"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 modern marauder whom we have enthroned as our ruler everywhere, from everyone, seizes, tears, and despoils the fruits of toil, and has never added a penny to the wealth of humanity.