|
Was enacted which for the past twenty years has imposed a tax upon the people amounting to one billion dollars annually. A national Banking system was established which gave control of finance to a banking monopoly. By means of these and other laws capitalist combinations, monopolies, syndicates, and trusts were created and fostered, until they obtained absolute control of the principle avenues of industry, commerce and trade. Arbitrary prices are fixed by these combinations and the consumers –mainly the poor- are compelled by their necessities to pay what ever price is exacted. Thus during the past twenty-five years, -since the abolition of the chattel-slave labor system- twenty-five thousand millionaires have been created, who by their combinations control and virtually own the fifty billion dollars estimate wealth of the United States, while on the other hand twenty million wage-workers have been created whose poverty forces them into a ceaseless competition with each other for opportunity to earn the bare necessities of existence. What had, therefore, required generations to accomplish in great Britain and the continent, was achieved during the past twenty-five years in the Untied States, to-wit; the practical destruction of the middle-class (small dealers, farmers, manufacturers, etc.), and the division of society into two classes –the wage worker and capitalist. While the fabulous fortunes resulting from legislation enacted in the same of the people were being acquired, the people were not conscious of the evil effects which would flow from those laws. Not until the evil effects were felt were they aware of the slavery to which they had been lawfully reduced. The first great pinch of the laws was felt throughout the whole country in the financial panic of 1873-77, resulting in the latter year in widespread strikes of the unemployed and the poorly-paid wage class. In response to the demand for information upon economic matters, Bureaus of Labor were established in many States, as also for the general government at Washington. These statistics related to operations and effects of capitalism in the chief departments of industry and trade. The absorption of the smaller industries, etc., etc., into the great corporations, syndicates, etc., was very rapid. The national commercial agency (Bradstreet's) furnished statistics showing unprecedented bankruptcies. The Agricultural Bureaus of the various states have accounts of similar
|
