Inequality

Distressing Suicide of a Female

A young girl named Ann Mason, committed suicide in Pittsburgh a few days since, at a house of bad repute, by taking poison. The Chronicle says, that a short time previous to her death she had been robbed of about $150, the result of years of laborious toil, and finding herself suddenly deprived of the means where with to obtain an honest living, she concluded that death was preferable to poverty and prostitution, and hence the suicide.

1845.07.03

A Corporate Dinner

Tall Feed—From the bill of fare, and other circumstances, we suspect the corporations had a pretty tall dinner at Stetson’s on Wednesday.

—National Telegraph.

Very likely – the bones and sinews of the hard working operatives have provided many a “tall dinner” for these luxuriating idle speculators. Two or three dollars for a quarterly dinner of the rarest dishes and most delicious wines is all quite consistent with “our Christian professors, principles of temperance and regard for the poor.”

“The times are so very hard and sales so dull, suppose they can’t afford to raise the wages at this time? We don’t wonder that these “tall fed” corporations want a protective tariff.

1845.07.03 

All men must remain free

“All men are born free and equal,” should be altered into “All men must remain free and equal,” as it is of but little consequence, to a chap how free and equal he is born, in case his freedom and equality ceases with his suckling.”

—Subterranean

1845.10.18

“Earning” their Millions

The Lowell Courier on Social Reform

…

The Courier further remarks: —

“The security of one’s own property to himself, lies in the very foundation of free government and human progress. Without this security the chief motive to excel in whatever is laudable, to provide for one’s self and his family, and to respect the rights of the others, would be taken away: when the rights of property are not respected, anarchy is always the precursor of despotism. When a man feels secure that what he earns will be his own, and no man can take it from him, he will be encouraged to labor and to go ahead.”

By the above, we should infer that writer wishes his readers to understand, that whatever a man possesses, that, he has really earned! Is this his position? Does he wish to base his arguments in defence of isolated capital and corporation oppression, upon such a foundation?

If so, we wish to ask him how it happens that one can receive three thousand dollars per year while another who performs more work, and creates more value to society, receives but three hundred? How comes it about that Abbott Lawrence and his coadjutors have “earned” their millions with little or no productive labor while men and women toil 12 and 14 hours in their mills and “earn” (receive) a bare subsistence? Simply because “one own property” or what he really earns is not “secure to himself.” If it is worth bat six cents for John Poverty to boil a potato, we cannot perceive how it should be worth six dollars for Abbott Lawrence to do, or superintend the same work.

Perhaps the corporation ingenuity of the Courier may give some light upon this subject on the principle that “light may come out of darkness.” Reader, see what work a man will make of reason, who has no great fundamental basis of action - who has no active faith in his own divine nature, or a higher or more rational destiny for the race; and who is blown about by every wind of interest, passion and policy, without any fixed principle of religion, philosophy or social life. 

“Wealth is ever changing, and the poor man of today may be the rich man of tomorrow:”

And this is considered the natural result of that state of society where property is most secure to the one who earns it!

Thus ends a long eulogy upon the state of society, for the security it gives to the possessor of property - by asserting that there is no security.

Multum in parce

1846.04.03

Human Life—A Parable

Two pilgrims were journeying together over a desert – one mounted on a camel, with a lofty padded cushion, and a canopy above his head. The other with unsandled feet, lacerated and scorched by the burning sands, and unturbaned head, which throbbed almost to bursting, with the sun’s fierce rays.

“God is great!” ejaculated the poor wretch – “oh! that he would relieve me from this dreadful agony! For what crime am I thus severely punished?”

“Poor brother, how I pity thee!” replied the well mounted traveler; but thou knowest that suffering is a necessary discipline for human beings. Be content with they lot.”

“Alas! if thou wouldst but let me mount they beast and ride one hour, my life might perhaps be saved. Thy sandals would protect thy feet and thy turban shield thy head.”

“My should is grieved for thee,” said his sympathetic friend, with a deep sigh; “but verily, if a camel had been best for thee, the wise Sovereign of the earth would not have withheld it. It is our duty to bow to the behests of Providence.”

Onward they journeyed – one feeling as much compassion as a heart overflowing with gratitude could contain; the other trying to solve the problem, why such strange inequality should exist.

Another hour – and the bleeding feet, and aching brow, and bursting heart, weren’t rest on the desert.

The favorite of Heaven – or Fortune, looked down from his comfortable seat and exclaimed, “Unfortunate friend, would that Heaven had bestowed on thee a camel, that I might still enjoy they companionship and not be obligated to cross the desert alone; but the good God be praised that he has preserved me from so dreadful a fate as thine.”

1846.05.01

The Rothschilds’ Wealth

From the Dollar Newspaper, Philadelphia

The Fruits of a Bad System

The Rothschilds have a fortune of $156,000,000; and Lord somebody, who lately died in England, has left a fortune of 50 millions of dollars. Though the Rothschilds operate in Paris and London, yet Frankfort, Vienna and other German cities, have been and are the principle theatre of their business. And in what has this business consisted? In buying and selling stocks; in negotiating loans, or standing between lender and borrower, and receiving payment for transacting their mutual business.

