426 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION, 



ters of living fire in the history of financial legislation in 

 modern times. 



u History will repeat itself." If we travel the same 

 road we cannot escape the same doom. The history of 

 the pauper labor of the States of Europe will be the 

 history of our children and their posterity; they will rise up 

 and curse the day that we forged the chains that bind 

 them to a condition of serfdom worse than slavery. The 

 wealth of the nation, by the aid of class laws, is being 

 centralized in the hands of a few individuals. Wealth is 

 power, and the centralization of wealth is the centraliza- 

 tion of power; avoid it, as you would avoid the bite of a 

 deadly serpent. We have been warned by the teachings 

 of Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln and Stephens. Statesmen 

 have sounded the death warning in the legislative halls; 

 philosophers have taught it in the schools of science; 

 historians have emblazoned it on the pages of the world's 

 history, and poets have reduced it to epic song. 



"Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey, 

 Where wealth accumulates and men decay; 

 Lords or princes may flourish or may fade; 

 A breath can make as a breath has made; 

 But a bold peasantry, our country's pride, 

 When once destroyed can never be supplied." 



Goldsmith* 



But it must not be, oh, my countrymen; there is yet 

 patriotism enough left to enable us to rise above the 

 low plane of partisan prejudice and crush this monster 

 monopoly. ' ' 



As early as 1862 the capitalists of Europe foresaw 

 that the civil war in the United States would involve the 

 people in an enormous debt. They hailed the event with 

 manifestations of devilish delight, as |it gave them the 

 long sought opportunity of undermining the free institu- 

 tions of America. Twice had the British lion been 



