.B8S D O BBS / HB 821 B85 Copy 1 V Distribution and Control of Wealth R. P. BRORUP COPYRIGHTED BY THE AUTHOR 1911 NORTH AND SOUTH BOOK CO. MIAMI, FLORIDA CCI.A280545 * *THE DISTRIBUTION AND CONTROL OF WEALTH The distribution and control of wealth is not the most important question in this country; but it is a question of importance in all countries. Some years ago, while dis- cussing a more important question, digression was made long enough for the following expression : "It is not to be denied that if the capitalists have shown heartlessness and depravity to a degree of irrationality, the people of our race have shown weakness to a degree that naturally leads to their displacement and extinction. They have been impressed by the glitter of a material show, rather than by the loss of their race and civilization. Even when the capitalist alienates the wealth of the country with the same freedom that he alienates the country itself, and sends millions abroad to buy a foreign title for his daughter, they are impressed rather by the glitter of the show than by the injury and disgrace of the transaction. A prosti- tution of the wealth of the country by capitalists and for- tune-hunters that would not be tolerated by any nation with a national sense of self-respect, and that has made us a spectacle and derision to the world. "Next to the alienation of the country itself, the alien- ation of its wealth is the most important abuse of the money power. That it has not been dealt with is another example of our incompetency in meeting new problems, and finding means of solution. Deep in the ruts of our traditions, we find it impossible to cut out new paths to meet new con- ditions. "The doctrine should be obvious, that the wealth of a nation belongs to the nation and its people; that those who have vast accumulations, beyond personal need, acquired by whatever means, must be regarded as stewards account- able to the nation for its use. If the use they make of it is dishonoring, damaging or oppressive, the possession must revert to the nation as the ultimate and final owner. 2 THE DISTRIBUTION AND CONTROL OF WEALTH "Personal and private ownership, up to a point where it remains personal and private, must be regarded as wise regulation. The possession and use of vast accumulations can never remain personal and private, it must affect the whole people and consequently be its affair." * Agitation is one thing, definite measures are another. Offenders have come to look with complacency upon agi- tation. Experience has taught them that they have noth- ing to fear. As long as certain traditions are maintained they can defy public pressure. It is therefore a question about the traditions. The monopolizers of wealth in the early history of what we call civilization, with armed retainers took the land away from the freeholders, and subjected these to forms of slavery, bondage or serfdom. The land being the principal source of wealth, they acquired nearly a monopoly of this ; but not content therewith, they established themselves as lords over the souls and bodies of men as well, preventing freedom of thought and action. Towards modern times came the cry for liberty, and after fierce struggles a measure of this was granted the people. We generally speak as though the battle has been won in civilized countries, but it has only been won in a measure. The monopolizing class not only has special privileges, but retains the plunder of earlier days. The land is generally held by them as owners to be disposed of at their pleasure. The people that till it are but tenants; the profits of their toil, beyond a mere maintenance, go to the monopolizer; who, besides has vast tracts retained for special purposes, pleasure grounds, etc. The attempts to remedy this have been few and feeble. People get stuck half way, so to speak. They have shouted themselves hoarse over the measure of relief that was granted them, congratulating themselves that they had won freedom. To redress the wrong of ages appears to have been beyond their thought. Herbert Spencer, in the days of his enthusiasm, was foremost in declaiming against the * "The Struggle for America." Price fifty cents, North and South Book Co., Miami Florida. THE DISTRIBUTION AND CONTROL OF WEALTH 3 land monopolizers of England, showing the immense results that might be gained by a distribution of it among free- holders. Later, he came under the spell of an imposing conservatism, and inclined to the belief that if the Lords and Landlords were dispossessed, they must be compensated. This is property right, ironclad and unbendable, yielding to no consideration whatever. It does not even matter how the property was obtained, if the right to it has once been tolerated or indulged, there is no relief on any ground, either moral or patriotic. If the Lords and Landlords must be compensated for the land they arrogated to themselves, mostly by brute physical force, and have had the use of for hundreds of years, how must the people be compensated for the deprivation of the land through those centuries? What compensation have you to offer the people for tyranny, wrong and injustice through ages. Here is scope for compensation that would give any one inclined that way unlimited chance. In so far as the land is held by