We urge nothing against this business, as we participate in no groundless prejudice against brokers. They hold the same position between borrowers and lenders, or buyers and sellers of money and evidences of debt with merchants between producers and consumers. Like merchants, they are distributors.

But we do complain of the system which reduces millions to extreme poverty, and all its consequent miseries, and enables one manor family to amass, in a single generation, 150 millions of dollars. Ten thousand dollars, invested in a farm, a mechanical trade, or in commerce, will afford an ample provision to a family of moderate numbers, and is more than most farmers, mechanics or merchants possess, even in our country of general distribution. The wealth of these Rothschilds, thus divided, would supply 15,000 such families. Divided in portions of $5,000 more than the majority of our farmers and mechanics possess, it would supply 30,000 such families, and at the rate of five persons to each family, would afford, with reasonable  labor, all the comforts of life to 150,000 persons. Hence 150,000 persons must be reduced from comfort to absolute destitution, to enable one family to own 150 millions of dollars! Such a system is awful! The statistics of Berlin, the capital of Prussia, with a population of 352,000 show about 70,000 paupers and criminals, the latter being driven to crime by poverty? It is produced by bad government, producing standing armies, royal luxury, governmental loans, paper money, stock markets, monopoly of land and money, landed barons and rag barons […]

And we are rapidly building up the system. One individual in the East can own five millions of acres in the West, and thereby compel 31,250 men to remain landless paupers, instead of becoming independent farmers. And a bank can lend $700,000 to another “enterprising person” to speculate in stocks, while it will not discount a responsible mechanic’s note for $500. And so we go, building up a system that builds up Rothschilds and paupers! And where will it end? Just where it has ended in England and Germany. Just where will that end? Just where it ended in France in 1789! Like causes operating upon like subjects, always produce like effects. So God has decreed, and so man cannot repeal. These Rothschilds, while accumulating 150 millions of dollars from the pockets of others, have not added a cent to the wealth of the world. They have not raised a potato, or manufactured a button, or distributed an ounce of bread between farmer and mechanic, or any others. We say this in reproach of the system, not of them.

The system is founded upon the very vices of the political and social constitution. And thus through a system originating in mischiefs which ought not to exist, and which would not exist under a good government, well administered, is one family able to accumulate enormous wealth, and thus create multitudes of paupers and criminals! Retribution must follow, and as it has followed, “Vengeance is mind, and I will repay, saith the Lord.” – “And I will visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation, of them that hate me.”

1846.07.03

Queen Victoria’s income

Queen Victoria’s income, says a late English  paper, amounts to the snug little sum of  500,000 pounds per annum, or nearly equal to  two millions five hundred thousand dollars  yearly. This would make in round numbers $48,076 per week, $6,868 per day, $232 per hour, $4.70 per minute.

1846.12.18 

Fifty Thousand to Harvard

Abbot Lawrence has made a donation of fifty thousand dollars to Harvard University, an act that is heralded far and near by the press, and indeed it is a noble donation. A few days since, we saw a little news-boy meet an emigrant who had just landed on our shores. He was weak and thin from hunger and destitution, and had scarcely clothes enough to cover his body. He stood and looked wistfully in at a neighboring restaurant. The little news-vender eyed him, and fumbled in his own pocket, and even let a passerby go unobserved, while he watched the poor man. At last he stepped up to him, and gathering up the whole of his small earnings for that day, he emptied the coppers and tips into the poor man’s hands, and tripped away, crying his papers again. That boy, perhaps, was the possessor of one or two dollars – his all. Abbot Lawrence’s yearly income (leaving principle out of the question) is scarcely short of $200,000.

—Odd Fellow

1847.07.16

Distribution of Wealth

The total value of the property of Great Britain is estimated at $25,000,000,000, and the annual value of the product at $2,500,000,000.

The total value of the property in the United States of America does not exceed $6,000,000,000, and the total value of our products are estimated at about $1,200,000,000.

If the property of Great Britain was equally divided amongst the population it would give near $5,600 to every family of five persons, and if the annual income were thus divided, each family would have $500.

The same division in the United States would give each family $1,00 of property, and for an annual share o the products $300.

It will be perceived that the income of Great Britain is less in proportion to its capital than that of the United States, but from the fact that their labor is directed to such pursuits as admit as much greater application of labor saving machinery and having an immense amount of capital thus invested, their animal products are greater in proportion to their inhabitants than in this country.

Though the annual income of Great Britain, if equally distributed, would be so much greater for each family than the United States, and enough to bring plenty and rejoicing to their millions of starving subjects in Ireland and Scotland, ye owing to the monstrous inequality of tis distribution, much more suffering and destitution exists there than here. But we have every reason to apprehend the increase of capital here will be attended with the same accumulation in the hands of the few and consequent suffering amongst the laboring classes if no potent remedy is devised to arrest its aggregating tendency.

This prediction is already demonstrated in a measure by what has already taken place in the more wealthy portions of our country. For instance, if the capital of New York city were distributed amongst its inhabitants, it would give to each family about $3,500 each, and the income of her opulent commerce, &c. would divide annually six or seven hundred dollars. But it is here where the greatest destitution.

—True Democrat

1847.07.23