and then squeezed 
 into selling. The only strata of society which the stock- 
 juggler does not lay under the worst of blackmail are his 
 confederates. 
 
 Often the banks, often their officials and directors, often 
 the brokers and newspapers are in the swim with the 
 stock-juggler in his marauding expeditions. To boom 
 the price of the bogus capital stock the banks praise it ; the 
 bankers praise it ; the brokers praise it, and the newspapers 
 praise it. On the other hand, when the price is to be 
 slumped, the banks blow on it ; the bankers blow on it ; the 
 broker blows on it, and the newspapers blow on it. Often 
 sales are reported which are never made, just a little up, 
 then a little down, then with more and more activity, until 
 the stock is boomed, and the believing investor has been 
 completely cajoled, and in the end the rifling of his pockets 
 is completed. 
 
 Thus the making of bogus capital stock and then charg- 
 ing it as real money upon the resources of the country, 
 upon which the people depend for their means of existence, 
 and appropriating the money and then bluffing the credu- 
 lous investor out of his money, is an incomparable scheme 
 for acquiring millions of dollars for the schemer, and at 
 the same time making millions of workers poorer for the 
 same amount, for which they must suffer more and work 
 more, and receive less. 
 
 The booming and bluffing, and then the bombarding and 
 slumping, on the Stock Exchange, after the bogus capital 
 has been made and charged as real money, can be esti- 
 mated by two examples of bogus capital. The sales and 
 
DEPEAVED EINANCE. 195 
 
 mock sales of the capital stock of the Steel Trust in 1903 
 were 14,613,626 shares. The sales and the mock sales of 
 the capital stock of the Copper Trust in 1903 were 11,- 
 703,503 shares. The amount of only these two pieces of 
 nauseous iniquity, estimating the shares at their face value, 
 was $2,631,612,900, and the desolation and ruin which 
 these two engines of fraud accomplished upon the Amer- 
 ican people is indescribable. The men who handled this 
 degrading commodity are doing no more for the enrich- 
 ment of society that a gilt-laced flunky who stands at the 
 door of a New York poolroom. They do no more for the 
 country's wealth-making than a string of loafers at a 
 groggery corner. They do as much to degrade and de- 
 stroy the moral health of the nation as the worst of the 
 other vicious elements in the country. They wreck peace- 
 ful homes, they ruin honest lives, and were the American 
 people to awake to the responsibility of their mission, they 
 will purge the country of them by extinguishing all the 
 bogus capital which has been made the gambling instru- 
 ments of the game. 
 
 To illustrate the nature of an ordinary stock-jobbing 
 transaction, we will take our reader to one in the eighties, 
 and give a brief history of the Elevated Railroad of New 
 York City, which in greater detail exists as public records. 
 In the year 1881 Jay Gould, Russell Sage, and Cyrus W. 
 Field foresaw the future possibilities of the Elevated Rail- 
 road and the need of its services as a means of transit 
 for future New York citizens. The Manhattan Railroad, 
 otherwise called the Elevated Railroad of New York City, 
 had been conceived by one band of highwaymen, and was 
 afterward grasped by another. Their methods, other than 
 their charging bogus capital as real money, had com- 
 promised the existence of the franchise of the road. Then 
 Jay Gould created a ring, consisting of himself, Russell 
 Sage and Cyrus W. Field. These enlisted the services 
 
196 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 of Judge Westbrook, of the New York Supreme Court, 
 and Attorney-General Ward, of New York State. The 
 purpose of Ward was to begin legal proceedings for a re- 
 ceivership, and the function of Judge Westbrook was to 
 play into the hands of Ward and the gang. At the time 
 the legal proceedings were started the bogus capital stock 
 of the Elevated Railroad was selling at $56 per $100 
 share, and the object of the game was to besmear and 
 destroy its apparent value, in order that it could be pur- 
 chased for a low price and the railroad controlled. On 
 May 1 8th of that year the lawsuit was commenced by 
 Attorney-General Ward, purporting to be on behalf of the 
 State, whereas it was on behalf of Jay Gould, Russell 
 Sage and Cyrus W. Field. On the 27th of May the rail- 
 road company was to show why a receiver should not be 
 appointed. The railroad employed Roscoe Conkling, but 
 he was bought off and did not appear. Eventually, Judge 
 J. F. Dillon and Albert L. Hopkins were appointed re- 
 ceivers. This frightened the shareholders. The game was 
 to debase the property and get hold of the stock at suit- 
 able prices. At this time Jay Gould did not own a share 
 of stock, but later, in July of the same year, Russell Sage 
 put Jay Gould in possession of one hundred shares. Be- 
 fore this, at top prices, Jay Gould, Russell Sage and 
 Cyrus W. Field had been selling all the shares for which 
 their brokers could find buyers. To make the scheme go, 
 the New York World lent itself by publishing paragraphs 
 under the following headings : 
 
 May 20th, 1 88 1 — "The operations of the Manhattan 
 Railroad Company are a swindle." 
 
 May 24th — "The stock of the Manhattan Railroad 
 Company will be wiped out as it deserves to be." 
 
 May 26th — "The Manhattan stock, which has nothing 
 behind it but a general potentiality of rickety bridges." 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 197 
 
 June 17th — "Gould and Russell Sage not to go into 
 Manhattan." 
 
 June 19th — "Mr. Gould and those connected with him 
 will not allow their names to be used as directors of the 
 Manhattan Company." 
 
 July 1st — "What can become of a company which bor- 
 rows money, not to repair and strengthen the structure 
 of a railroad, which is simply a bridge without piers or 
 buttresses?" 
 
 July 19th — "As to the stock of the Manhattan Com- 
 pany, it is perfectly ridiculous that a corporation which 
 owns no property whatever, and which has legally for- 
 feited all its rights it ever had, should be selling at such 
 prices." 
 
 July 29th — "Receivers will make their report in a day 
 or two, and the showing will be very bad." 
 
 August 31st — "Manhattan insolvent." 
 
 September loth — "Manhattan report like a coroner's 
 inquest." 
 
 September 21st — "No prospect of Manhattan paying its 
 debts." 
 
 September 22d — "Manhattan to be stripped." 
 
 September 29th — "Manhattan beyond hope of resur- 
 rection." 
 
 September 30th — "Jay Gould makes affidavits for his 
 own receiver that the Manhattan Railroad Company is 
 hopelessly and inextricably insolvent." 
 
 These concoctions and bombardments were well calcu- 
 lated to besmear and depreciate the Manhattan Railroad 
 Company's stock, and enable the gang to obtain possession 
 at their own prices, and so bamboozle the simple share- 
 holders out of their property, and within eight days of 
 the last report of the New York World of September J30th 
 48,000 shares were transferred to Jay Gould, and 20,000 
 shares were transferred to his other accomplices, and these 
 
198 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 gave the control of the Manhattan Railroad. Very 
 shortly afterward Jay Gould, George Gould, Russell 
 Sage, and their other nominees were the directors. Many 
 of the shares were obtained at $i6, and the creation of 
 bogus capital and mortgage bonds, charged as actual 
 money, which have been charged since then to the Man- 
 hattan Railroad, would make schools of millionaires. 
 
 Doubtless those who are left with some integrity and 
 rectitude will be surprised with these nefarious methods 
 of making wealth, but they are quite customary and reg- 
 ular, and the most punctilious and religious enrich them- 
 selves in this way. At the time there was some popular 
 indignation, mostly because there was a great bunch of 
 such doings, but then, as now, its effects were no more 
 than a ripple of the stream, although the process of sub- 
 merging the people was proceeding then, as now, with an 
 awful certainty. 
 
 These atrocious doings, done with impunity by gangs 
 of men resembling the brigands of olden times, are 
 incalculably disastrous to the well-being of the nation. It 
 is not merely that the Gould family wrongfully receives 
 more than five times as much a year as Jay Gould paid for 
 his capital stock. It is not merely that this has been 
 worked for and earned by the workers of the nation, but 
 for all tirne the worker has to pay five cents, instead of 
 two cents, every time he travels upon this railroad, be- 
 cause bogus capital has been charged as real money, and 
 because there were not faithful citizens in New York City 
 to see that the American people were not plundered. 
 
 There are vast numbers living upon the stolen riches, 
 under the system which enables men to take actual money 
 for bogus capital, and thousands of families are developed 
 to spend their lives, simply disporting in luxurious indo- 
 lence, often in foreign countries. These are non-producers 
 wherever they go, and cannot be otherwise than a disad- 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 199 
 
 vantage. Even productive labor does not contribute to 
 the enrichment of the country when it is employed in pro- 
 ducing for their wants, so long as they are unproductive 
 consumers. A tailor who produces a coat for an unpro- 
 ductive consumer is only a temporary productive laborer. 
 When the coat is worn out the wearer has done nothing to 
 replace it, and therefore the country and society is no 
 richer than if the same money had been used for an amus- 
 ing trip in a balloon. 
 
