Born Again by Alfred William Lawson (top e book reader .TXT) 📕

"St. Louis, Mo.: An epidemic of diphtheria is raging in this city and hundreds of children are dying daily from the effects of its ravages. The deaths in most cases are children of the poorer classes who cannot afford to pay the exorbitant prices lately put upon antitoxin by the Medicine Trust. This trust, which controls the supply of antitoxin, has increased the price nearly two hundred per cent, during the past year at different intervals, until it has now become absolutely prohibitive to all except the wealthy. Unless there is something done immediately to alleviate this condition of affairs, the lives of thousands of young children will be blotted out, which might otherwise have been saved."

"Kokomo, Ind.: An awful tragedy took place in this town yesterday when Peter Doles, apparently driven insane from poverty and want of employment, killed his wife and five children by splitting their heads open with an axe, and afterward thrust a knife into his own heart. Doles was at one time a wealthy citizen of this place, but speculation was the cause of his downfall."

"Philadelphia, Pa.: A terrible state of affairs has been brought to light here by the police who have discovered that a regular system of child murder has been in practice for some time by a syndicate of fiends who murder children for the insurance. These fiends, who secured their victims from regularly operated baby farms of illegitimate children, would have their lives insured for large sums and then destroy them afterwards, in order to obtain the insurance money."

"Paterson, N. J.: U. R. Dire was sentenced to be hung today for the murder of his father. Some time ago, young Dire obtained information that his millionaire father was about to make a new will, and cut him off without money, so he deliberately entered into a cold-blooded plan with his father's secretary to murder the old man by poison. The secretary afterward turned State's evidence and upon his testimony the young man was convicted."

"Reno, Nev.: This town was the scene of murderous outlawry last night when an organized band of burglars gained entrance to a local bank, and blew up the vaults. The night watchman discovered their presence, and raising an alarm brought the police and other citizens to the premises. Then occurred a general encounter between the police and the burglars in which over a hundred shots were fired, causing the death of three policemen, two private citizens and four of the burglars. The remainder of the desperadoes jumped on their horses and escaped with the money."

"Boston, Mass.: Rev. D. D. Sly, the eminent clergyman of this city, announced today that he has received a call from the Lord to take up his work in another field. He will leave at once for New York City, where he will take charge of a fashionable Fifth Avenue pastorate. Reverend Sly's salary will be increased from two thousand five hundred to five thousand dollars per annum through the change, which once more brings up the question as to whether the Lord was ever known to call a pastor to a new field at a lower salary."

"Buffalo, N. Y.: A case brought up in court here today shows to what extent the extortionate loan sharks will go in their greed for money. It was proved that two years ago O. U. Curr loaned Mrs. Kate Poor, a washer-woman with three small children, the sum of fifty dollars on household furniture. A contract was entered into, whereby the widow was to pay interest at the rate of twenty per cent per month until the principal had been paid. Mrs. Poor stated under oath that she has already paid Curr, in monthly installments, over three hundred dollars and that she is still indebted to him for the original loan of fifty dollars."

"Scranton, Pa.: Trades Unionism is receiving a great deal of public censure at present in this city, owing to the recent disclosure made against Judas Pilate, a union agent, who has been blackmailing different contractors for several years past, by making them pay him large sums of money, under threats of ordering union men to strike. It has been proved that Pilate has secured over fifty thousand dollars by this method. His followers, however, still remain loyal to him, notwithstanding he sold them out many times and brought disrepute upon Trades Unionism."

"Harrisburg, Pa.: The various manufacturers of cigarettes in this state have banded together to defeat the Anti-Cigarette League in its efforts to have laws passed forbidding the sale of cigarettes to children. While the manufacturers do not deny that the cigarette is wrecking the physical, mental, and moral character of the American youth, they contend that it will prove detrimental to their business interests, and thereby cause a loss of many thousand dollars if the Anti-Cigarette Law is put into effect. Reliable statistics for the past three years show that one hundred thousand children are ruined annually by smoking cigarettes."

