A thousand subtle ways of
levying, all combining to pour in upon the few the torrents of unjust
wealth. I laugh when I read of laboring men striking for higher wages.
Poor, ignorant fools--they almost deserve their fate. They had better be
concerning themselves with a huge, universal strike at the polls for lower
prices. What will it avail to get higher wages, as long as the masters
control and recoup on the prices of all the things for which those wages
must be spent?
I lived in Wall Street, in its atmosphere of the practical morality of
"finance." On every side swindling operations, great and small; operations
regarded as right through long-established custom; dishonest or doubtful
operations on the way to becoming established by custom as "respectable."
No man's title to anything conceded unless he had the brains to defend it.
There was a time when it would have been regarded as wildly preposterous
and viciously immoral to deny property rights in human beings. There may
come a time--who knows?--when "high finance's" denial of a moral right
to property of any kind may cease to be regarded as wicked; may become a
generally accepted canon, as our Socialist friends predict. However, I
attempt no excuses for myself; I need them no more than a judge in the Dark
Ages needed to apologize for ordering a witch to the stake.
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