 Suppose that all were unproductive consumers, the 
 maintenance of the country would be impossible ; it would 
 be stopped immediately. Suppose that the non-producing 
 consumer derives his costly means of living from the pro- 
 ductive consumers, who number considerably less than 
 one-half, and spends it in large measure in foreign coun- 
 tries, especially in luxuries. Then the annual injury to 
 the producing consumer, consisting of less than one-half, 
 is prodigious, and the poverty-making effect is enormous. 
 Suppose all this is done with money actually misappro- 
 priated or stolen, such as making bogus capital and charg- 
 ing it as real money. Then the impoverishing and oppres- 
 sive effects are incalculable. 
 
 In the declaration of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States of March 14th, upon the Sherman Law, Justice 
 Harlan stated that although the act has no reference to 
 the mere manufacture and production of articles or com- 
 modities within the limits of the several States, it em- 
 braces and declares to be illegal every contract, combina- 
 tion, or conspiracy, in whatever form, or whatever value, 
 or whoever may be parties to it, which directly or neces- 
 sarily operates in restraint of trade or commerce, among 
 the several States, or with foreign nations. Com- 
 binations even among private manufacturers or dealers, 
 whereby interstate or international commerce is restrained 
 are equally embraced by this act. 
 
200 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 Who will pretend that the bogus charges upon rail- 
 roads, with the special object of grasping dividends for 
 them by increased charges for transportation, are not di- 
 rectly and necessarily in restraint of trade? Were the 
 charges for transportation less, would not the costs of 
 commodities be less, and were the costs of commodities 
 less, would not the trade in them be larger? Were the 
 prices for steel products not doubled, in order to provide 
 the dividends for the more than one thousand millions of 
 bogus capital, would not the consumption be vastly larger 
 and the trade in steel products more free from restraint, 
 and then how the consumption at home and abroad would 
 be greater ? The same with all the other Trusts. Were 
 the price of refined petroleum not increased from $5.30 
 in 1893, to $8.50 in 1902, in order to provide enormous 
 dividends for the once bogus capital of the Standard Oil 
 Company, how much more the people would light up, and 
 how much more oil would be used, and then, how the 
 mineral oil trade would be freed from restraint! The 
 same with all other commodities which have been re- 
 strained in their use by Actionized prices for dividends for 
 a capital which only existed in the moon. The gas is 
 Actionized, the electric light is fictionized, the electric rail- 
 roads are fictionized, the beef and sugar and our other 
 foods are fictionized, the materials of our clothing are 
 fictionized, as well as those of our buildings. All are 
 fictionized in order to provide dividends for imaginary 
 capital, and consequently the trade in them is curtailed and 
 restrained, and therefore all must be adjusted, whereby 
 the consumption at home can be larger, and the exports to 
 foreign countries can be more, and then the people will 
 not only be contented, by getting more for their dollars, 
 but the millions of children will be emancipated from 
 grinding work for inadequate wages. 
 
 The American should remember that a country is in 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 201 
 
 many respects like a home, and if men were patriotic in 
 its best sense they would be as solicitous about the honesty 
 and purity of the nation as they ought to be about their 
 home. Every member who steals, every member who 
 takes something for nothing, every member who takes 
 more than his share, all who scheme something for noth- 
 ing, make hardship, privation and suffering for all the 
 others. Every abuse is a punishment of the people. When 
 an army of civilians consume vast wealth by cunning, 
 future generations are being provided with a chain for 
 their necks, as well as those who are now living. Were 
 the Government to form a large standing army, as advo- 
 cated by President Roosevelt, the country and people 
 would have to maintain a vast number of officers and 
 soldiers, who destroy gunpowder and other equipments, 
 who consume at a large cost, and produce nothing. All 
 the money would be extracted from the producers of the 
 country, and thereby cents would be taken from the peo- 
 ple's dollars. Moreover, the great number of officers and 
 soldiers lead idle and useless lives, which destroy the 
 moral fiber of themselves as well as those they environ. 
 Suppose the Government were to spend such money upon 
 obtaining the possession of the railroads of the country, 
 whereby food and all other products could be transported 
 for the minimum of cost for the working producers of the 
 nation. Then the people would get vastly more for their 
 dollars, and the condition of all would be greatly im- 
 proved. 
 
 The cause of the United States being the foremost of 
 all countries for high costs in the operation of its rail- 
 roads is not by means of payments made to its employees. 
 The Southern Railroad has bogus capital stock charged 
 upon it as real money for $180,000,000, for which divi- 
 dends are required every three months, and the larger 
 they are the more will the bogus capital stock realize upon 
 
203 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 the Stock Exchange. In view of such a diseased system, 
 is it not more than probable that there are other diseases 
 permeating the operation of this railroad, when it paid in 
 1901 one-fourth of its employees 74 cents per day, and can 
 charge the railroad with so much bogus capital, as if it 
 were real ? How can this great number of men, doubtless 
 with families, be true to citizenship or to the nation if 
 they are conscious of these nefarious bogus conditions, 
 and how can they become, with wages of 74 cents per day, 
 adequate consumers of the country's industrial products 
 and proper supporters of our factories and their workers ? 
 When the American people take their railroads from 
 the men who are operating them for private purposes, they 
 will secure transportation for about one-half, and the 
 beneficent effects in reducing the costs of the necessaries of 
 life will be enormous. Were the United States Govern- 
 rnent to possess the railroads, as inalienable public high- 
 ways, and pay for them at actual costs, with 3 per cent, 
 bonds, the nation would save largely by reduced costs of 
 operation, and enormously by not having to provide divi- 
 dends and interest for bogus charges. Because the rail- 
 roads of Germany are owned by the German people they 
 derive one-fifth of the revenues of the government from 
 them, as well as provide the German people with trans- 
 portation one-third less than the cost of railroad trans- 
 portation in Russia, and consequently the haulage of the 
 German railroads is double that of the Russian railroads. 
 Always when costs to the users are reduced the use is in- 
 creased. Then there would be no preferential rates, for 
 all being for the people, all the rates would be at cost. 
 There would be no secret rebates, because all was being 
 done for the owners, the people. The railroads, being for 
 the people, and not for the purpose of squeezing dividends, 
 there would be only one object, the minimization of oper- 
 ating costs.. Then men would not control railroads be- 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 203 
 
 cause they controlled bogus capital stock, but because of 
 their personal fitness and capacity. Freight and passenger 
 charges would not be determined by avarice, but upon 
 actual costs. The wheat growers of Minnesota and the 
 lumbermen of the other States would be entitled to the 
 minimum of charges, and products of the farms and other 
 products would not be rotting because of high cost of 
 transportation, while the people in cities were underfed be- 
 cause of high and prohibitive prices for them. There 
 would be a farmers' commission, appointed by the farm- 
 ers, as well as other commissions appointed by the other 
 users of railroad transportation, and these would adjust 
 the charges with the managers. There would then be no 
 oppression. All fictitious charges would be eliminated. 
 By all this one powerful enemy of good government would 
 be destroyed. The power of stock corporations in poli- 
 tics, in law, upon the judiciary, and upon the legislatures, 
 by means of unlimited wealth, to corrupt, is irresistible, 
 and will remain irresistible, until all bogus capital is ex- 
 tinguished, and therefore the fewer stock corporations 
 there are in the United States the better for the American 
 people. All industries and all other trading and produc- 
 ing combinations have been demoralized and incapaci- 
 tated from producing economically by the creation of 
 bogus corporations and bogus charges. Jones & Laughlin 
 of Pittsburg, and the Baldwin Company of Philadelphia, 
 can do more for themselves and better for the users of 
 their products, and are more efficient and economical in 
 their production,! as private concerns than any existing 
 stock corporation or Trust combination. When millions 
 of dollars of bogus capital are created, for which divi- 
 dends must be extracted from the people, a great motive 
 for plunder is created, which will swamp all public rights 
 for private interests. It is in the public prints that Jay 
 Gould paid $100,000 to the Republican party to get Judge 
 
204 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 Stanley Mathews upon the bench of the Supreme Court of 
 the United States, .and it is stated that patents giving 
 10,000,000 acres of land to corporations were issued by 
 the Department of the Interior of the Government be- 
 tween the closing hours of the office at night and the open- 
 ing of the office in the morning. 
 
DEPEAVED EINANOE. S05 
 
 THE REMEDY FOR TRUSTS AND TRUST 
 MAKERS. 
 