monopolizers, there is large chance for relief by dividing it up into family farms for freeholders. But the relief, in the nature of things, is not indefinite or unending. Some have made "access to the land" a panacea for all evils as though our planet was ex- pandable, capable of answering to any demand. The land of a country has chance for a certain definite number of families, when it is occupied by these there is no more access in that line. People may roughly be divided into two classes: those who are governed by the fundamental idea of honest work and productiveness as a means of living; and those whose instincts are predatory. The workers and the schemers. History shows the masses of people in an unfavorable light. We find them laboring largely to give the products of their toil to idlers who by some means have obtained control. We are disposed to accuse them of cowardice, thinking it should be easy for them to rid themselves of those that are taking the profits of their labor. But the schemers have an advantage in the mere fact that they are not occupied with work for a living. They have leisure, 4 THE DISTRIBUTION AND CONTROL OF WEALTH time to plan and to cultivate their cunning. The workers are confined to their particular places, and must be occu- pied to obtain the necessities from day to day. More than once did the people of England, and of other countries, rise against their oppressors, and sometimes they were entirely successful when in the field, but they were not able to keep in the field, their homes and work demanded their presence. When scattered, the king gathered his armed retainers, rode around and hung them one by one to their door-posts, telling them concessions were null and void. The schemers of any kind in any country have advantages that make it difficult for people to defend themselves. Yet while the masses are hampered and seemingly dis- credited by the tyranny they endure ; nevertheless, to them, their struggles and experiences, we must look for the heroic and worthy in life. Their victories alone make for progress. The aristocracy of Europe, a thousand years ago, with armed retainers, took the land from the freeholders by brute force. And they have ever since been occu- pied in the task of keeping what they have taken. The task is not elevating in its character ; the best thoughts and efforts do not gather around it. Defending a position of unjust advantage is not conducive to what is good, grand or noble. It is not so in this country. Among the common classes of people, we find indeed, the weaknesses of human- ity, sometimes humiliating, but we find also the possibili- ties and actualities of better things, for they have not put it out of the question by subjecting themselves to the neces- sity of defending a false position. Civilization, or what is desirable in it, depends largely on proper distribution of property. A population of cheat- ers and cheated can not be much worth while. If it is true of those on the one hand that they enter hardly into the kingdom of heaven, it is true of the others that they are not helped on that way by being cheated and fooled. Even with a proper distribution of property we may fail, but we have one condition for success. The chance for great wealth, and other chances of like character, supposed to be uplifting, are like other games of THE DISTRIBUTION AND CONTROL OF WEALTH 5 chance, rather demoralizing, especially when dominantly possessing the minds of a people, even to the crushing out of the life of a race. Greater certainty of justice and equal- ity has a better effect, tranquilizing, steadying the minds and morals of a people. Inequalities are in themselves not much of a matter, but when they come to affect the composition and make-up of a people, the civilization of a country, it is another thing. The intrinsic value of a nation is in the character and development of the people, no untoward accident in the dis- tribution of wealth should be allowed to stand in the way of it. An achievement of the schemes in all ages is the con- struction of a formula which shields them in their power and control. This they have imposed on the masses as self- evident or revealed truth in the name of which they have demanded impunity and commanded success. When prop- erty right is quoted against interference in behalf of public welfare, it is nothing better than such a formula. People are conscious of tyrannies, of oppression, the need of re- forms; why do they not use their power? Why do they not act? A formula stands in the way. We are said to labor under economic disadvantages be- cause of a too unequal distribution of wealth. Distribute it to the best advantage. Rules of order must be main- tained, but the schemers should not be allowed to formu- late them. The country not only furnishes the wealth, but chances and opportunities to accumulate it. It should be required that it be not used against the country or alienated from it. Alienation of the wealth of the country should be consid- ered the capital offense; for this the punishment should be hanging and confiscation of wealth, or anything that will put a stop to it. The value of property right should be subjected to two tests : the means of acquisition and public policy or the wel- fare of the people. The