is the greatest danger that has threatened our country since the civil war, and against it we must constantly be on our guard. If the power is permitted to grow it may become too late, and can then be remedied only by putting class against class—by revolution, which always means the rejoicing of the poor at the downfall of their oppressors.

This, then, is to be the battle of the future—concentrated wealth on one hand, concentrated poverty on the other. The battle should not be one of force, but one of reason and agitation until wealth shall be bound by proper constitutional limitations; a battle in which law shall triumph; for the true remedy, the remedy most conducive to equality, lies in legislation. But this legislation should be immediate. If we desire to prevent actual war between class and class, it is imperative that a legal check at once be placed upon the growing power for evil of aggregated wealth.

The limitation of wealth by law has received the approval of some of the most gifted as well as philanthropic of minds. In our own country such men as Horace Greeley, Theodore Parker, and William Ellery Channing have advocated it. Still, a ready objection of some against the limitation of wealth is that any attempt to remedy by legislation the inequality of fortune at once infringes upon the right of personal liberty. Have we no laws in existence now which infringe upon the right of personal liberty? Do not our usury laws take some rights from the individual? Does not our custom-house law, which permits the trunks of every new arrival to be searched, infringe somewhat upon the right of personal liberty? The citizen who would object to these laws would have but a very narrow conception of the true purpose of government. If we examine our laws closely we shall find many that encroach upon individual liberty for the sake of public good. Then why should any objection be made to those laws which tend to limit wealth?

Undoubtedly a tax levied upon all incomes, which would be progressively raised and graduated according to the amount of the individual or corporate wealth could be constitutionally enacted. And if a progressive income tax can be enacted, the graduated inheritance tax can also be enacted, for the principle is practically the same. Senator David B. Hill, of New York, has called the progressive tax a “modern fad.” It is so modern, however that it can be traced back to the Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians. During the palmiest days of Greece—the days of Solon and Lycurgus—a progressive tax was a stern reality.

Our own country has not been without a progressive tax. In 1797 a graded inheritance tax was levied by Congress. This law was repealed in 1802. In 1862 a similar law was passed. But after having been decided to be constitutional by the Supreme Court, it was repealed in 1872.

Other governments at the present time tax the rich. In England, besides the income tax, many other items of revenue are contributed entirely by the rich—contributed upon the principle that those who have acquired riches shall bear the burden of taxation. In the United States we seem to place the burden of taxation upon the shoulders least fitted to bear it. Every effort to tax the rich, to properly tax corporations and trusts, has met with failure. The lobbyist and corporation lawyer have defied the tax-gatherer until they have worn out the patience of the people. The time is now ripe for proper legislation. A progressive income tax and a tax upon inheritances should be made a law in every State. The power to tax, it has been said, is the power to destroy. If a scale of taxation were wisely adopted it would eventually enable us to reach without political disturbance the almost total abolition of an aristocracy of wealth and thus solve the great problem of the day. If we are to consider humanity of any importance at all, wealth must be limited. The rights of all must be considered. When this is done we may be able to have a truly prosperous nation—a nation in which prosperity will not be confined to a favored few, but given to all.

“Prosperity,” says Rousseau, “is best secured when the medium-class income prevails, when no citizen is so rich that he can buy others, and no one so poor that he might be compelled to sell himself.”

THE BATTLE OF THE MONEY METALS

I. BIMETALLISM SIMPLIFIED.

BY GEORGE H. LEPPER.

The “free-silver delusion” is not dead, nor will it die unless the McKinley administration shall give it its quietus by providing the country with a sound and popular system of bimetallism. Even the most sanguine of the Republican leaders must admit that the prospect of accomplishing this task by international agreement is not so encouraging as to make the tentative consideration of other plans, not requiring concerted action, unnecessary or useless. The purpose of this article is to present such a plan, and to contrast it with those which have already been tried, or have thus far been proposed.

That the financial policy we have pursued since 1878, the year of the Bland-Allison Act, has been absurd and ruinous hardly admits of two opinions. Secretary Carlisle, in his letter of September 16th last, gave authoritative utterance to what had long been tacitly understood. He said, “If the time shall ever come when the parity of the present silver dollars and silver certificates cannot be otherwise maintained, they will be received by the government in exchange for gold.” In other words, the vast stores of silver purchased by the United States under the laws of 1878 and 1890 are a dead asset of the Treasury, and cannot be utilized for purposes of redemption until sixteen ounces of silver shall again be equivalent to one of gold, or until they are re-sold in the open market for gold. To render this treasure available for ultimate redemptions thus becomes a prime condition of our problem.

There is a growing disposition in certain influential quarters to evade the difficulties in the way of international bimetallism by taking the government out of the banking business, and relegating the matter of currency issues more and more to the banks. Whatever may be said in behalf of this course, it is certainly not popular with the masses, who, justly or ignorantly, have come to look upon national banks as favored objects of legislation, and in league with syndicates and trusts. But, aside from this, the real core of the trouble is not removed. We but shift the burden of responsibility. The ultimate fund for redemption remains limited to the one metal as beforehand can serve the banks even less efficiently, for the more divided the responsibility the larger the proportion of gold required for reserve purposes.

International bimetallism at the contemplated ratio of 16 to 1, and bimetallism by independent action at the same ratio, although opposing issues in the late campaign, are founded upon the same errors and misconceptions. Both assume that monetization creates a commercial demand for the metals, thereby enhancing their values; that the use of gold and silver as money substances has been one of choice with us instead of necessity; and that legal-tender laws create value.

It may be going too far to say that monetization creates no demand, but whatever demand it may be supposed to create is not a commercial one. In the latter sense the word signifies both an actual purchase, or the exchange of one thing for another, and a permanent withdrawal from the market of the thing bought. The act of coinage is certainly not a purchase, for, directly or indirectly, it aims to restore to the offerer of the bullion not something else, but the precise thing received;