 No country in any part of the world, in the past or present, 
 was ever afflicted with such a blackmailing system as bogus capi- 
 tal charged as real money, which has grasped so much of the 
 national resources, for nothing, and for all those millions of Amer- 
 icans who obtain their bread by the sweat of their brow, who have 
 been thereby deprived of the common heritage of mankind, it will 
 be a grinding burden for themselves and their descendants for- 
 ever, unless it is undone by a special mandate in the ballot box; 
 and the consuming disease will grow by delay. 
 
 In the universe of thought there are truths which are as invin- 
 cible as momentous in their indications of coming disaster. One 
 is that whenever a people are tame and careless while their coun- 
 try's resources are being daily enslaved by politicians and bogus 
 capital makers, the complete industrial enslavement is only a 
 question of time. 
 
 Unless the great crime of appropriating 90 cents of every dol- 
 lar of all this country's vast and rich resources, by charging them 
 with thousands of millions of dollars of bogus capital as real 
 money, is undone, and the wrongdoers are made to disgorge, the 
 American people never can be free or contented, or obtain a just 
 share of the dollars, nor get a proper quantity of the necessaries 
 of life for a dollar. 
 
 How can the people of a republic be free or contented when 
 their country's resources, intended for the good and betterment 
 of all, have been chained up under the charge of bogus capital? 
 
 All the instability and fiction in our trade; all the hin- 
 drances to our commerce with foreign countries; all the 
 disabling of our industries, whereby their costs are the 
 highest of all countries; all the disputes with our wage- 
 earners upon equivalents, arise by intolerable conditions, 
 created by thousands of millions of dollars of bogus capi- 
 tal having been charged as actual money, and the proceeds 
 
206 DEPEAVED EINANCE. 
 
 taken, for nothing. There never was a machine so cheap 
 and effectual, for making ill-gotten wealth for an idle, 
 non-producing class, at the expense of an industrious 
 class, as the bogus-capital system. There is no restric- 
 tion upon the amount, and a thousand million dollars can 
 be turned out with the ease of making a quack doctor's 
 draught, which can be bought for five cents. Everywhere 
 in the United States almost every article of trade has been 
 corraled and charged with bogus capital, and real money 
 has been taken for it. In consequence, with all that this 
 country can produce, and ought to deliver, we are now 
 obtaining only fifty cents' worth of the necessaries of life 
 for a dollar. 
 
 With the growing greed for riches and debasing luxuri- 
 ous living on the one hand, and the intolerable conditions 
 under which children, women and men must work and live 
 in this bountiful country, with the gnawing consciousness 
 ' that the country's wealth and resources are being corraled 
 by stock-jugglers, and mingled with the desperation of 
 want on the other hand, how can a quenchless blaze of 
 hate and greed, of exhaustion and lust, be changed, ex- 
 cept by the American nation rising to a just sense of the 
 terrible situation, and demanding, by the ballot box, that 
 justice shall be done without fear or favor? 
 
 When we see that in 1900 there were only 29 cents of 
 every dollar of this country's great wealth and resources 
 left, for 91 in every 100 of the population, we see a fact 
 of unexampled importance to every American man and 
 woman, as well as to all the Americans unborn. It means 
 that sixty-three thousand million dollars of this country's 
 wealth and resources have been cornered by only 9 in every 
 100 of the population. In other words, there was as 
 much of the country's wealth cornered in 1900 as would 
 make 63,000 millionaires, and that as soon as twenty-nine 
 thousand million dollars more of the country's resources 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 207 
 
 were cornered, the whole of the property and wealth and 
 resources of the United States will have been cornered, 
 and then all the other 90 in every 100 will have to scram- 
 ble for a livelihood, and exist by favor, like the Helots of 
 olden Sparta, like the slaves of ancient Rome, like the 
 serfs of Russia, for then these 91 in every hundred of 
 Americans cannot possess any more share or interest in 
 their country's resources than these slaves had, in the 
 country in which they were slaves. But since 1900 more 
 than twenty thousand million dollars have been capitalized 
 by stock companies, and as soon as the bogus capital, of 
 which this amount is largely comprised, is matured and 
 established as regular dividend earners, by higher prices 
 and lower wages, there will be less than ten cents of every 
 dollar of the country's wealth and resources for 90 in 
 every 100 of the population, and these ten cents of every 
 dollar left will be secured by the few as fast as the Amer- 
 ican people will permit them. 
 
 All this has been made possible by the general permit 
 of Congress, and of the States Legislatures, to make bogus 
 or imaginary capital and charge it as real money! For 
 example, when the makers of the Steel Trust charged the 
 steel industry of the people of this country with more than 
 a thousand million dollars of bogus capital as real money, 
 they created charges in actual money upon the steel indus- 
 try equal to the dollars necessary for one thousand million- 
 aires — not temporarily, but for ever. This was not all 
 that these men did for themselves out of the steel industry. 
 They trumped up all kinds of charges by which they could 
 enter the treasury of the Steel Trust and take as they 
 pleased ; and they took for underwriting their own bogus 
 capital fifty million dollars in cash at one stroke. This is 
 how the millions go into the pockets of every 9 of every 
 100 of the population, and how the 91 others are left, with 
 industrial enslavement, increasing every year. Moreover, 
 
208 DEPRAVED EINANCE. 
 
 as the millionaires are created, as if by mushroom spawn, 
 there remain fewer workers in every hundred of the popu- 
 lation, which means that every year every actual worker 
 must carry and provide for more and more idlers, often 
 who are extravagant consumers; and the more idlers a 
 worker must carry and provide and suffer for, the more 
 complete is the enslavement; and the more and more the 
 number of the indolent non-producers will increase and 
 consume that which they do not produce. Already there 
 are 62 non-producing consumers in every 100 of the popu- 
 lation, who must be carried and provided for by the 38 
 others who produce. Each working producer in this 
 country — children, women and men — is already carry- 
 ing and providing for nearly three others, who are non- 
 producers and who consume, which is more than in any 
 other country in the world. Some are too old, some are 
 too young, others are incapable ; but many are indolent by 
 means of bogus capital having been charged as actual 
 money. 
 
 In every nation there are producers and consumers. 
 The elements of production are, first. Nature's bounty of 
 materials, which are, in this country, in incomparable 
 measure. The next is saved labor or capital — ^but this must 
 be real, and not bogii§. A nation with capitalists who are 
 genuine providers of saved labor, which is the only actual 
 capital, possesses a beneficent element of a commonwealth. 
 But the greatest enemies of a Commonwealth are the 
 frauds, who pillage the people so enormously by charging 
 fictitious capital as actual money. A labor union has no 
 more right to charge a thousand million dollars for bogus 
 capital to the public, than the makers of the Steel Trust 
 had to charge the steel industry of this country with more 
 than a thousand million dollars for bogus capital, as if it 
 were real money. 
 
 It is within the mark to state that ninety-nine of the 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 209 
 
 millionaires of the United States have acquired their 
 wealth, not by legitimate trading or giving equivalents, 
 but by the creation of bogus capital and taking real money 
 for it. Therefore, since bogus capital is unreal and 
 fraudulent, like a bogus house which was never built, what 
 just objection can be made to all the bogus capital and 
 mortgage bonds, which have been so fraudulently created, 
 being wiped out of their wrongful existence by a law of 
 Congress, which shall declare that all bogus or imaginary 
 charges upon the industries, railroads and other resources 
 of the country, which did not represent existing values at 
 the time they were created, are fraudulent, criminal, and 
 void; and whosoever shall give or receive considerations 
 of any sort, on their behalf, shall, when found guilty, be 
 sentenced to a term of imprisonment ; and that the persons 
 and properties of the wrongdoers, wherever found, shall 
 be and hereby are liable to reimburse the sufferers ? 
 
 The American people may determine by a general un- 
 concern, or by an indifference shown at the ballot box, 
 by sending the wrong men to Congress and to the differ- 
 ent States Legislatures, that they do not care for the future 
 of their country, and that they do not wish to disturb 
 the vast debts which have been, and are being placed upon 
 their country's resources, by which the complete enslave- 
 ment of the people is being accomplished. The bogus debt ■ 
 of thirty thousand million dollars upon this country's re- 
 sources, by which the American people obtain their means 
 to live, means that every man, woman and child in this 
 country have been charged with three hundred and sev- 
 enty-five dollars, and that when this debt is limited to the 
 twenty-nine million workers of this country, it is a debt of 
 more than a thousand dollars upon each. This debt has 
 been created by bogus capital being charged as real 
 money ; and not until the American people become alive to 
 the cause which is making them poorer every year, and do 
 
210 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 their duty in the ballot box, will their country be free, nor 
 will they recover their right to real liberty, and the real 
 pursuit of happiness. The American people may prefer, 
 as ancient Rome preferred, before its decay and fall, to be 
 quiet and tame while their country is being spoliated. It 
 may prefer the increase of a non-producing, luxury-using 
 and ostentatious wealthy class, such as have grasped 
 nearly all the wealth, and made slaves of all the others, 
 by which the downfall of Rome was produced. If the 
 American people prefer that out of such ruins an indolent 
 bogus-capital aristocracy shall be created, then they must 
 abandon all claims to be a sturdy, and independent, and 
 liberty-loving people, and must surrender all ideas of in- 
 dividuality, separate from servility and servitude. The 
 American people cannot have both. If permitted, the 
 bogus-capital makers will swallow up the others, and no 
 other power but that of a suffering and brave people can 
 extinguish the evil, and reinstate the pillaged property into 
 the hands of its legitimate owners, namely, the American 
 people. 
 