"Pittsburg, Pa.: The Steel Trust has made a general reduction in the salaries of all its employees throughout the United States, which will decrease the wages of the worker from ten to twenty per cent, and affecting in the neighborhood of two hundred thousand men. It is estimated that this sweeping reduction will save the Steel Trust approximately twenty millions of dollars per year. Owing to the manipulations of the Wall Street schemers, this saving becomes necessary to keep the Trust in existence, as in the great merger of the several different steel companies, the actual valuation of the plants was increased one hundred times over in watered stock, so that it not only becomes necessary for those who do the labor to pay dividends on bona fide investments of the capitalists, but to pay dividends on watered stock criminally increased one hundred fold besides. This decrease in wages will cause great suffering among the laboring classes, for, owing to the increased cost of living caused by the raising of prices by the various food trusts, it is almost impossible for the ordinary man to make both ends meet. It appears to all thoughtful students of political economy that the object of those in control of the money markets is to limit the supply of necessities of life, so that the demand for them will force prices up, and, by decreasing production, will cause a superfluous quantity of labor, which, in turn, will force wages down. With cheap labor to produce, and a high selling price for the production, the trust managers and other financiers have easily solved the question of how to legally confiscate the wealth of the world."

"New York City: A great war is now being waged between the rich tenement house owners and their poor tenants on the East Side, which promises to end in lawlessness, riots, and much suffering in consequence. It appears that the owners of these houses have increased the rents from time to time until they are now beyond the reach of the tenants' ability to pay. At least three thousand of these occupants have banded together to fight the last raise, while the landlords have also combined to evict them unless they comply with the terms. The tenants, who are mostly hard working laborers, claim that it is utterly impossible for them to meet the extortionate prices of foods, fuel, gas, oil, and rents, now being forced upon them by the financiers with the small amount of wages that they receive for their work from the industrialists, and if they are evicted from their present homes it is a problem as to what they will do or where they will go. The landlords claim that is none of their concern; that they themselves are merely following the system now in existence of getting all they can, through their property rights, according to the law of supply and demand. Some of them even claim that these tenants are nothing more than vermin, anyway, and that it would be well to push them all into the East River and exterminate them entirely."

The newspaper articles, which I have reproduced, are but a few of the thousands chronicled daily of the terrible crimes which take place in all parts of civilized Christendom over the individual possession of money, or its equivalent, and they also demonstrate that after nineteen hundred years of Christianity the world still remains in a savage state. The Christian must admit, if he will stop and consider, that there must be something lacking in his religion, if after all these centuries, such barbarous conditions still exist. What is lacking? This question can be answered in a few words. The abolition of the money system. The eradication of individual accumulation. The substitution of united labor and honest distribution. The adherence to the principles of Natural Law.

Had Christ taught Natural Law instead of supernatural religion, had he been an organizer and started a movement toward the abolition of the money system and established a united labor organization in place of the system of individual accumulation, the world long ere this would have been a heavenly abiding place for the human family, instead of a seething furnace of petty quarrels, murderous fights, and selfish strife among all of the inhabitants.

Why should one hog have more to eat than another? Why should one man have more luxuries and privileges than another? Why should the man who conceives an idea receive a greater reward than he who puts the idea into execution? Why should the man who works with his brain have more of the sweets of life than he who works with his hands? Why should the man who lays the brick have more of the world's goods than he who carries the brick mortar to him? These questions do not apply alone to the capitalist, but also to the laborer as well, and as long as the laboring classes champion the cutthroat policy of grading man's allowance according to his ability, of giving more to one than another, owing to a slight difference of brain capacity, he should not, after showing his own greediness in this respect, expect the capitalist not to be greedy also. He must learn that all men should have equal opportunities and benefits from the whole production of united labor. As long as money exists, so long will fights and quarrels take place between capital and labor, and between the different branches of labor as well. The laborer will fight the capitalist until he in turn becomes a capitalist, and then he will turn about and fight the laborer. So there is but one reasonable method to pursue in order to better the conditions on earth, and to eliminate suffering and crime entirely, and that method is to strike at the very root of the cause, and abolish money and the system of individual accumulation.

CHAPTER XXIX

My sojourn at the Waldoria Hotel was a rather pleasant one in many ways. I enjoyed the luxury and refinement of the surroundings. The harmonious music of the orchestras was pleasant to listen to, and the magnificent paintings and beautiful works of art were pleasing to the eye. I also took some pleasure in wearing the different suits of fine clothes with which I had been supplied, and in making my own person appear as well as possible in the eyes of others. I even enjoyed entering the spacious and luxurious restaurants and eating sparingly of some of the delicious viands prepared by the scientific chef. In fact, the many delightful advantages to be derived from living at the Waldoria directly appealed to me as being some of the blessings supplied by nature for all human beings to enjoy.

But still there was a serious drawback to my thorough and absolute enjoyment of these conditions, when I took into consideration the fact that I was in no