s an unjust proportion of the
laborer's hire, but takes more than he justly should as interest upon
his capital and as reward for his own time and labor, often amounting
to no trouble or labor, he delegating to other hands, such as foremen
or overseers, the absolute control of his investment. Yet, the man who
invests capital not only derives, in a majority of cases, a sufficient
income to enable him to live in more than comfort but to have a
healthy bank account; while the laborer, who alone makes capital draw
interest by giving it employment in developing the resources of
nature, derives only a bare subsistence, frequently not sufficient to
meet the absolute necessaries of his daily life. His wife and children
must be content with life simply--bare, cold life--often without any
of the conveniences or the commonest luxuries which make existence
anything more than the curse it is to a large majority of humankind.
This is peculiarly true of the condition of the masses of the Old
World, and is fast becoming true in our own young and vigorous
country.

In every quarter of the globe the cry of depressed and defrauded labor
is heard. The enormous drain upon the producing agents necessary to
maintain in idleness and luxury the great capitalists of the world who
accumulated their ill-gotten wealth by fraud, perjury and "conquest,"
so called, grinds the producing agent down to the lowest possible
point at which he can live and still produce. The millionaires of the
world, so called "aristocracies," and the taxes imposed by sovereign
states to liquidate obligations more frequently contracted to enslave
than to ameliorate the conditions of mankind, are a constant drain
which comes ultimately out of the laboring classes in every case.

What are millionaires, any way, but the most dangerous enemies of
society, always eating away its entrails, like the cultures that
preyed upon the chained Prometheus? Take our own breed of these
parasites; note how they grind down the stipend they are compelled to
bestow upon the human tools they must use to still further swell their
ungodly gains! Note how they take advantage of the public; how they
extort, with Shylock avarice, every penny they possibly can from those
who are compelled to use the appliances which wealth enables them to
contrive for the public convenience and comfort; how they corrupt
legislatures and dictate to the unscrupulous minions of the law. The
Athenians were wise who enac