test of honesty, as a matter of presumption is much against all large accumulations. But a narrow inquiry into this will not always be thought nee- 6 THE DISTRIBUTION AND CONTROL OF WEALTH essary. Does the possessor of vast wealth justify his pos- session by evidence that it is for the public weal and advan- tage that he possesses it; if not, shove it into the public treasury. The values of property accumulated by the schemers in one way or another not only imply deprivation of this prop- erty on the part of the people, but also imply a depriva- tion of their liberties, their right to self-government and protection; it reduces them to some form of subjection or subordination. The people in permitting these accumula- tions not only surrender property into the hands of the schemers, but surrender power which should be sacred to themselves, and securely retained in their own hands. Ambitious rich often tell us themselves that what they are after is not so much the money as the power that goes with it. When they tell us this they at once produce the best possible argument against great wealth; they reveal its dangers and pronounce its condemnation. Popular gov- ernment means power in the hands of the people, to do the best for themselves and control the course and destinies of the nation. If wealth means the taking away of this power, take away the wealth. If a corporation or enterprise of any kind does not sub- serve the best interests of the people, put in into the hands of receivers, confiscate the big holdings to the government, giving it a natural control. In short, if wealth does not subserve the best interests of the country and its people, confiscate it to the govern- ment, that it may be made to do so. In making readjustments and redistribution, our gov- ernment could not undertake to deal with foreigners be- cause confiscation would be involved. Such would have to be given notice to divest themselves of securities. The agi- tation leading up to any measure would naturally suggest it to them, but official notice would be in order. In some departments the evil of accumulations and monopolies are so evident as to be seen at a glance. Such is monopoly in land. By monopoly in land we do not under- stand ownership of land. The land divided up into family THE DISTRIBUTION AND CONTROL OF WEALTH 7 farms and distributed to actual owners is the best possibie arrangement. Undo what interferes with this; place a limit on land held by individuals or corporations, whether kept idle or under a system of tenantry. No squabbling should be allowed as to how land beyond such limit got into the hands of certain persons, the fact that it is found in their possession should suffice for condemnation. Lately the head of a lumber trust declared that if their lands were taxed they would destroy the forests on them beyond hope of restoration. A nation deserves to have its forests destroyed that lays itself liable to threats of this sort. We are only beginning to reap the more pernicious re- sults of this accumulation of wealth. The originators in these enterprises were men of the people. They won their successes by intense application, hard work of its peculiar kind. This, at least, served to keep them from some forms of mischief. Not so with their children. These are not subjected to the necessity of this disciplinary work. They have nothing to do but to feed their vices. They prey upon the virtue of the country, and are a curse generally. A dangerous lot of degenerates which the nation, when it awakes to righteousness and rationality, will place in some asylum. A large farm in the west, where they might have rational employment, and be looked after with kind regard for their reform and improvement, might save some of them. Their useless accumulations, a dangerous weapon against themselves and the public, should be shoved into the national treasury for the benefit of the people from whom it was taken. To insure regulation and control on the part of the gov- ernment, all persons with wealth of a certain magnitude, should be registered and kept under surveillance. Their movements and operations reported, understood and al- lowed. They should not dispose of any important part of their property without the knowledge and consent of gov- ernment. They should not, nor any member of their fam- ilies, leave the country without permission. A natural, almost inevitable tendency of the monopoly of wealth is that ownership be extended to cover the people in 8 THE DISTRIBUTION AND CONTROL OF WEALTH some form or degree. Land and other possessions are worth little without laborers. It is natural for the class who owns one condition for unlimited leisure to covet the other. Hence, we have or have had slavery whenever it was left to this class. In Mexico, a handful of people own the land, some owning millions of acres. As a natural, next step they have reduced the people to a form of slavery to work it for them. But the inclination on the part of the monopolizers of wealth to look upon the rest of the popula- tion as their property, a commodity in the market, to be con- sidered only for its value to them is as marked now and here as ever. The people to them is but part of their scheme. Divide up property into small holdings, and you avoid the danger. A common