•v 
 
 THE RELATIONS OF CAPITAL 
 
 -AND- 
 
 POLITICS TO THE PEOPLE. 
 
 BY 
 
 i 
 
 MISS LILLIAN A. WHITNE Y 
 
DEDICATION, 
 
 TO THE INDOMITABLE ItEBUILDERS OP A DESTROYED CITY. 
 
 i 
 
 PROPRIETORS OF THE MOST WONDERFUL OF CITIES, CREATORS OF 
 THE WHITE CITY, PATRONS, PROMOTERS AND STUDENTS OF LABOR, 
 LEARNING, LETTERS, COMMERCE, INVENTION AND MORALS—THE 
 PEOPLE OF CHICAGO—DO I, WITH TIMIDITY, RESPECTFULLY 
 DEDICATE THIS PAMPHLET. 
 
 MISS LILLIAN A. WHITNEY, 
 
 512 Otto Street, Chicago, Ills. 
 
 January 31st, 1899. 
 
■ 
 
 I A . . 
 
 ' 
 
 
 ' ' 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■' ,, <A 
 
 
 
 l ' 
 
 ' - 19 
 
 
 
 ? hbh 
 
 
 \ • 
 
 
 
 
 , v 
 
 1 
 
 f - ' 
 
 
 
 v , < 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 
 ' . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 'V 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 The economic problems suggested by the title 1 have 
 adopted for this pamphlet are now and have ever been, 
 since the abolishment of monarchism, the vital concerns of 
 the individual citizen. Such concerns, however, notwith¬ 
 standing their momentous importance, must be intrusted to 
 the political representative of the citizens; the theory being 
 that they may be with perfect safety so delegated because 
 the qualifications and principles of the citizens’ representa¬ 
 tive are so absolutely sound that he will in nothing err in 
 this great trust placed in his keeping and management. Un¬ 
 less the people shall sleep upon their rights, or become leth¬ 
 argic and indifferent to their chief source of happiness and 
 dearest interests—in this government where there is no 
 sovereign power excepting that springing from the people 
 —no one can hold an executive or representative office 
 unless his qualifications and principles shall, beyond 
 question, fit him for such a position in full accord 
 with the theory stated. In writing this introductory, 
 after the manuscript for the body ot this work was 
 completed for the printer, I could not help compar¬ 
 ing the extreme diffidence with which I have addressed 
 the people of Chicago, through the following pages— 
 my conclusions and propositions all supported by the 
 most undoubted fact, or by the very best and most unan¬ 
 imous authority upon the sciences of Civil Law and 
 Political Economy recorded in the English language, to the 
 calmness and effrontery with which Mr. Harrison, our pres- 
 
 ( 5 ) 
 
6 
 
 ent Mayor, during the three or four last months of 1898, 
 addressed the same people with declarations and proposi¬ 
 tions so radically and wholly opposed to law and common 
 sense that the same became monstrosities simply; whom 
 the mayor of this intelligent city, with continuous clamor¬ 
 ous declamation, assailed with assertions that consisted in, 
 nothing excepting their own immense propositions of, shal¬ 
 lowness; the whole fabric supported by one single huge 
 monolith—“ I vow I will eat my own hat.” It is possible a 
 hat, from the head containing so many strange ideas, if eaten, 
 would not injure the digestive apparatus of a stomach con¬ 
 taining so much gall. Mr. Harrison has been permitted to 
 declare his follies and pernicious dogma to the people with 
 impunity; the corrupt trust press of this city made a great 
 show and pretense of supporting the mayor’s unconstitutional 
 and impossible proposals, catering freely, to all appearances, 
 to his puerilities—as to what constituted “ robbing ” 
 “ grabbing ” etc., etc., but totally ignored my two pamphlets 
 11 The Rights of Railway and Street Car Companies.” I was 
 naturally hurt at the treatment accorded to my literary 
 labor by many of the newspapers of my own home 
 until I learned the reason for it—dollars. Neither cents, 
 sense, nor cent caused such treatment: it w T as dollars; 
 more accurately speaking, a lust for the dollars—in 
 very great numbers—of certain prosperous enterprises 
 of the people. The cupidity of such rapacious harpies 
 compared to the strength of Sampson, would leave 
 that remarkable superhuman power—like the results 
 obtained by solutions of certain algebraic problems—with 
 the minus sign before it. The declaration, however, may be 
 here recorded, that, throughout the transaction, the usual 
 good judgment of highwaymen was markedly prominent: 
 the enterprises sought to be held up, by great industry and 
 
7 
 
 legitimate and determined energy were in possession of the 
 wanted dollars in great abundance. The trifling circum¬ 
 stances—the dollars being wanted—that the same, by the 
 canon of God and the positive unmistakable laws of man, 
 belonged to such healthy, prosperous enterprises, was not 
 permitted, never is, as an interfering factor, to enter into 
 such proceedings. 
 