 It is not possible to turn to any page of human history 
 and find such a debauchment of human affairs as the cre- 
 ation of more than a thousand million dollars of bogus 
 capital, which was charged as actual money to the steel 
 industry, and the money was taken for nothing. But this 
 was only one of many instances by which the people have 
 been pillaged and made poorer, and placed under priva- 
 tion and often absolute want. The resources of this 
 country are enormous, and when free from bogus debts 
 they are capable of providing for the well-being and hap- 
 piness of all the American people. But nearly all the 
 cents of every dollar of the country's wealth have been 
 pillaged by methods no better than those of brigands, hy 
 less than nine in every hundred of the population, and 
 consequently the ninety-one others of every hundred of the 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 211 
 
 population are called upon to eat less, to clothe less, to 
 house less, and to endure more, to deny more, to possess 
 less home-life, and to live inferior lives, in order that the 
 others, who have not worked, but schemed the bogus into 
 the real, shall flounder in luxury, indolence and degrada- 
 tion, such as there is no record. With these facts it is 
 easy to understand how colonies of Americans, in differ- 
 ent foreign countries are supported like princes, and that 
 the amount of imports of precious stones and jewelry, in 
 1902, was more than thirty million dollars, while families 
 in New York City are receiving no more than four dollars 
 a week, and some of their regular meals are only coffee 
 and bread, and while the actual producers of the country 
 have dwindled down to thirty-eight in every hundred of 
 the population. 
 
 Human forces are never stagnant, especially when allied 
 with vast wealth. They are always like the enemy of the 
 great Swedish general, Gustavus Adolphus. His great 
 success was due to the enthusiasm with which he inspired 
 his troops. He used to address his soldiers^ pointing to 
 the enemy, and say : "These are your enemies, and they 
 will kill you unless you kill them." The same with riches 
 and poverty. They are increasing enormously, and 
 wealth grows in compound proportions when bogus capi- 
 tal can be charged as actual money. 
 
 Whatever remedial treatment bogus capital may receive 
 by the American people, none but the extinction of it will 
 be a remedy. Everything else will be a shifting expedi- 
 ent and a delusion. Bogus capital and mortgage bonds 
 never have been made except to be charged as real money, 
 and by the methods of the forger, A rehabilitation of 
 costs is absolutely necessary, so that a dollar can obtain its 
 full amount of commodities, without any blackmailing for 
 dividends, and this cannot be done until all the bogus 
 creations are annihilated. It is absolutely necessary for all 
 
213 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 the Americans who are now Hving, as well as those who 
 are unborn, that the cost of the necessaries of life are 
 made free from fictitious charges, and this cannot be done 
 until all bogus charges upon the country's resources, 
 whenever created, are extinguished. 
 
 These remedial rneasures will cause a development of 
 manufacturing industries and employ more labor, and will 
 give the people their due share of the necessaries of life. 
 Then manufacturers and farmers will produce more prod- 
 ucts, because more products will be required by both home 
 and foreign markets, and the fictitious costs of transporta- 
 tion, and the fictitious costs of all sorts will be extin- 
 guished, and a new era of commercial life and national 
 well-being will be made possible. No ethical, or equitable 
 principle can be urged against the extinction of fictitious 
 capital stock certificates and mortgage bonds. A whole- 
 some, vigorous, and competent commercial life, economi- 
 cal productions of agriculture, economical productions of 
 manufactures, as well as the necessity for economical 
 transportation charges, claim that their extinction is in- 
 dispensable. The certainty of the ultimate stoppage of 
 agricultural and industrial exports, unless costs are re- 
 habilitated, demand their extinction. 
 
 A more wholesome moral atmosphere, and a purer com- 
 mercial life, plead for their extinction. The betterment 
 of the people, the development of good citizenship, de- 
 clare that their existence is intolerable, and their extinc- 
 tion is essential. Every consideration for good, every prop- 
 er recourse against evil, demands that their extinction shall 
 be unqualified and immediate. The adjustment of ficti- 
 tious values to the real would give an unprecedented im- 
 petus to national growth, as well as to national well-being, 
 and then sunshine would come into millions of lives, 
 whose outlook at present, is hopelessness and despair. 
 Then the two million of children who overwork to barely 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 213 
 
 live, and who are competing with manual labor, will be 
 emancipated and started on a better pathway to good citi- 
 zenship. The millions of men and women who are over- 
 worked and exhausted beings by being under-fed and ill- 
 clothed, and inadequately housed, will be morally and 
 physically rejuvenated, and become better elements of the 
 national commonwealth. 
 
 The class which would suffer by the extinction of bogus 
 capital is mostly the recipients of its plunder, acquired by 
 nefarious means. Inordinate wealth, especially when ill- 
 gotten, is always debilitating, morally, mentally and physi- 
 cally, and the luxuries which it demands employs capital 
 in their production, which, were it devoted to the supply 
 of life's requirements, there would be more of them for 
 the people, and then the demand for labor, to produce life's 
 necessaries, would increase, and the wages of labor would 
 increase, and thereby the general real wealth and well- 
 being of the country would be increased. 
 
 The extinction of all the fictitious capital stock and 
 mortgage bonds in the United States would not make the 
 country one cent poorer, or one cent less wealthy. There 
 would be the same real wealth, with the incumbering fic- 
 tion eliminated. There will be the same metals of gold 
 and silver, but they will be dissociated from depraved 
 finance, which has dwarfed our industries, bled our 
 commerce, and impoverished the people at every oppor- 
 tunity. Money will be in more general circulation for 
 the benefit of all, because by the plunderers making resti- 
 tution th& people will possess more, and then, the dollar 
 will buy more. 
 
 There will be the same coal lands, the same iron-ore 
 lands, but they will be free from unjust burdens, and 
 thereby they will become a greater auxiliary to manufac- 
 tures, to home comforts, and to personal well-being. 
 There will be the same everything for the American peo- 
 
214 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 pie, when bogus capital, charged as real money, has been 
 extinguished, but there will be more for those who make 
 the country good and beneficent, and less for the unciviliz- 
 ing, non-producing bogus-capital maker, who has charged 
 it as real money, and taken the proceeds. Then every- 
 thing will cost less, just as the dollar will buy more, and 
 the men who are degrading themselves by the creation 
 of bogus capital and obtaining fraudulent livelihoods will 
 be forced to employ their energies upon methods of creat- 
 ing honest wealth. Then dividends, and dividends in un- 
 precedented measure, for illegitimate purposes, will not 
 be the supreme order of the day. Then humanity and 
 citizenship will not go to wreck and ruin for dividends 
 for a capital which is bogus and intended to defraud. 
 Then the human element, which is the real element of a 
 nation, will not be screwed down to the minimum wages 
 for the longest hours and at the highest speed to forge 
 dividends. Then everything will not be ground out of 
 humanity, with the ultimate object of discarding it. Then 
 the labor will not be exhausted to produce bogus divi- 
 dends, nor be prevented from recuperating because of the 
 high prices for the food they need, in order to make other 
 bogus dividends. 
 
 There will be the same houses, but being free from 
 bogus charges for capital they will cost less, and then 
 more will be wanted, and more will be used. There will 
 be the same building materials, but made free from ficti- 
 tious capital they will cost less, and consquently more 
 will be required for more home-life. There will be the 
 same manufactories, but more of them, because they will 
 produce their products for less, and when costs are less 
 the consumption is always more. There will be the same 
 ships, but delivered from the burdens of having to provide 
 dividends for capital which never existed. There will be 
 the same railroads, but emancipated from the weight of 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 215 
 
 imaginary capital, demanding dividends by high and often 
 prohibitive charges for transportation ; then the traffic on 
 the railroads will increase in a manner unprecedented. 
 Then the food, and clothing, and other necessaries of life, 
 will cost less, and the people will then use more, and there 
 will be more transportation wanted. Then the farm 
 products of the farmer will not be rotting on the farm, 
 because of transportation costs, while the people in cities 
 have not enough to eat. There will be the same working 
 people, but better fed, better clothed, better housed, and 
 all with less grind, and more of them will be wanted, be- 
 cause of the increased demand for products of all sorts. 
 When the people of this country are conscious that they 
 are not being juggled, in order to make dividends for 
 bogus capital, charged as real money, they will possess 
 new hope, new life, and become a new people. 
 