scheme of banking is to collect money from farmers and working people and distribute it among the "business men" of town. In due time the bank breaks, and the money of the workers has found its way into the hands of the schemers. By manipulations of various kinds the same result is accomplished. It is a mistake to sup- pose that it is the poorer classes that have suffered most by the depredations of the very wealthy. Rather on the contrary. It is more generally those that have something to lose that have lost. It may indeed have been the savings of a working man through life; or the fair reward of the better paid clerk, small tradesman or farmer; it may have been the patrimony of industrious fathers; or slow gath- erings of several generations of thrifty ancestors. Small fortunes without number, have been swallowed up in the accumulations of the very wealthy. The wisdom and care of the owners of such did not suffice to save them from being despoiled. Of course what is found fault with is the wrong rather than the right in the possession of property. Let us be reminded of our obligations rather than encouraged to cut loose from them. The object is justice, intelligence and a finer sense of morals, rather than a cast-iron rule fitted without them. It would be preposterous to suggest confis- cation in any particular case unless a wrong can be righted by it. For what is the position of those that complain of THE DISTRIBUTION AND CONTROL OF WEALTH 9 a prospective violation of property right. Have they respected the right in others? No, for the property of others is found in their hands. It is a plea that they be allowed to keep their plunder. That restoration be made unlawful. That any trick turned must be final, and the results last forever, be they ever so pernicious. The people want laws that will allow of restoration without impossible processes. What is right in the possession of property, on the other hand, should be better safeguarded than at present. We are not careful about the real thing or there would not be so much despoliation. There is nothing more sacred than the substance of hon- est labor. In handling it you are handling the life hopes and possibilities of its owner. In laying your hands upon it you lay your hands upon his life. For it represents his life ; it is the expression as well as the maintenance of it. It is the effort of his life in its toil and labor, its hopes and fruition, the future of his children, the dignity of his old age. He who takes some of it takes a portion of the man's life. The schemer will claim that he has also worked for what he has and therefore is on the same ground. After a man- ner it is true. The everyday swindler, the burglar, the highwayman, may claim as much; they do, after a fashion, work for what they get, but we shall not think it worth while to point out the difference. The various tactics, in- genuities and peculiar advantages by which immense wealth and its power is.acquired do not come upon the same ground as the right of labor to its reward; they belong rather to what may be called the right of conquest, which is recog- nized as a right only as long as the other party is not strong enough to contest it. It is not a right in the moral sense. It belongs to a world outside of morality, which it is the mis- sion of civilization to subject to the moral law. Such confiscation, in the interest of the public; does not mean a sacrifice of the individual to the interests of the state. Doing away with abnormalities and monstrosities is not a sacrifice. The individual does not need these, is not benefited, but rather on the contrary. 10 THE DISTRIBUTION AND CONTROL OF WEALTH Much is said of the desirability of freedom to accumulate to provide rewards for initiative and activity. However, there are things we should not wish to hold out as rewards for anybody's striving. It is rather a question to discour- age ambitious people from striving after it. The people desire to control its own affairs, and the affairs of the country; it should not be left to an individual, or a set of individuals. The ambition of men in the past arrogated to itself the land and the wealth of the country, making the people serfs and slaves. The ambition of men never stop short of something of this sort. We allow rewards for activities, but the country and its people are not to be given over as reward to any set of men. If the country reaps any good from the activities of these people, it is incidental; it was never on record that they made it an object. The object is always their own aggrandisement. Incidentally, likewise, the country may receive harm. Our resources might have been more safely and sanely developed if not so wholly turned over to capitalists. Capital can be owned by the people or the state instead of by a few. Their efforts always end when they themselves are suited. The aim is a "settled" condition, highly satisfactory to themselves. After that stagnation of dark ages. It would save a lot of turmoil of brain, evil scheming, bribery, corruption to have it plainly understood that it is useless for these people to accumulate enormous wealth, power and control in the country, for it will simply be taken from them if they succeed in gain- ing it. It is interesting to notice that more than