 L. A. W. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Adah— God, the Eternal! Parent of all things! 
 
 Who didst create these best and beauteous beings, 
 
 To be beloved, more than all, save thee — 
 
 Let me love thee and themAll hail! all hail! 
 
 — Byron. 
 
 The right of man to seek for, acquire possession of, to hold 
 the undisputed dominion over, after it has been acquired, 
 and to be secured in peaceable enjoyment of property, is 
 found to have emanated from the Creator of man, contem¬ 
 poraneously with His creation of all property; the right is 
 so ancient that no other rule has been discovered antedat¬ 
 ing it: Such right begins—whether such date as fixed by 
 Moses, Herbert Spencer or Voltaire be accepted-r-with the 
 creation of time. It is not a mere truism to assert that 
 doctrine which assails this ancient and most essential pre¬ 
 rogative of man assails his chief source of happiness: in the 
 city of Chicago lately—by men whose intelligence and san¬ 
 ity on all other questions must be admitted—the people 
 have been requested to aid in the total annihilation of man’s 
 rights in property; to lend countenance and support to 
 policies that, should such become dominant, would be 
 more certainly destructive of all happiness, prospects 
 and hopes of the people, than the Bubonic plague has proved 
 itself to be destructive of human life in East India lately. 
 Should the people be requested, by Mr. Harrison and his 
 following of reformers, to aid in stealing the newsboys’ 
 pennies, or forcing the mechanic to turn over nine-tenths of 
 his wages without consideration, the depth of wickedness 
 and absurdity of such a proposition, by the sciences of 
 
 ( 9 ) 
 
10 
 
 Ethics and Economics, are not so great as the depths of 
 wickedness and absurdity of the proposition, made by the 
 above named official and following—emphasized by re¬ 
 peated reiterations to the people—that the people of Chi¬ 
 cago shall first aid in robbing their own spleudid industry, 
 the traction companies, and then aid in the total destruc¬ 
 tion of such companies. The folly and wickedness of the 
 hypothetical proposition is plainly visible. Should not the 
 actual proposition, when it is clearly more wicked and cer¬ 
 tainly more extremely pernicious, be looked upon with 
 horror by the educated, sensible, church-going, moral people 
 to whom it has been addressed ? 
 
 The hatred of capital, capitalists, and all prosperous and 
 necessitous enterprises of the people, that has gained a hold 
 upon apart of the public mind , in America, within the last 
 thirty years—(it does not date back of thirty years in this 
 country)—as slight as its hold is, to the student of its phases 
 and ramifications, is simply terrifying. It is only after 
 some specific studying of this hatred that the mind is 
 startled into repellent activity. This malignant animosity, 
 named above, is as certainly an economic disease, threat¬ 
 ening the destruction of the peace and hopes of society, un¬ 
 less it shall receive enlightened and effectual treatment, as 
 that small-pox is certainly a disease, which requires most 
 careful and enlightened medical treatment, when it assails 
 the physical body, to prevent such disease from destroy¬ 
 ing the life of the body its attack is made upon. It 
 is well settled, in the science of medicine, that all dis¬ 
 eases spring from maliguant microbes; therapeutics 
 teaches the physician that the germs of diseases must 
 be eradicated to prevent wide-spread suffering and de¬ 
 struction of life; and teaches the specific remedies that 
 must be applied by the physician to effectually bring about 
 
