system. Nothing in society is more degrading and despotic than the tyranny of concentrated wealth. CAMERON AND INGALLS. Senator Don Cameron, of Pennsylvania, in a letter dated June 11, 1894, addressed to the Republican League clubs in session at Denver, Colorado, said: The single gold standard seems to me to be working ruin with violence that nothing can withstand. If its influence is to continue for the future at the rate of its action during the twenty years since the gold standard took possession of the world, some generation, not very remote, will see in the broad continent of America only a half-dozen overgrown cities keeping guard over a mass of capital and lending it out to a population of dependent laborers on the mortgage of their growing crops and unfinished handiwork. In commenting upon Mr. Shearman's figures, Senator Ingalls, in a speech delivered in the Senate January 14, 1891, said: Mr. President, it is the most appalling statement that ever fell from the lips of man. It is, so far as the results of democracy, as a social and political experiment, are concerned, the most terrible commentary that ever was recorded in the books of time; and Nero fiddles while Rome burns. It is thrown off with a laugh and a sneer as the "froth on the beer" of our political and social system. ... Our population is sixty-two and a half millions, and by some means, some device, some machination, some scheme, some incantation, honest or otherwise, some process that cannot be defined, less than a twothousandth part of our population have obtained possession, and have kept out of the penitentiary in spite of the means they have adopted to acquire it, of more than one-half of the entire accumulated wealth of the country. . . Our society is becoming rapidly stratified — almost hopelessly stratified into the condition of superfluously rich and hopelessly poor. We are accustomed to speak of this as the land of the free and the home of the brave. It will soon be the home of the rich and the land of the slave. . . ... A financial system under which more than one-half of the enormous wealth of the country, derived from the bounty of nature and the labor of all, is owned by a little more than thirty thousand people, while one million American citizens, able and willing to toil, are homeless tramps, starving for bread, requires adjustment. A social system which offers to tender, virtuous, and dependent women the alternative between prostitution and suicide, as an escape from beggary, is organized crime, for which some day unrelenting justice will demand atonement and expiation. Why do not the political leaders of this country, who have charge of the government, raise their voices against this evil, and provide a remedy by which the wealth can be more evenly distributed? They know the evils which follow the concentration of wealth. Why do they not protect the people of this country from the fate that has befallen the older nations of the world. Simply because the conventions which nominated them were controlled by the twenty-five thousand millionaires who own the wealth; consequently a politician has more to fear from one man of wealth than from a hundred or a thousand men who create it; and because the people in the past have thought more of their party than of their property. The politician will never act otherwise until the people rise and demand their rights in legislative halls. THE CAUSE. The next question is, Why is it that within the last thirty years more wealth has been concentrated in the hands of a few people than during the 246 years which preceded them? Why is it that those immense fortunes have been accumulated in such a short time? There must be a cause for it, otherwise these conditions could not exist. Is it because the millionaires have worked harder than other classes? No. Is it because they have saved their earnings better? No. It is because Congress has so shaped our laws that the wealth has been legislated out of the pockets of the masses and into the pockets of the classes. These millionaires are the result of a system of class laws, which caused the wealth to flow in one direction. Every time these laws legislated one dollar into one man's pocket, they also legislated one dollar out of somebody's pocket. I do not mean that Congress can create wealth, but I do say that our lawmakers can grant special privileges to one class at the expense of all others, and this is what Congress has been doing within the last thirty-five years. All that is necessary to prove this is to study the financial history of the United States since 1860. THE EXCEPTION CLAUSE. In 1862 Congress passed an act authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to issue legal-tender Treasury notes, known as greenbacks. That act also provided for two exception clauses on the back of each note, which said, "This note is receivable for all debts, public and private, except interest on the public debt and duties on imports." Every debt could be paid with these notes except those two; by law they were payable in coin. This act created such an unnatural demand for coin that a gold dollar or a silver dollar at one time was worth $2.85 in greenbacks. Thus every dollar the banker and money-broker made in exchanging coin for greenbacks, was money legislated into their pockets and out of the pockets of the people. This demand for coin was created by law. These two exception clauses were placed on the back of these notes for the special benefit of that class who owned the coin. Congress so shaped the law that the money-brokers could reap a rich harvest at the expense of the people. (To be concluded in THE ARENA for October.) THE FUTURE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. A REPLY. BY DAVID OVERMYER. HE Forum for February, 1897, contains an article by TH of "The Future of the Democratic Organization." As organization is only a means to an end, it would seem that the end sought by the great mass of the Democratic people must necessarily determine the future of the organization. To ascertain the course likely to be taken by the Democratic party, it will be necessary to consider the conditions, economic and social, which exist in this country, how such conditions are regarded, and how they will be treated by the people. And yet, if we except a slight reference to sumptuary laws, Senator Hill utterly ignores the existence of any condition in this country requiring the attention of wise statesmanship or even sagacious political leadership. Within the lifetime of the Senator himself such vast changes have taken place in this country as never before occurred in the world in any period of ten times the same duration. He has seen the population increase from 20,000,000 to 70,000,000 of souls. The aggregate wealth of the nation has grown to $70,000,000,000, three-fourths of which is owned by less than two hundred thousand persons. All business, trade, commerce-in short, all enterprise- has been incorporated. He has seen the independent, self-respecting mechanic pass away; in his place is the operative of machinery of marvellous power, propelled by steam and electricity, and owned and operated by capital without other human agency than that of hired men. He has seen the machine take the place of the man, and money take the place of manhood. He has seen the production of every staple monopolized, and the profits arising from the united endeavor of all, concentrated year by year in fewer and fewer hands, while transportation, pooled and combined, plunders the public, baffles the law, and mocks at justice, and department stores devour competition. Mining, manufacturing, indeed all staple production save that of the fields, being absolutely controlled by trusts, a handful of men are enabled to limit the output and thus to control the supply and dictate the price to the consumer. It being impossible for farmers to combine, by reason of their numbers and wide dispersion, the amount of their production is not susceptible of arbitrary limitation. The land pirates have therefore seized the great marts to which the farmers' produce must go, and thus monopolizing the avenues through which his produce must reach the consumer, cornering opportunity, fencing in the fountain, and bestriding the stream, they dismiss the bewildered farmer with a pittance and with the bland assurance that all things go by the great law of supply and demand, and proceed to reap such profits as the wants of a world will afford. Then there is the gold standard, the monopoly of money; also the fact that the land is now owned largely by landlords, and tilled by tenants, while the national taxes are laid upon labor and consumption. Aside from the fact that our vast acreage and relatively sparse population afford an opportunity to live, out of proportion to the relation between numbers and property values, our condition is worse as a people than that of the French at the outbreak of the revolution. The absolute silence of Senator Hill concerning these most grave and menacing conditions, forces me to exclaim: "Art thou a leader in Israel and knowest not these things?" Does the distinguished Senator really suppose that a party of the people can shut its eyes to these things? This article is in the main a repetition of the Senator's argument against the platform in the Democratic National Convention of 1896. All that he says respecting the honorable and patriotic action of the Democratic party, and its heroic sacrifices and services during the Civil War, its intrepid and glorious defence of constitutional rights and of the writ of habeas corpus; all that he says against protection and in favor of civil, religious, and personal liberty and |