it for a song from the ruined
holders, starts up the mill again and _makes_ five millions! That is to
say, he broke into a mill and robbed the safe of five millions. We send
the burglar to the penitentiary and hail the manipulator of this stock
as a Napoleon of Finance. I am not justifying crime. I demand the
enforcement of equal justice among men.

"An enraged Italian stabs his enemy to death. The act is murder. This
man corners wheat. Puts up the price of bread a cent a loaf and kills
ten thousand children already half-starved from insufficient food. We
electrocute the Italian and print pictures of the wheat speculator in
our magazines as an example of Success.

"In other words, the theft of five thousand dollars is grand larceny.
The theft of five millions, stained with human blood, is a triumph of
business genius.

"But one answer is heard, 'am I my brother's keeper?'

"The man who asks that question will always kill his brother if the
temptation comes at the right moment.

"A loaf of bread in England costs two and one-half cents. The same loaf
here costs five cents. Who voted to levy a tax of one hundred per cent.
on every man's loaf of bread? Kings were beheaded for less than this.
Why has the cost of living increased to the point of crushing the
average consumer? Because the irresponsible rulers of the people have
piled their bogus debts of printed paper on their backs. The lowest
estimate of this bogus capital of green goods stock is five times the
sum of the National debt. And yet not one of these great thieves has
ever been punished.

"Our brutal ancestors lived by raiding their neighbours. Their armed
bands of hired retainers ravaged, burned, pillaged--the strong against
the weak, the shrewd against the simple, the powerful against the
defenseless. The power of those savages was purely physical. The power
we give to their modern prototype is both physical and moral. They kill
the body and poison the souls of the living. The older savage made
raids for the necessities of life. We permit the raiders to play their
murderous game for the sheer sport of the exercise.

"The man who lives to serve his fellow-man, the artist who creates
beauty, the philosopher who inspires the mind, the statesman who adds a
new law to our social structure, the inventor who conquers nature, the
workingman who incarnates the dreams of thinkers into spiritualized
matter--these men all add to the wealth of the world; but this mod