two thousand years ago a state was organized on the very principal of guarding against greed and grabbing. It was the principal thing about the Spartan Republic, as organized by Lycargus. Lycargus adopted severe measures to equalize conditions and make greed hardly worth while, but he accomplished it. The world was already. old in experience at that time and he knew what he was up against when he undertook to restrain greed and grabbing. If we should undertake, on a small scale, to do the same, it is certain that his extreme measures would not be used, for we would not aim to accomplish so much. THE DISTRIBUTION AND CONTROL OF WEALTH 11 If we should have established the principal that possess- ion is not necessarily final, but may require further con- firmation in justice and the welfare of the people, there would still be left the question of its application. There should be none till the people, the whole nation, is prepared to sit in judgment. Decisions should not be surrendered to professionals. Beware of giving important power to any set of professionals. There is danger in disturbing a land- mark, even if an evil use has been made of it, we should be able to establish a higher order of righteousness. If it be left to the schemers, we shall sink lower, advantage will be taken of it to further despoil the weak. Government has hitherto been left to the schemers. Till the people are capable of representation we are not in a posi- tion to handle a strictly popular measure. So far, the capacity of accumulating wealth has been considered the test of all wisdom. Those that were wealthy had proven their wisdom and were elected to rule the nation. It was considered that an even chance was before everybody to produce these proofs of wisdom, and that those who failed to produce them had declared their incapacity. As long as this simple creed is generally believed, people have an easy way by which to determine their action. But when it begins to dawn upon us that to the end of our days the great mass of us will have to be producers of wealth rather than accumulators, people will seek for other tests of wisdom, and consider that the accumulators do not very well represent the producers. You send your best money-makers to congress, and they continue the business after they get there. But it is not the worst of it. Where the broad wisdom of a nation is needed the equipment of the accumulator is deficient. He is nar- rowed by his one-sided pursuit. His mental attitude is of necessity self-centered. It is not only that his selfish de- signs and self-interests stand in the way, his whole mental and moral make-up disqualifies him. His thoughts accus- tomed to move within the narrow circle of his own personal advantage, refuse to go beyond on any question whatever. If occasion demands it he often shows intelligence that would shame the lowest grade of it. 12 THE DISTRIBUTION AND CONTROL OF WEALTH Nor must people take up with professionals as their rep- resentatives. There is danger in any class of men that claims to be the embodiment of exclusive knowledge. There is rather more danger now than ever before. Science has thrown a glamour around some of the professions that promise to fool the people as much as they have been fooled in the world's history. Professionals are like the proverbial devil, you give them an inch and they take an ell. You give them some power and they go on adding to it, magnifying it, expanding it, till you find yourselves thoroughly in their grasp, and no easy way out of it. You find it easy to give away the power that should be sacred to you, but you wade through blood to get it back again. We have now a medical trust that tyrannizes in the name of science. Step by step it has built up a control as sweeping as the whole population, and reaching to everything a man possesses. In the absence of any real representatives of the people, it has been the easy work of professionals and corrupt politicians. Professionals do not stop with money extortion, they de- mand control of bodies and souls. Nevertheless, the money consideration is well worth attention. You have allowed pro- fessionals to legislate, and they have done it to their advan- tage. Permitted to name their own fees and salary, they have established precedents for enormous pay, and use these for continual increase and augmentation. Under pretext of fees, estates of orphans and needy creditors are swal- lowed up. Crime and criminals made mere occasions for their profit. Naturally dangerous as a class, you have failed of any efficient control over them, because of failure of representation. You have the advantage that there is nothing in your occupation or position that forbids mental and moral ex- cellence, and should be able to find fit men of your own. Yet in congress there is not a single workingman. There is said to be four farmers, but if the matter was investigated, it would probably be found that they are not farmers, but big landowners, the worst of all monopolists. The farmers and workingmen should, according to their numbers, have two- thirds of the representatives in congress. In a real contest THE DISTRIBUTION AND CONTROL OF WEALTH 13 you can not hire, you can depend only on mutual interests. Some of those you vote for claim to have begun life