|
time: the necessities of the people constantly diminish. These are the forces that are generating the social revolution. There is increased profit for the capitalist; reduced wages for the unemployed increases, and the number of those who find employment decreases; capital is increased and piled up until we have some men in this country whose wealth can be estimated at over $200,000,000.
The speaker then strayed from the argument and gave some interesting figures in regard to Vanderbilt's fortune of over $300,000,000. He said if this amount of money was laid along in $1 bills it would reach 25,000 miles, or clear around the earth. If it was coined into silver it would take fourteen freight trains, each consisting of seventeen cars, pulled by two locomotives each.
He next quoted Bradstreet, of commercial agency fame, as follows: Last year there were 11,500 business men who went to their financial death, and of these 90 per cent, had a capital of less than $5,000 each. This shows that the capitalistic system is like the whale in the ocean – the big fish eat the minnows, and the big capitalists swallow the small business men. The property of these 12,000 men represented over $200,000,000/ Their bankruptcy did not mean that this money was destroyed; it meant that it was transferred to the richer fellow's pockets, and that there were 12,000 more men in the United States, who had been in business for themselves, now compelled to work for wages. Rich People maker their money in two ways: when they get property from the smaller business men they make it indirectly , and when they make it from the working classes they make it in a direct way, or straight. There were foreclosures of mortgages alone in the Untied States of nearly $500,000,000.
|