11 
 
 such desirable eradication. This hatred of capital and 
 prosperous industry, that the writer is endeavoring to 
 direct the reader’s attention to here—as certainly existing 
 as that the Asiatic Cholera has existed at certain times—it 
 is well settled in the science of Economics, springs from 
 malignant microbes, that drifted into Castle Garden some 
 thirty years ago, from Europe; and that the eradication of 
 such malignant deadly microbes is absolutely essential in 
 order to protect society from the destructive and disastrous 
 force of the disease now being engendered by them. What 
 would be thought of the physician, who would calmly 
 declare to the people, that yellow fever germs could be pla¬ 
 cated and transformed into useful things by permitting 
 them to obliterate all human life in certain large sections 
 of the country? Or who should attempt to promulgate such 
 a ridiculous doctrine as this: after all human life has 
 been wiped out, in Louisiana, Texas, and Porto Rico, by the 
 disease—yellow fever—the germs that produce yellow fever 
 will then not only quit assailing human life in the United 
 States, but will become useful entities? The doctrine that 
 we people of Chicago are being coolly requested to adopt, by 
 our mayor and his following—“Aid and countenance the 
 robbing and destruction of two or three of the people’s own 
 most necessary and healthy industries, then the malignant 
 microbes, which produce Anarchism and Socialism, will 
 cease seeking the death of labor and happiness in America, 
 and become useful adjuncts of existence.” This last 
 doctrine—not only actually proposed, but most persist¬ 
 ently urged and recommended, as healthy and wise, to 
 the people, by the man that will ask to be returned to 
 the most important and honorable official position within 
 their gift—is more absurd—more contrary to all funda¬ 
 mental or natural principles—than the hypothetical doc- 
 
 CN, 
 
12 
 
 trine proposed within the foregoing question marks. Shall 
 we, by a supine indifference, lend even passive coun¬ 
 tenance to this municipal ownership—this socialistic, sui 
 generis crowd, by not declaring our antagonism to, and horror 
 at, its rotten, pernicious teachings ? The thing that is try¬ 
 ing to lead us to rob and destroy our streetcar and railway 
 companies, could it consummate its deadly design to that 
 extent, would no more stop at that than a virulent conta¬ 
 gion would cease, by its own intentions, from destroying life 
 in a populous center, after killing three or four people 
 therein: its sole aim and purpose, in this country, is first, 
 the robbing from labor of all that which labor has earned 
 and created—our national strength—then the death of this 
 nation itself; then, after all good in this country had been 
 by it annihilated—like the ferocious being springing from 
 the teeth of the fabled Cadmus dragon—it would turn upon 
 and murder itself. 
 
 All property is capital. Property exists, and did exist 
 primarily, yet primarily it only existed in substance and 
 not as property. Nothing can have the elements or quali¬ 
 ties of property that is not required to supply some need or 
 want of man. No need or want of man can be supplied 
 excepting by the movement of some energy—labor. There¬ 
 fore, since property can acquire its qualities and elements, 
 as such thing, only through labor—property, and all capi¬ 
 tal, is the production and creation of labor. The conclusion 
 clearly follows—if labor can not move without producing 
 capital—will not move excepting for the purpose of its cre- 
 tion—labor and capital are essential to each other;* that an 
 injury of one would result in an equal injury to each; that 
 any destruction of capital would, to the same extent, 
 
 *Vide Rights of Railway and Street Car Companies, Vol. II, by the author. 
 
13 
 
 destroy labor. This can be well illustrated here by a sim¬ 
 ple proposition, the central idea only borrowed, used by 
 Frederick Bastiat, in his discussion of another branch 
 of this same subject: Suppose one thousand people should 
 be placed upon a beautiful fertile island, that could, after a 
 time, be made to produce all things which the thousand 
 people should require for their sustenance, comfort, happi¬ 
 ness and prosperity; the island will produce the needed 
 things—wealth—only in answer to the movement upon it 
 of labor and expenditure therein of capital; the thousand 
 inhabitants of the island possess a sufficient quantity of sur¬ 
 plus clothing, seeds, food-stuffs, ability and tools—capital— 
 to maintain the life of all of them until their splendid terri¬ 
 tory can be made to reproduce these objects absolutely 
 essential to the existence of these people, and which can be 
 obtained in no other way by them. The demand then 
 existing—that their fertile island shall be made to repro¬ 
 duce, so that the life of its people may be supported beyond 
 a limited period—rests upon the thousand, as a community, 
 inexorably; it confronts each individual of the thousand with 
 an equal force—an inexorable necessity. That, by natural 
 and providential laws, three hundred and fifty of the thou¬ 
 sand people owned and controlled all the afore-mentioned 
 capital, in no way lessened or made greater, or changed the 
 general or individual responsibility for them, any loss or 
 diminution of the capital would have caused the same amount 
 of hardship to the six hundred and fifty without, as to the 
 three hundred and fifty with, capital. Should the thousand 
 people have taken their capital from the three hundred and 
 fifty, to whom it naturally belonged, and given it to an¬ 
 other three hundred and fifty of their number, to whom it 
 did not belong, such transposition would not have removed, 
 or in any way placated the inexorable necessity which con- 
 
