THE DEAD HAND DOWN THROUGH THE AGES.
BY WILLIAM J. QUIRKE, PHILADELPHIA.
The workers of the world are Poor.
Not because they drink too much.
Not because they are not Church Members.
Not because they are lazy.
Not because they are tired, and eat and sleep too much.
But BECAUSE they are destined to be robbed of three-fourths of what they produce.
This ROBBERY takes the form of Rent, Interest and profit.
The Workers live and die in order that a privileged class may live in luxury.
Adolph Meiser left one thousand dollars to a colony at East Aurora, N. Y., to be deposited in a bank for 250 years.
In 250 years it will amount to $20,000,000. This difference, the $19,999,000, will not grow upon gooseberry trees.
It will come out of the workers’ children and their children’s children.
Healthy competition is good, but the worker, half of his body dying whilst he toils, has no chance in competition with the invested dollar.
That Dollar never dies but goes on increasing all the time.
Millions of children are born into the world, destined to a life and death of misery through the slum life, ill-nourishment, child-labor.
Deprived of all opportunity to mentally and morally develop.
Other children are millionaires even before they are born.
Under our present social system these not alone live upon the unpaid labor of the toiler, but claim the right to hand down to their children fruits of others’ toil.
A Leiter in Chicago invests his unpaid wages. His son is handed over millions a year out of the pay envelopes of overly big industry in Chicago, and the original investment keeps on increasing.
Pierpont Morgan’s son receives millions of dollars a year in revenue through the DEAD HAND.
Anyone with brains enough to flag a pushcart can see that as long as the present laws are on the Statute Books, along with other class laws this cannot be a land of equal opportunity for all.
There is no reason why anyone after death, should control wealth.
All wealth at a man’s death should be taken in control by the Government and used for the good and welfare of all the people.