 We look in vain in every section of the country for a 
 compensating advantage to the American people for all 
 the degrading oppression which bogus capital has created 
 by being charged as real money upon the country's re- 
 sources. The only pretext for it is that the idle class 
 may be increased and possess more means of extravagant 
 luxury, and that the people who produce can be squeezed 
 more to provide for them. It is an established canon of 
 equitable law that the thieves shall restore the products of 
 their thieving, and not luxuriate with it while others are 
 suffering by the loss of it. They have taken our coal 
 lands, our coal mines, our coal railroads, and charged all 
 with capital which never existed, and yet they are charg- 
 ing prices to provide dividends for it, and have practically 
 told the miners "we want you only to be human machines, 
 to provide our bogus capital with dividends." They have 
 taken the railroads, and when there was any competition 
 they have stifled it, so that their exorbitant charges to pro- 
 vide their bogus capital with dividends could not be in- 
 
216 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 terfered with. They have taken our industries as a thief 
 in the night ; they have taken steel, and the means of its 
 production ; they have taken the iron ore, and laid all un- 
 der a tribute of fifty cents upon the dollar in order that 
 they can luxuriate more, and that the producers of the 
 country can consume less of the necessaries of life. They 
 have taken our children from school to work for divi- 
 dends for their imaginary capital, and given them rags 
 for clothing, and short hours of sleep, and food in scant 
 quantity. They have taken our women, and treated them 
 as dividend-producing machines for their loathsome and 
 fraudulent bogus capital. They have taken our American 
 citizens, intended to be the foremost citizens of the world, 
 and they have driven them like cattle, on a grinding ma- 
 chine, and handled them incomparably worse than their 
 own horses, in order to provide dividends, for devices of 
 plunder. They have taken all, and demoralized, de- 
 graded, and dehumanized them, and made all subordinate 
 to millionaire enjoyments, to millionaire indolence, and to 
 millionaire debasements, accomplished by taking the mil- 
 lions, not by legitimate trading of giving some equiva- 
 lent, but by palming off the spurious as the genuine. The 
 materials for our houses, the paper for our books, the 
 colors for our art, the tobacco for our smoke, the glass 
 for our windows, the furniture for our homes, the utensils 
 for our kitchens, the adornments for our walls, the cover- 
 ing for our floors, the fruit we would eat, the vegetables 
 we consume, the traveling we would do and the transporta- 
 tion we use, the clothing we would wear, all that can be 
 corraled and put under the control of bogus capital, have 
 been degraded by the nefarious demand for dividends for 
 them. It is more than ludicrous, it is blood-boiling to see 
 the creators of bogus capital, and their descendants, use the 
 proceeds to corral the means of fresh air, of places of 
 exceptional beauty — at the lakeiside, the seaside, in the 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 217 
 
 mountains, in the valleys — and then bottle them up for 
 themselves lest the people, the producers of the country's 
 wealth, in great measure, should taint them by their 
 presence. 
 
 Every worker who is under-fed is using too little of 
 those farm products which are rotting upon the farms, 
 because the cost of transportation is so high, in order to 
 provide the dividends for the bogus capital which has been 
 placed upon our railroads. The New York Herald, of 
 March 5, 1904, states that the prices in greater New York 
 for vegetables are $2.50 for a barrel of turnips, 15 to 20 
 cents for a head of cabbage, $1.50 for a bushel of carrots, 
 $1.35 for a bushel of potatoes. In this country there is 
 no scarcity of vegetables, while our people are starving 
 for them; but there is the bogus capital charged as real 
 money, upon our railroads, which must be provided with 
 dividends, and to provide dividends, the transportation 
 charges are not only excessive, but prohibitive, and such 
 as must let the vegetables rot, while the workers in cities 
 have not enough to eat or to pay the fictitious prices. 
 The price of codfish and halibut in our cities is now 18 
 cents per pound, and consequently our workers cannot 
 buy, and must do without. This is not because there is 
 a scarcity of this fish. Tons of halibut and codfish are 
 obtainable for a cent per pound on the northwest Pacific 
 coast; but the railroads have been pawned, and the money 
 has been taken by stock- jugglers, and they have left the 
 amount as a perpetual debt upon the railroads, and these 
 must be provided with dividends, and while these are pro- 
 vided with dividends the best of transportation is impos- 
 sible, and therefore the food on the northwest coast must 
 lie there unused, and the workers in the East must be con- 
 tented with haggard faces and under-fed bodies, and con- 
 tinue to grind for dividends for an imaginary capital. We 
 see the Beef Trust is bleeding not only the public by high 
 
218 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 prices, but bleeding the farmers and the stock-raisers, by 
 combining to pay them just the prices they please, because 
 they have the monopoly of the buying. The Beef Trust 
 is paying considerably less for the meats on the hoof, but 
 they have put up prices for their meats, about fifty cents 
 on the dollar. The adjustment of values, by the extinc- 
 tion of the unreal, by the destruction of the bogus, would 
 give an unprecedented impetus of health to national 
 growth and to national well-being. 
 
 The pernicious results to the trade of the country by 
 this system which gives vast wealth for nothing, and 
 creates an enormous debt upon the country's resources, 
 whereby the mines, industries and railroads are entram- 
 meled and incumbered and made less capable for produc- 
 ing economically, are indescribable. Daily the newspa- 
 pers are announcing disasters to banks and banking insti- 
 tutions by the officials lending or investing in bogus capi- 
 tal stock and mortgage bonds. All these would be pre- 
 vented were all bogus creations wiped out. Banks and 
 bankers, merchants and manufactures, working people 
 and farmers, are all made to suffer by the creation of 
 bogus capital. Banks suffer because they either are in- 
 volved, or lend their depositors' money, upon the bogus, 
 believing it to be the genuine. Most of the commercial 
 disasters of this country's past history have been by in- 
 flation, by accepting the bogus as the real, and no instru- 
 ment which is spurious can be so productive of disaster as 
 spurious capital, when it is charged as real money and 
 when the proceeds are appropriated for nothing. Every 
 year bogus capital is created in vast amounts and charged 
 upon the industries and railroads and other resources of 
 the country, and no equivalent of value is given or ex- 
 changed. Consequently every decade the trade of the 
 country is more precarious for honest traders, but vastly 
 enriching for the men who create the bogus capital and 
 
DEPEAVED EINANCE. 219 
 
 charge it as real money for themselves. The increasing 
 instability of trade is shown in the different decades, as 
 the bogus capital has been increased. 
 
 The degenerating effect upon honest trading by this 
 dishonest juggling of air-bubbles into wealth, is incalcul- 
 able. The oppression of the people who work, by these 
 men who scheme the necessaries of life into high prices, 
 in order to provide dividends for spurious creations of 
 capital, no better than counterfeit money, means bad trade, 
 means factory closing, means wage-earners without work, 
 means poverty widespread, and often ruin for thousands 
 of innocent and industrious men, women and children. 
 
 As bogus capital is increased the inflation of prices will 
 be greater, and the disaster and ruin will be in proportion. 
 From 1884 to 1902, 316 national banks failed in the 
 United States, besides more than 500 other banks, and the 
 chief cause, directly or indirectly, has been either mis- 
 representation or over-estimation of values, produced 
 largely, if not wholly, by bogus capital or bogus values 
 being accounted as the real. In contrast with all these 
 bank failures, the failures of banks in Canada, from 1890 
 to 1903, have been only three, because so little bogus 
 capital is charged as real capital in that country. From 
 the same cause the exports of Canada, in 1902, per head 
 of its population, were nearly $80, while the exports of 
 the United. States in the same year, per head of the popu- 
 lation, were less than $30. 
 
 The inflated period of 1893 which was much smaller 
 than the present period of inflation, because the creations 
 of bogus capital were then considerably less, demonstrates 
 the ruinous consequences of treating the bogus as the real. 
 In 1893 there were fifteen thousand commercial failures, 
 as well as 158 national banks, and 425 other banks and 
 banking trust companies. The Clearing House Exchange 
 of that year fell off to the amount of $13,800,000,000. 
 
220 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 The future has to face larger inflations of capital, and is 
 confronted with a terrible time of suffering and sorrow. 
 All may be traced mainly to the creation of the bogus capi- 
 tal and treating it as the real, and until the bogus is ex- 
 tinguished and only the real is counted, these times of 
 suffering and sorrow will be repeated. 
 