14 
 
 fronted the community and its individuals; but would have 
 caused suffering, in the same ratio, to each one of the thou¬ 
 sand; there would have occurred a loss of time and a con¬ 
 siderable shrinkage of the capital, pending its transposition 
 and consequent suffering in proportion to such loss. It 
 only remains, that the illustration shall be complete: divide 
 this capital, of this one thousand people, into one thousand 
 parts, behold a catastrophe—their annihilation inevitably 
 results. Could anything be plainer ? The thousand people 
 possessed enough capital, in the hands of three hundred and 
 fifty of their number, to begin with, to have lasted till it 
 could have been reproduced in greater abundance and no 
 more; labor could not have moved in their country with¬ 
 out the capital; no reproductions of capital could be brought 
 about for them without the movement of labor; the conclu¬ 
 sion follows—the general division of the original capital, 
 having taken away the only aider and exciter of labor which 
 had existed in their beautiful land—total, and unavoid¬ 
 able, extinction now confronted this one thousand human 
 beings; the suffering no greater, and the death no more 
 certain, of the three hundred and fifty capitalists, than the 
 suffering and death of the six hundred and fifty non-capital¬ 
 ists. It can not be urged that the thousand people might 
 have realized the folly of their policy of division of their 
 capital, and restored it to its original owners, thereby sav¬ 
 ing themselves, if not from suffering, at least from death— 
 an impossibility: because a large part of the capital had 
 been necessarily consumed, during its distribution. Neither 
 can the more selfish idea be urged or admitted—a few of 
 the one thousand might have saved themselves from perish¬ 
 ing at least, by restoring, to a few of the original capitalists, 
 as far as it would reach, the original capital, in a quantity 
 having the same relative value it had originally—a route, 
 
15 
 
 for the escape from death of a few of the thousand—as im¬ 
 possible as the former impossible route assigned for the es¬ 
 cape from death of the whole thousand: the time, necessary 
 for the reproduction of those things required to maintain 
 the existence of the one thousand as a community, beyond 
 a limited period having expired, the time allotted to each 
 individual, for the same purpose, being identical therewith, 
 had also expired. 
 
 Money is in no sense capital; it merely possesses the prov¬ 
 ince of representing capital. The reciting the history of 
 the many different substances which have been used as 
 money, or mediums of exchange, by mankind, from the 
 distant past, down to the present time—from the use of 
 shells to grain and oil, from Wampum with the red man, 
 to the use of gophers’ tails by the white man in Dakota as 
 money, from gophers’ tails to wild cat banks every¬ 
 where—is an undertaking too great for the limits of this 
 pamphlet. One historical incident, of a substance used as 
 a medium of exchange—as money—is so closely connected 
 with the very interesting history of the city, to whose 
 people this work has been dedicated, it must be related here 
 in passing. 
 
 From 1859 to 1861 the traction companies of Chicago— 
 then just beginning their most useful and necessary exist¬ 
 ence—furnished to its people, through the twelve and 
 twenty ride tickets of the traction companies, the only 
 medium of exchange they had during those two years; this 
 medium of exchange, so furnished, passed as readily, to the 
 full amount such represented, as gold and silver; these 
 tickets were so highly esteemed by the people, and were so 
 necessary, as a medium of exchange, that counterfeits of 
 them, when known to be such, passed as readily as the 
 
 genuine. 
 
16 
 
 The substance, whatever it has been, within any given 
 dates, used as money, has ever necessarily been respected 
 and desired. The principle that requires that money shall 
 be respected and properly desired is as inexorably essential 
 to the well being and happiness of man as the principle that 
 requires that he shall respect and properly desire ability, 
 cattle, grain, land, houses—in short any capital. Money, 
 representing capital, excites labor and capital into activity, 
 thereby producing plenty and prosperity. Money excites 
 capital to move from one district to another, from country 
 to country, from people to people, continuously arousing new 
 wants of men, and thereby exciting the creation of additional 
 capital in the world. It is always a substance so easily lost— 
 through wrong investment, by the fluctuations of the capital 
 it represents, by extravagance, by the conduct of a people to 
 whom it is being offered in exchange—that it is therefore 
 very timid. Any policy that would frighten money away 
 from a locality or country would injure capital and prevent 
 reproduction, thereby causing hardship and suffering for 
 the people of such locality or country. Shall the people of 
 this great center of industry lend even passive countenance 
 to a policy—the question as to advisability of voting for its 
 advocates too utterly absurd for any discussion—that is 
 clearly and unmistakably contrary to natural and funda¬ 
 mental law; that is plainly grossly wicked, therefore most 
 pernicious; that certainly would frighten away money; 
 therefore would as certainly destroy capital and cause hard¬ 
 ships and suffering? 
 