as men of your class, but this does not insure present sympathy or interest. Insist on men actually of your class, and who will stay in your class after they are elected. This is made somewhat more difficult now on account of increased salaries, sufficient to lift officials out of your class, most likely contrived for this very purpose. It is an easy way to defeat your intention; if you elect any of your own, give them salaries and income sufficient to lift them out of your class. There is besides, to be considered the many avenues of easy access to wealth while in official life. When it comes to a question of selecting men capable of resisting great temp- tations, the available material is very much reduced. Men combining character and intelligence in a high degree are not plenty in any class. But by looking for them resolutely, you will find some such of your own. It has been the custom in England for people to elect their landlords and money-mongers to represent them in parlia- ment, so much so that they came to think they owned it as an actual right. Electioneering was considered a game for lords and landlords that a boy could play at. If any dissat- isfaction was expressed by the people, it was never thought they would go so far as to actually claim representation, and it was therefore treated in a humorous fashion. But last election the English people really rose to the point of elect- ing some representatives to parliament, and it created con- sternation in the ranks of the privileged class. They sat up and took notice. For popular control it would be necessary further to pop- ularize our government by elimination of the supreme court as a law-making or law-abolishing power. In any other country when a measure is passed by the two houses and signed by the Executive it is law. And it is much needed it should be understood what is law. Here we hardly ever know. The element of uncertainty introduced by the power of our supreme court is very vexatious and damaging. Long processes must be subjected to before we can finally be assured what is law. 14 THE DISTRIBUTION AND CONTROL OF WEALTH A law is passed by our two houses and signed by the President. A stranger, not knowing our peculiarities would take it for granted it was the end of it, but it is only the beginning. It is now turned over to the supreme court judges who are asked if it is constitutional. Well, they do not know. Some of them think it is and some of them think it is not. They argue about it, but are able to arrive at no conclusion. Then a vote is taken to decide whether the law is to pass or not. In voting each follows his sympathies, an- tipathies or self-interests. A representative of congress may do this but is restrained by fear of his constituency, which will quickly call him to account. England has no written constitution; the constitutional guarantees are understood and pertain only to actual facts of government. It may be presumed that other countries with written constitutions escape our dilemma by confin- ing their constitutions to facts and numbers that do not need to be interpreted, and that can be construed only one way. When you put general rules in your constitution that may or may not be applied to anything in heaven or earth, as the judges may please, you give them almost unlimited power. A law can not be passed that may not be knocked out by the application of a general rule, if the judges see fit to do so. But if we take away from the supreme court judges the power to abolish the laws we make, one and all, we leave it to the people or their representatives actually to determine what shall be law; that is what we understand by popular government. When we have faith in popular government we shall not devise checks and balances against it. In those countries that have not attained to trial by juries, or election of judges, where these are appointed by the king, civilization drags. The judges invariably consider them- selves apart from the people, representing the class in power. Consequently their judgments are always an outrage on the people whenever class is in the remotest concerned. If we have become subject to class distinctions, see that judges and representatives are of your class, and devise means to keep them in your class. Have them within reach. The funda- THE DISTRIBUTION AND CONTROL OF WEALTH 15 mental of our government is that the people are the final authority. No set of professionals should be allowed that can not be held to account, and readily be brought before the bar of the people. When congress is representative of the people, if the supreme court judges, notwithstanding no pretext being left them, should undertake to assume the law-making or law-abolishing power, they would be impeached, ousted, in flagrant cases punished. In former times, certain professionals were dressed out gaudily and strangely, and given peculiar and high-sound- ing titles to the end they might impress, befool, befog and mystify the people, that it might be overawed and overruled. We are coming back to this idea. Our judges are being arrayed in robes. It is new with us, and it is a tendency. It is not a question about the dignity and power of any set of professionals, but about the dignity and power of the people. One copy del. to Cat. Div.