 The degrading influences upon the morals of the people, 
 upon trading morality, upon morality in private life, upon 
 political morality, and even upon standards of well doing, 
 and especially upon the ideals of youth by men in promin- 
 ent positions in commerce and religion, stock-juggling in- 
 dustries and other resources of the country into perpetual 
 debts by bogus capital creations charged as real money, is 
 so vast as to be inestimable. That religious bodies are 
 so ready to fight about creeds and vestments, and bow and 
 scrape to these captains of plunder, and accept their pol- 
 luted beatitudinal windows, and invite them to dictate at 
 an election to the Episcopacy, shows how religious life 
 is being degraded, as well as bedaubed by the same defiling 
 brush. 
 
 What can be the purifying and elevating force of a 
 Church, pretending to be in the world but not of the 
 world, when the chiefs of its Episcopate are worldly jolli- 
 fiers, distinguished for champagne and smoke? If we 
 could only have our Hogarth he would paint one of our 
 Bishops in his scenes. The irrestible conviction is, that 
 our Church is worldly, and that the chiefs of one section 
 are enamored with indulgence and luxury. Consequent- 
 ly, it produces metallic effects, and the quotient is metallic 
 prayers, metallic sermons, and worse than metallic lives. 
 No nation can be truly great without an active moral 
 force actuating popular opinion, and equal to the suppres- 
 sion of license and the enforcement of law. In some of 
 our show churches the first facial effect of some of the 
 men is unwittingly to button up one's pockets. This is 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 221 
 
 only natural. No man can be abandoned to avarice and 
 pillagery without facial debasement and indications of 
 the development of the.se passions. 
 
 No ordinary measures will meet the extraordinary con- 
 ditions which the Trust makers have created, by charging 
 bogus capital as real money, and thereby grasping the 
 wealth of the country. The American people themselves 
 must arise to the demand, and settle this great question, 
 or it never will be dealt with. A mandate direct from the 
 ballot box must go forth, that the people will submit to no 
 more enslavement of their railroads, industries and other 
 resources of the country, by bogus capital being charged 
 as real money, and that all fictitious charges of all de- 
 scriptions, whenever made, must be extinguished by a 
 special law, without delay. All bogus capital, whenever 
 made, must cease to exist. That no plan will meet the 
 atrocious conditions but extinction, is shown by the pres- 
 ent doings of the Beef Trust. The Beef Trust has been 
 systematically breaking the law, and has been guilty of the 
 worst of oppressive crimes. It ha^ been brought before 
 the law courts, and an injunction has been issued by the 
 court authorities, and a fine of five thousand dollars for 
 each day it continued to break the law. Each of the meat 
 packers has laughingly paid this fine of five thousand dol- 
 lars a day. But they began to set their prices to meet the 
 fines, and the lower prices which they have paid the farm- 
 ers and stock-raisers, and the higher prices for meat which 
 they have charged the public have increased their profits 
 upon meats more than one hundred and thirty-five thou- 
 sands dollars a day. These seven meat packers combined 
 together to buy, so that they are the only buyers, and 
 therefore, pay any prices they please. These seven meat 
 packers are the only sources of supply, and therefore can 
 charge any price they choose, and many of the indus- 
 trious poor are without meat, because they have not the 
 
222 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 money to pay the exorbitant prices, created to supply 
 bogus capital with dividends. On the ist of July, 1903, 
 the price for steers was $8.37 per 100 lbs. In December, 
 1903, while the fines were being paid, the price for steers 
 was $5.17 per 100 lbs., and the selling price has been in- 
 creased. This condition of the law in regard to Trusts 
 is extraordinary. Before the 19th of February, 1903, 
 Trust makers and their agents were liable to imprisonment 
 for some of their methods, more particularly the combin- 
 ing together to form monopolies and buy at low prices 
 and sell at high prices, in order to make their dividends 
 upon their bogus capital fat and large. Before the 19th 
 of February, 1903, the Sherman Anti-Trust law declared: 
 "That any person who shall neglect or refuse to attend 
 and testify, or to answer any lawful inquiry, or to produce 
 books, papers, tariffs, contracts, agreements and docu- 
 ments, if in his power to do so, in obedience to the sub- 
 poenas of lawful requirements of the Commission, shall 
 be guilty of an offense, and upon conviction thereof by a 
 court of competent jurisdiction, shall be punished by a 
 fine of not less than one hundred dollars nor more than 
 five thousand dollars ; or by imprisonment for more than 
 one year; or by both fine and imprisonment." 
 
 On the 19th of February, 1903, President Roosevelt 
 signed the Elkins law, which cancelled and made nugatory 
 this power to imprison under the Sherman law, whereby 
 the Trusts, with their power to earn fines faster than the 
 power of the law courts to inflict them, can profitabl)- pay 
 the fines, and increase the prices to more than provide 
 them, and so evade the law, as is being done daily by the 
 Beef Trust. The Elkins law declares : "In all convic- 
 tions occurring after the 19th of February, 1903, for of- 
 fences under the act to regulate commerce, whether com- 
 mitted before or after the passage of this act, or for of- 
 fences committed under this section, no penalty shall be 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 223 
 
 imposed on the guilty party other than the fine prescribed 
 by law. Imprisonment, wherever now prescribed as a 
 part of the penalty being hereby abolished." 
 
 Thus it will be seen that the Elkins law was specially 
 designed to protect law breakers, and Trust-making 
 plunderers, from being sent to prison, and that President 
 Roosevelt made himself the instrument to put such a law 
 upon the statute books of the nation. This shows what 
 a piece of India rubber he can be, when the people need 
 honest protection from the public thieves. When Presi- 
 dent Roosevelt signed this atrocious law, giving special 
 protection to plunderers, to keep them out of the peniten- 
 tiary, he rendered assistance to crime; he took from the 
 American people their only weapon to punish these 
 worst of law breakers, he made possible such doings 
 as those now being done by the Beef Trust, and 
 he sowed the seeds of more evil than can be balanced 
 by all the good which he can do during his Presi- 
 dency. The same doings of plunder are shown by 
 the Anthracite Coal Trust, which, according to the 
 wholesale prices of the United States Treasury, has raised 
 the wholesale prices of anthracite coal from $2.50 per ton 
 to $4.50 per ton, in order to provide dividends for the 
 bogus capital, which they created without rhyme or rea- 
 son, except to bleed the American people. The different 
 railroads owning the different anthracite coal mines were 
 summoned before the Interstate Commission to give an 
 account of their doings, and they flatly refused to answer 
 the questions put to them, and by the Elkins law, which 
 President Roosevelt signed, these coal owners and their 
 agents are not imprisonable, and can only be fined, the 
 amount of which they can recover more easily than the 
 law courts can make the fines. Were these wrongdoers 
 doing honorable work, in an honest way, there could be no 
 objection to making straight and honest answers. 
 
224 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 The object and aim of bogus capital is to plunder, and 
 only to plunder. Bogus capital is nothing but a decep- 
 tive tool for plunderers, and by it they have plundered the 
 American people enormously. Bogus capital is the weap- 
 on of schemers to pillage the workers. It never was, 
 and never could be, of service to honest men, but for the 
 plundering juggler it has made vast wealth, and for the 
 people it has created vast poverty. Shall the plunderers 
 keep their plunder, and the people be bereft of the proper 
 means to live is the question of all questions for the 
 American people. 
 
 If the American nation decides that the plunderers shall 
 keep their plunder, then the American people will be 
 poorer and poorer, and they must patiently settle down 
 to the worst form of increasing servitude, and the democ- 
 racy will be more and more a farce. Comparatively, 
 there is little more of the country's resources or wealth to 
 be grasped, and the American people have only to con- 
 tinue asleep or careless and all the grasping will be com- 
 pleted. The amount of bogus capital created during the 
 last seven years is more than is now left of all the re- 
 sources or wealth of the nation, which is not under the 
 control of the few. If the American nation decides, by 
 carelessness or indifference, that the bogus capital, which 
 has been so wrongfully created, shall continue to possess 
 so large a share of the country's resources, and shall in 
 the same manner corral the remainder, with no more 
 right than a thief holds his thievery, then more millions 
 of children must be added to the millions who are now 
 working for long hours for despicable wages, and are dis- 
 placing the men, for the dividends for the bogus capital. 
 If the American people decide to keep bogus capital in 
 power, and to give it dividends of blood, wrought out of 
 the lives of the industrious millions of children, women 
 and men, who must pay high prices with small wages, 
 
DEPRAVED FINANCE. 225 
 
 then the non-producing class of hixury-using indolents 
 will continue to increase, and be still more conspicuously 
 ahead of all countries of the world. If the American 
 people decide, by giving their votes and political support 
 to the same politicians who have betrayed them and their 
 country, then all hope of change for themselves and their 
 posterity must be abandoned, and the country will become 
 more and more only a grinding workshop of gaunt, under- 
 fed, under-clothed, under-housed human forms, worse 
 cared for than the cattle of their bogus-capital masters and 
 over-lords. 
 