 What shall be the opinion of the world, as to the mor¬ 
 als, intelligence, and trustworthiness of that people, who, 
 after robbing and destroying its railway and street-car 
 companies—essential existences, faithful painstaking serv¬ 
 ants, that must be replaced, as soon as destroyed, by similar 
 
17 
 
 servants—shall coolly demand of the world its money with 
 which to restore such robbed and murdered industries? 
 
 The United States has progressed, from Plymouth Rock 
 and the days of the hardy, industrious Pilgrim Fathers to 
 the 750,000 visitors of the 9th of October, 1893, at the 
 World’s Fair, and the days of unrivaled Chicago, without 
 the least aid from the false doctrine—municipal ownership. 
 The United States and unrivaled Chicago will continue to 
 progress, through all time, without the least aid from the 
 false doctrine—municipal ownership. What has produced 
 this wonderful commerce of this city of parks, the noise of 
 the thunders of which is heard in the most distant lands? 
 Its industries—labor and capital. Why shall the voice of 
 the broker at the head of La Salle street have the power to, 
 in a short space of time recorded in seconds, cause a provis¬ 
 ion market, more than ten thousand miles away, to fluctu¬ 
 ate? It is a potency of such broker, furnished, and created 
 by labor and capital. What has created the immense 
 structures of iron, steel, granite, marble and brick, that 
 have their proud, lofty heads nearly in the clouds, above 
 the pavements of Chicago, in every direction? That only, 
 which could create them—labor and capital. 
 
 i 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 Abel.— God! who didst call the elements into 
 Earth—ocean — air—and fire, and with the day 
 And night, and worlds, which these illuminate, 
 
 Or shadow, madest beings to enjoy them, 
 
 And love both them and thee—all hail! all hail! 
 
 — Byron. 
 
 History has been unable to assign any exact or certain 
 date for the beginning of the use of the science of politics 
 by the human family. In the face of all the proofs furnished 
 by the most painstaking scientific research, it must be ad¬ 
 mitted as fact that humanity appeared on the earth many 
 tens of thousands of years ago. The earliest date fixed for 
 the appearance of political man upon the stage of human 
 action—compared to the dates of battles of Platsea, Mara¬ 
 thon, conquests of Alexander the Great, the date of Joshua’s 
 encamping in Gilgal, of Julius Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon, 
 of the achievements of Odin, the one-eyed god of ancient Scan¬ 
 dinavia—causes the dates of these latter-named occurrences 
 to appear as relatively within modern times. The author 
 of these pages is not permitted, by her researches, to con¬ 
 clude, with Sir John Lubbock, that there ever was such a 
 period—“Ante-Political Man;” or with the learned Dr. 
 Darwin that there was, in most ancient days, a period dur¬ 
 ing which man existed only as a substance or a rudiment¬ 
 ary element—“ Protoplasm.” The fact remains indisputabW 
 established, however, whatever the individual opinion may 
 be as to his origin or beginning, man exists now as man; he 
 has existed as man in depths of the past wholly beyond 
 his ken. Behold Confucius, more than four hundred 
 
 ( 18 ) 
 
19 
 
 years before the birth of Christ, teaching precepts 
 of ethics and philosophy to a people—organized as a nation, 
 the beginning of whose recorded political history antedat¬ 
 ing the birth of Confucius more than two thousand years— 
 the real beginning of whose organized political existence 
 lost in the obscurity of still greater depths of the past than 
 the beginning of their very ancient recorded history. 
 Behold Plato and Aristotle, centuries before the beginning 
 of our era, writing learnedly in relation to political science 
 and ethics, for the education of a people—then brilliantly 
 organized into powerful states or provinces, having all the 
 polish of manners, scholarly attainments, arts, pursuits of 
 husbandry, and trades, that accrue to a people through 
 political organization—the recorded beginning of whose 
 politics was fixed in such remote periods of the past that its 
 gods of such ancient days can not be distinguished from its 
 military leaders of the same days, say historians; yet these 
 same philosophers, last named, coolly acknowledged that 
 they drew lessons in political science and ethics from 
 nations many centuries more ancient than their own. 
 Who shall attempt to fix this period—“ Ante-Political 
 man ?” 
 
