may be made to take their place. We must k both in order to understand either.

We must proceed from the individual-th、 No government is better than its people. On contrary, every government is less progressive than the people, for you cannot improve any thing before you know how. The intelligence must precede, and that must originate in the individual, and spread to the various units and then take effect on the state. fore each of us must know himself first.

There

NOTE. "Big Business," washing the hands of their captains: In all issues of their big press and other publications, you can read about what noble patriots (?) we have in the men who profit by the war, while it is the plain, toiling people who are really supporting the entire system, including the payment of the profits to the big fellows. Here is an example, taken from page 12 of a pamphlet issued June 1, 1917, by Otto Kuhn:

'And if one may be singled out where all have done so magnificently, I am sure that I voice the sentiment of all of you in expressing the tribute of our gratitude and admiration to Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip, the Chairman of the Publicity Committee of New York's Liberty Loan Committee.

"A more public spirited and patriotic citizen the Republic does not possess, nor the business community a more valuable or one more worthy of honor."

Mr. Kuhn is a leading member of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., and Mr. Vanderlip is president of the National City Bank of New York City, these being two of the five firms which the committee appointed by Congress to investigate the Money Trust, found by the evidence had done more than any other to strangle all the independent business men and firms of the country; that they were the heads of the Money Trust, organized to absorb the earnings of the people, and keep them toiling for it. (See page 128, this book.) You will find quoted from a circular issued by Mr. Vanderlip's bank to the other banks, a decree to them to keep the people paying high rates of interest. Yes, these men are patriotic (?). They subscribe liberally to everything that helps them, and then charge the people for what they subscribe. The plain people who get no benefit by way of profit out of the war are the only patriotic people subscribing.

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CHAPTER IV

THE EXPLOITERS

Leslie's Weekly Magazine recently published a series of articles entitled, "The Builders of America." Other magazines published similar articles. The purpose was to make the public believe that certain "big business men, one or more of whom had his picture in and was described and eulogized in each issue, had done a great service for America.

Any one who understands the economy of things could appropriately paraphrase the title of the articles to embody the true meaning of the text but use the same personal cuts and call the title, "The Cancers in American Business," and show by the text, conforming it to the true facts, that the subjects of the sketches are the "Destroyers of America's Independence." That fact notwithstanding, we have no cause for condemning these men, but instead we should change the system that makes them and their like certain to exist. Emphatically, we should not let them make us believe that they are, "The Builders of America," but on the contrary we should make them understand that we know that they are the "Cancers in America's Business."

They Try to Justify

They say to us that we all have an equal opportunity, and that it is our fault that we do not become rich. They seek, however, in every way possible to prevent us taking the only opportunity we have to all become successful, for they know that if we did, it would end their exploits. It is our fault that we do not take the advantages, we have, for we can never all, or even any

proportionally large number of us be successful if we follow their plan, and that is what we have done. They keep in politics, on the sly, to force us to follow their plan. Under their plan but few can succeed.

As pretended proof that there is an equal chance of success for us all under their plan, they cite Rockefeller with upward of $20,000,000 annual income upon his billion or more of capital, an income admitted by his own agents and generally supposed to be three times that; they cite the late J. P. Morgan who had nearly as much wealth; they also cite other wealth grabbers, grouping several, each of whom began as poor boys— "look at these men," they say to the public, "go, each one of you, and do likewise."

It is the "special privileged" who tell us to "go and do likewise," but they know to a certainty that it is only possible, here and there, for one of us to do it, and that it can be done only under their system, for their system takes the wealth from the rest of us. Therefore if we all "go and do likewise," we will have to find a new world with a vast population that will let us play that "skin game" on them.

It is like as if the Government would set aside in the far West out of the public domain, a tract of a 1,000,000 acres of the best land there, and say to the poor people in New York City, "the first of you who can get there and put foot on that land may have it." Now that presents an equal opportunity for them all to begin with, but the one first in the race who puts foot upon that 1,000,000 acre tract would exclude the rest. So when Rockefeller grabs off a $20,000,000 or $60,000,000 block of profits annually, he takes what many thousands of others have been excluded from, and the unfortunate thing of it is that he did not earn it, while they did.

Oh no! The evidence which the wealth grabbers offer as the proof of an "equal opportunity to all," is positive proof to the contrary. It proves the success of the masses to be impossible under their plan, and, as we have seen, it is their plan that we are working under. The wealth grabbers did not produce what wealth they have. It is impossible for any one person to earn so much, or even any considerable portion of it. They simply extort it from the products of the toil of others, and the toilers secure that much less of what actually belongs to them.

The Exceptions

Some persons are inventors, and discover new methods to apply human energy that secures better result in the way of production. They are entitled to certain credit for whatever of advantage they give to humanity. Edison, Ford and other persons of genius, who devise plans for improvement come under that designation. It is not against the man or the plan, when the plan is good, that we object, but we do object to predatory wealth running our nation as it is certainly doing now-politically as well as industrially.

No one who gives it study doubts, for instance, that the manipulations of John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan & Co., Kuhn, Loeb & Co., and the others of their kind, deprive the toilers of the most of their earnings, and incidentally in running their business these big speculators are forced to employ able assistants to aid them in their schemes. Some of these assistants have also become immensely wealthy preying upon the country's business. What is true of these speculators is equally true of most great fortune grabbers.

It is true that existing laws and business practices do give a few of us a remote chance to acquire great

wealth. A few are slick enough speculators to get it; others get it by accident, but these laws and the practices under them absolutely destroy the opportunity of the masses.

Charity

There is another form of justification offered by themselves for the favored class. It is that with their fortunes they found colleges, churches, elemosynary institutions and charitable works of different kinds. Even if the beneficiaries of such institutions felt entirely free, which in many cases they do not, to regard themselves independent of obligation to their founders, and would deal with the public as free men and women should, even if this were so, are we who labor in the various fields of enterprise to consent to be deprived of our earnings are we willing that any man or set of men, however, good and liberal they may be in giving away our earnings, shall by force of circumstances and practice, be able to take the products of our toil as they see fit, to use them for any purpose whatever? Certainly not. Those who earn in the sweat of their toil should be able to dispose of their own earnings, and not be forced to see others do it for them.