 In all the different grades of society dividends are pro- 
 vided for bogus capital, but all charges settle down in the 
 end upon the grade which is at the bottom, which is the 
 poorest. The millionaire class pays, but it is a consumer 
 mostly of luxuries, and whatever it pays is always charged 
 to the grade below. The middle class pays, but whatever 
 it pays is charged to the grade below. The bottom grade, 
 the wage-earner, pays, but there is no lower grade from 
 which he can recover, and, therefore, all settles down 
 upon his class; and this is why food and clothing and 
 housing are so scarce for the wage-earner. For this 
 reason alone, the wage-earner ought to be protected from 
 the nefarious bleeding process, of providing dividends for 
 bogus capital. 
 
 When bogus capital is charged upon food, it means that 
 all the Americans who eat must pay a tax forever, to 
 provide the dividends, just as when sugar is charged with 
 bogus capital, the American consumer must pay seventy- 
 four cents on the dollar more than in England. This 
 means that every 174 cents' worth of sugar at th^ whole- 
 sale price here can be bought for 100 cents in England. 
 This means that every million dollars obtained every year 
 by thus bleeding the American people, the Sugar Trust 
 
226 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 can provide dividends for every twenty-five millions of 
 bogus capital which has been charged as real money. 
 
 When bogus capital is charged upon woolen and cotton 
 clothing material, and clothing, it means that all Ameri- 
 cans who wear clothing are taxed and must provide the 
 bogus capital with dividends, by paying higher prices. 
 
 When bogus capital is charged upon building materials, 
 it means that houses and rents and homes and home-life 
 are taxed, to provide the bogus capital with dividends. 
 
 When bogus capital is charged upon railroads, it means 
 that the American people are taxed to provide it with 
 dividends, by increased transportation charges upon food, 
 and the other commodities of trade and commerce, and 
 that thereby the farmer who grows products and the con- 
 sumer who consumes farm products, are taxed to fatten a 
 non-producing class which has obtained its indolence and 
 luxuiy by methods no less nefarious than those of the 
 worst of gambling dens. When a transportation tax is 
 placed upon food, then the farmer nets less for his farm 
 products, and the consumer must pay more for them, and 
 often farm products must rot, while the children, women 
 and men in cities must have meals of coffee and bread, 
 because the transportation charges are so high as to be 
 prohibitive. 
 
 When bogus capital is charged upon electric and gas 
 supply, it means that excessive prices and charges must 
 provide dividends. 
 
 When bogus capital is put upon coal, upon coal min- 
 ing, and upon coal transportation, it means that the costs 
 of all must be such as will provide dividends, which means 
 that thousands must live, and often die, without heat. 
 The same with kerosene oil. The more it is charged to 
 provide dividends for bogus capital, the more must the 
 people be fleeced when they buy oil. 
 
 Every dollar of bogus capital is designed to be provided 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 227 
 
 with dividends, and no dividends can be provided for bo- 
 gus capital without taxing the people, in the same way 
 the Turkish and Russian governments blackmail their 
 people. The men who have become magnates by the 
 manufacture of bogus capital and charging it as real 
 money, are powerful enough, and when they can make 
 bogus capital, they are depraved enough to initiate and 
 control the policy of the Executive of the nation, to 
 nominate senators, to get enacted laws for themselves and 
 the suspension of others. Legislatures are purchased, and 
 vast concessions are obtained for nothing. Men are in 
 power, not for the benefit of the State, but for their own 
 pockets, and this has been proceeding so rapidly and to 
 such an extent, that the country's resources and wealth 
 have been largely surrendered to bogus capital, charged 
 as real money, and the operation has been no more vir- 
 tuous than the play of a cai'dsharper. 
 
 When a farmer, or storekeeper, or other tradesman, 
 has so managed his business affairs that about ninety 
 cents of every dollar of his property has been swallowed 
 by stock-juggling sharpers, without getting any money 
 or other compensation in exchange, and the stock- juggling 
 sharpers are gradually getting hold of the other ten cents 
 in the same way, he must be worse than tame and stupid 
 if he is careless and indifferent about his future. But 
 were such a tradesman to discover that he had been 
 wheedled out of his property, not by borrowing or ex- 
 changing, but by the chicanery of stock-jugglers, putting 
 his property in debt for money which they had received 
 for themselves, he would feel that his position was becom- 
 ing more and more like that of the man who was between 
 the devil and the deep blue sea. But all these dire condi- 
 tions are existing in the United States for every ninety 
 of every hundred of the population, and yet nothing is 
 being done to stop the plundering. Nine of every hun- 
 
228 DEPRAVED FINANCE. 
 
 dred of the population have corraled the country's re- 
 sources to the extent of about ninety cents of every dol- 
 lar of all the wrealth, and then juggled them under the 
 control of bogus capital, charged as real money. This 
 has not been done by trading and giving trading equiva- 
 lents, but by charging bogus capital as real money. For 
 instance, when the stock-juggling sharpers created more 
 than a thousand million dollars of bogus capital and 
 charged it as real money upon the steel plants of the steel 
 trust, they put the steel industry under the control of 
 bogus capital stock, and took the proceeds for nothing. 
 In this manner the different resources of this country are 
 being, and have been, alienated from the American peo- 
 ple, until they are rapidly becoming a people without a 
 country, except to work in it, like the serfs who popu- 
 lated the serf estates in Russia. 
 
 There have been great crises in the experience of the 
 American nation, but the crises which produced the Revo- 
 lutionary and Civil wars were less momentous than now, 
 when bogus capital is swallowing up the resources and 
 wealth of the nation, and leaving ninety-one in every hun- 
 dred of the population with no more interest in its wealth 
 than that of a slave on a slave plantation. 
 
 Our leaders of religion and morality are winking while 
 some of their prominent members are thieving. Bishop 
 Greer, when speaking of lost morality in our buildings, 
 said : "Truth should be insinuated in the mortar, in the 
 bricks, in the steel, so that a house should be the habitat 
 of truth." But how much more apt, if he would apply the 
 same admonishment to living beings, and insinuate into 
 them the nefariousness of making bogus capital, and 
 charging it as real money upon the resources of the coun- 
 try, upon which the American people are dependent for 
 their existence. An ounce of practice is said to be worth 
 a pound of precepts. Why then, at a Bishop's consecra- 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 229 
 
 tion, employ an usher who is a prince among bogus capital 
 makers, and why should the unethical methods of bogus 
 capital making be indorsed in one of the prominent mem- 
 bers of an ethical society ? A great moral force is needed. 
 Holiness and bogus capital, and ethics and bogus capital 
 are being forcibly blended, and the moral force is being 
 negatived. We need a moral force, not for Sunday ex- 
 hibitions, but for practical ethics of utility, and until these 
 leaders of moral thought and instructors of youth care 
 more for realities, and less about the fattening materials, 
 their work is no better than beating the air. How can we 
 expect a purer political life, when moralists are talking 
 morals and practicing chicanery? We have much relig- 
 ion, but no morals; much ethical talking, but much un- 
 ethical doing, and, consequently, we have no moral force. 
 Where is the utility of institutions established for the 
 cultivation of the moral life, which can be indifferent and 
 silent while bogus capital is charged as the real, up to 
 one thousand million dollars at a stroke? The plunderers 
 are active and enslaving the country's resources by ficti- 
 tious and nefarious methods, and morality is asleep, and 
 religion is dazed by the loaves and fishes of the plunder. 
 According to the United States Census of 1900 there 
 are 38 workers in every 100 of the population, which 
 means that there are more idlers in the United States than 
 any other country in the world. Some of these 38 in 
 every 100 are too young or too old or incompetent, but 
 all the others are players of the most costly description. 
 It is not enough that the 38 in every 100 do the working, 
 so that the others may do their playing, but every con- 
 ceivable device has been invented by these non-producing 
 players to catch the workers at every move, like the spider 
 catches the fly, and then take the blood out of them for 
 the human spiders to disport with in luxury and indolence. 
 It is not enough that the workers must work, and work 
 
230 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 with a grind for long hours, and often submit to reduced 
 wages, as in the steel and other industries, but when they 
 spend their dollars of their wages they get only fifty cents' 
 worth of the necessaries of life for them, because the other 
 fifty cents are required to pay dividends upon the bogus 
 capital. It is not enough that the workers must grind and 
 produce all that the players can consume, but the players 
 must have steam yachts, and racing studs, and flunkies in 
 palatial houses, to play with — obtained by the proceeds of 
 bogus capital, which the players have imagined. But more, 
 it is not enough that the workers must work and grind 
 but they must eat less, and clothe less, and house less, and 
 not know what the morrow will bring forth, in order that 
 the pla)rers cannot only play extravagantly, but waste 
 extravagantly. 
 