 Whether the record of Moses, the theory of Darwin, or 
 the opinion of Sir John Lubbock, be accepted, for the be¬ 
 ginning of the use of political science—law—it has been 
 fully agreed upon, by all writers on that science, from the 
 writings of Plato, in his remote day, to the books of E. Ben¬ 
 jamin Andrews, in this present time, that its use, that is, 
 law, must necessarily have been the most necessitous and 
 earliest want of man; such unanimous opinion shall be 
 here recited in the words penned by Walter Bagehot: “In 
 these days, when we cannot by any effort drive out of our 
 minds the notions of law, we cannot imagine the mind of 
 
20 
 
 one who had never known it. To sum up: law—rigid, defi¬ 
 nite, concise law—is the primary want of early mankind; 
 that which they, above everything else, require; that which 
 is most requisite before anything else can be gained; but it 
 is that which is most out of the reach of primitive man.” 
 
 We have then a sufficient data—a sufficient array of well 
 founded fact, without a certain fixed date for its beginning 
 —to assert that law is an essential element of existence; to 
 declare, with an assurance springing from conclusive proof, 
 that man is confronted now, and has been so confronted in 
 all times by the demand—that he shall solve the problem 
 of political science and obtain therefrom law, in order that 
 he may exist—as an inexorable necessity. Any movement 
 on the part of society, or on the part of any politically 
 organized people, toward internal acts against fundamental 
 law, would be an equal number of steps in the direction of 
 the beetling cliff, from which yawns the gulf of destruction, 
 into which a limited number of similar acts would amount 
 to a sufficient number of certain steps, to plunge such society 
 or people. If one reader shall say the foregoing assertion is 
 a truism, he must be reminded that a doctrine, clearly disput¬ 
 ing the foregoing assertion, has not only been deliberately de¬ 
 clared, but has been, by noisy, well trained and ornamented 
 oratory, through the columns of nearly all of the daily 
 papers of this city, during the last four months, most 
 vehemently urged and recommended to the people of Chi¬ 
 cago for adoption. Should another reader declare that the 
 fundamental principles arrayed in this pamphlet are not so 
 certain and inexorable as is herein claimed for them, he 
 must be reminded that—as a lawyer would put it—not only 
 is the weight and current of authority on the subject against 
 his opinion, but the whole stream of authority, from bank 
 to bank, from source to ostia , is against him; nor shall it be 
 
 c 
 
21 
 
 urged that the words in this work have been penned in the 
 interest of capitalists only. The doctrine to which these 
 pages attempt to direct the attention of a law-abiding people, 
 is simply the clear, unmistakable doctrine of all writers on 
 the subject—excepting two or three, denominated by E.B. 
 Andrews, socialists of the chair—from the writings of Moses 
 to essays of Edmund Burke, and from those essays to the 
 books, on the same subject, of the present day. What is the 
 decree of God against the first social-anarchistic haranguer 
 for municipal ownership and murder of industry, recorded 
 in history? “ And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou 
 wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest 
 well shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, 
 sin lieth at thy door.” The decree relates further that 
 Cain was not convinced that the law announced to him by 
 his Creator was an inexorable first principle impossible to 
 be amended or in any way supplemented: like his dis¬ 
 ciples of to-day, Cain went into the field to instill his 
 deadly rot into the ears and heart of his industrious, pro¬ 
 ductive brother, and—as has been the result with the dis¬ 
 ciples of Cain ever since—and, it is to be hoped, ever will 
 be so—failed to get his doctrine adopted by an industrious 
 man—Abel. Cain, for his fratricide, would have received the 
 punishment of a murderer, but for his still more horrible 
 crime—socialism—God decreed his perpetual banishment 
 from the companionship of man to that of the baboons of Nod. 
 The social-anarchistic municipal ownership crowd, who 
 now are recommending this same old doctrine—first 
 rob industry, then slay it in the field, or in its work¬ 
 shops—in order to escape the force of this first principle, 
 and effect of its violation—declare that the whole story is a 
 fable; that there never was such a God, such a Cain or 
 such an Abel. When informed that all the decrees and 
 
22 
 
 fundamental law of man exist in complete harmony with 
 this first principle, they declare, in effect—with great em¬ 
 phasis—man is a damned fool for making his laws on 
 such lines; when informed, that all the laws and decrees of 
 nature are in perfect accord with this first principle of 
 God announced in the early creation, they assert, in effect— 
 nature is lame in many respects; that they can and will 
 amend nature, at least to an extent that shall permit of the 
 robbing and killing of a few street car companies, as an ex¬ 
 perimental start—in these cataclysmical amendments pro¬ 
 posed by them. 
 