 Such conditions of degrading servitude were never 
 known in the worst state of fallen Rome. They have al- 
 ready grasped about ninety cents of every dollar of the 
 country's wealth and resources. Therefore, every man 
 who has even a tinge of Trustism; every representative 
 in Congress and in the States' Legislatures, who has been 
 either asleep or awake in those positions of responsibility, 
 and not an active opponent of Trusts and Trust makers, 
 must be displaced by a better man, or the enslavement of 
 every American, as well as their country, Avill be com- 
 pleted. Every progressive nation must expect periods of 
 internal strife, and the next national strife for the Amer- 
 ican people must be against unholy and ill-gotten wealth, 
 which has been extracted from the country's resources, by 
 charging them with bogus capital as real money. The 
 Sherman law must be reinforced by the mandate of the 
 people in the ballot box, that bogus capital shall not en- 
 slave the American people, nor those resources of their 
 country by which they live, and, therefore, bogus capital, 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 231 
 
 whenever created, or by whosoever created, must cease to 
 exist, by a special law. 
 
 When the American people demand a special law to 
 make void all bogus charges upon the resources of the 
 country, whenever created, men will talk of the conse- 
 quences to capita], when they have been creators of bogus 
 capital. They will talk of injured trade, when they have 
 done it the worst of injuries. They will talk about abridg- 
 ing liberty, vv-hen they have not only abridged liberty, but 
 have put us into slavery. They will say it is destructive 
 to government, when they have destroyed government and 
 corrupted the legislatures, and given us an oligarchy of 
 wealth ! They will talk of the principles of justice, when 
 they have violated every one of its principles. They will 
 talk of the foundations of human liberty, while they are 
 luxuriating, in idleness, with the gains of our enslave- 
 ment. There must be strife against" that vicious and un- 
 holy magnate-making system, which corrals vast millions 
 by juggling bogus capital into real money. There must 
 be strife against the bogus-capital makers, who are taking 
 our Americans and degrading them in order to wrong- 
 fully grasp wealth and make themselves princes. 
 
 There must be strife against the sham of a government 
 which winks, while the people are industrially enslaved, 
 to make a few richer and users of luxuries and indolents. 
 There must be strife against all politicians who have co- 
 operated with the Trust makers to enrich themselves and 
 enslave the others. Justice will never be obtained; the 
 beneficent work will never be accomplished, unless all 
 political bosses, of every color, shade and party, are de- 
 throned, and shunned like a pest-house. Every American 
 who is untrue to himself, or his country, by accepting a 
 dollar for his vote, is making a state of slavery for him- 
 self, and is hindering the endeavors of his countrymen to 
 
232 DEPEAVED FINANCE. 
 
 obtain a hundred cents' worth of the necessaries of hfe 
 for a dollar. 
 
 The Rockefeller-Morgan interests have now under their 
 control about twenty thousand million dollars of the 
 wealth of the United States, or about one-fourth of the 
 resources of this country. In other words, these two men 
 dominate about one-fourth of the means of existence of 
 the entire American people. This does not mean that 
 these two men own or possess so much wealth, but they 
 possess that which controls it. They and their associates 
 possess mortgage bonds and capital stock charged to and 
 controlling about one- fourth of all the country's resources, 
 upon which they have invested some of their own money, 
 but most has been loaned by banks and banking institu- 
 tions, using their depositors' money for the difference. 
 When a man has one thousand dollars he can obtain ten 
 thousand dollars' worth of marketable securities, and by 
 the aid of the banks, using their depositors' money, he 
 can pledge the ten thousand dollars for nine thousand dol- 
 lars, and thereby control the whole. Were the man like 
 Rockefeller and Morgan, with their control of banks and 
 banking institutions and their ofificials, he would obtain 
 the use of the bank's depositors' money without using a 
 cent of his own. 
 
 This method of enslaving the American people and the 
 resources of their country has not been [accomplished by 
 the legitimate trading of equivalents, but by taking vast 
 amounts for nothing, while the people have been careless 
 about the ballot box. It is no exaggeration to state that 
 most of this great slice of the wealth of this country, upon 
 which the eighty millions of ^Vmericans are dependent for 
 their livelihood and existence, has been grasped by meth- 
 ods no less nefarious than those of the cardshaiper and 
 the keeper of the policy shop. 
 
 The American people who are the producers of the na- 
 
DEPEAVED FINANCE. 233 
 
 tion have been bluffed and bamboozled out of these essen- 
 tials to live, and often the means used have been no bet- 
 ter than those of the knockout-drop man in the groggery 
 store. These methods have not created wealth or en- 
 riched mankind, but they have cornered so much energy 
 and blood and muscle and bone. In a beehive there are 
 so many workers producing honey. Were one of the 
 drones to create bogus capital stock and mortgage bonds, 
 and charge them upon the honey as real money, for itself, 
 the transaction would not make more honey; it would not 
 make the honey more useful, or of greater actual value. 
 Such methods employed in human society do not create 
 wealth, but they wrongfully corner wealth from the 
 others, and thereby make them poorer, and lay upon them 
 the necessity of working more and consuming less in 
 order to make up the difference. 
 
 When a man corrals ah industry, and charges it with 
 bogus mortgage bonds and capital stock, and lays it un- 
 der the necessity of obtaining higher prices and lower 
 wages, in order to provide the yearly interest upon the 
 mortgage bonds and the yearly dividends upon the capital 
 stock, he does not create any enrichment of society, nor 
 does he increase wealth, but he thereby grasps riches 
 wrongfully from the others, and gives them nothing. 
 When Rockefeller-Morgan created the Steel Trust, and 
 charged it with hundreds of millions of dollars of bogus 
 mortgage bonds, and more than a thousand million dol- 
 lars of bogus capital stock, and divided the proceeds 
 among themselves and their accomplices, they did not in- 
 crease wealth, but decamped with wealth, and the Amer- 
 ican people have to make up the amount by higher prices 
 and lower wages. When Rockefeller increased the whole- 
 sale lowest price for refined petroleum from 31-4 cents 
 per gallon in 1893, to 7 1-2 cents per gallon in 1902, as 
 stated by the wholesale price list of the United States 
 
234 DEPEAVED EESTANOE. 
 
 Treasury, he increased the price more than one hundred 
 cents upon the dollar, but by this process he did not create 
 wealth, but he took wealth and impoverished the people. 
 When a seamstress is grinding in a garret with the light 
 of her oil lamp, and she is made to pay double for her oil, 
 to feed a bogus capital with dividends, she has less money 
 for the necessaries of life. When that family group is 
 sitting in the cellar in darkness, because the price of oil 
 has been doubled, that group is not only inconvenienced, 
 but degraded, and made inferior for the use and progress 
 of the Republic. When Rockefeller inspired the Copper 
 Trust and enriched himself so largely, by creating one 
 hundred and fifty-five million dollars of capital stock upon 
 about forty million dollars' worth of copper companies, 
 besides bluffing and bombarding the prices up and down 
 upon the "Stock Exchange, he did not create wealth or en- 
 rich society, but he took about one hundred million dol- 
 lars at one stroke from the pot of wealth of the American 
 people, and they must scramble more and suffer more, to 
 make it up. When Jay Gould took the Erie Railroad and 
 made its seventeen millions of bogus capital into seventy 
 million dollars of bogus capital, and charged it as real 
 money, he did not create wealth, but he enriched himself, 
 and thereby gave the American people more work to do, 
 more denials to endure, for themsehes and their descend- 
 ants for ever. 
 
 A real republic has God only as its master, and in a true 
 republic the people never can be bamboozled out of their 
 country's resources by a few, who create bogus capital 
 and charge it as real money. The sovereign power of 
 the people is at stake, it is in peril, and only two things 
 can strip the people of their rights — either the usurped 
 power of financial brigands, or the tame and stupid indif- 
 ference and carelessness of the people. It is to the peo- 
 ple's courage and fortitude, and their intelligent use of 
 
DEPKAVED FINANCE. 235 
 
 the ballot box, that we can only look, for the restora- 
 tion of the country's resources, and for that just and 
 equitable freedom from bogus capital by which they have 
 been viciously enslaved. 
 
 The rectification of the crime of charging bogus capital 
 as real money, done to the American people, is not to be 
 settled by any disregard of private rights in property — 
 when untainted by injustice or crime. Whenever rights 
 in property have been obtained in exchange for actual 
 equivalents, or industry and thrift, it would be as futile 
 as it would be criminal, for one injustice to settle another. 
 Anarchy was always the product of an impracticable 
 imagination, and those Socialists who would reduce all 
 humanity to one common level of a mechanical interest 
 in the country's resources or wealth are as chimerical as 
 they are unwise, and it is to be deplored that these two 
 sections of society are, by their extremes, so often terrify- 
 ing to conservative minds, who are seeking legitimate 
 progress. 
 
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