 Themistocles, an ancient Greek, recognizing the wisdom 
 of fostering industries of the people, said : “ I do not know 
 how to fiddle, but I do know how to make a small town 
 become a great city. 5 ’ Could it be that Francis Bacon— 
 through some gift of psychomancy, in the very first years 
 of the 17th century—was pointing directly to a young mayor 
 who was to spring up, in a great city, in the very last years 
 of the 19th century, by these startling words? “ As on the 
 other side, there will be found a great many that can fiddle 
 very cunningly, but yet are so far from being able to make 
 a small town or state great, as their gift lieth the other way : 
 to bring a great and flourishing estate to ruin and decay. 
 And certainly, those degenerate arts and shifts whereby 
 many counsellors and governors gain both favor with their 
 masters”—(now the people here)—“and estimation with the 
 vulgar, deserve no better name than fiddling; being things 
 rather pleasing for the time, and graceful to themselves 
 only, than tending to the weal and advancement of the 
 state which they serve.” 
 
 Man is a political animal; laws are as essential to his 
 well being and existence as the food upon which he subsists. 
 Society can not drift, not even infinitesimally slightly, toward 
 
23 
 
 the abrogation of law—“ stern, rigid, necesitous law—” 
 without experiencing a shock of discomfort throughout 
 the limits of the society so drifting. Shall the earth drift 
 the least fraction out of its path around the sun, without its 
 mass from pole to pole, from center to circumference, receiv¬ 
 ing a shock? Let this social-anarchistic municipal-owner¬ 
 ship would-be-robbers and killers-of-labor crowd be here 
 informed, in closing, that the people of the United States 
 have too fair a start—too much of an impetus in the right 
 direction, received from their industries—to be ever pulled 
 back to the destruction recommended by it. Can the pos¬ 
 sibility be conceived of this refined, polished, scholarly, 
 Christian Chicago, being by ignorant or charlatan politi¬ 
 cians howled into the ridiculous act of setting up, as a 
 deity, a one-eyed god, a joss, a frog, a crocodile, a bull or a 
 toad? 
 
 In China, a nation still largely barbarous, the govern¬ 
 ment—the emperor—has municipal ownership right, that is, 
 the right to rob or decapitate any citizen without fear of 
 troublesome questions being asked. In China the honest 
 citizen finds it necessary, each morning before beginning 
 his breakfast, to make a cursory examination of his neck 
 to see whether his thorax remains in sufficient touch with 
 his head to enable him to pass his food to his stomach. In 
 Russia, the government—the Czar—a power of municipal 
 ownership exists, but the Czar deems it unhealthy to rob 
 his subjects ; it is said, however, friends of the Czar rather 
 too frequently, mysteriously drop out of sight in Russia and 
 bob up in the mines of Siberia; presenting the singular 
 phenomena of having accumulated m'ore iron and parted 
 with more gold during their strange disappearance and 
 reappearance than is recommended by any known system 
 of therapeutics. 
 
 f 
 
 
“ Ha, ha,’ cried Mr. Pecksniff, softly. ‘ He heard me in¬ 
 side just now, I have no doubt. In regard to the fluted 
 pillars in the portico, my dears—’ ‘ Hallo, cried the gen¬ 
 
 tleman.’ ‘ Sir, your servant,’ said Mr. Pecksniff, taking off 
 his hat: £ I am proud to make your acquaintance.’ ‘Come 
 off the grass, will you,’ roared the gentleman; e You are in¬ 
 truding, unwarrantably intruding—trespassing. You see 
 the gravel walk, don’t you? What do you think it’s meant 
 for? Open the gate there; show that party out! ” 
 
 Miss Lillian A. Whitney. 
 
 512 Otto St., Chicago. 
 
 January 31, 1899.