T THE CADET. ·3 ,
national capital ready and willing, like Esau of old, to i
·· . `sell their birthright for a mess of pottage. For years fl
i r   » they havebeen making laws so as to enable these modern l
if Shylocks to take their pound of flesh from the breasts off i
people, but now the people have come to demand an »
  accounting for the blood. Then again in our elections,  
  when the majority for the victorious party is not large, »
YQ the cry raised by the defeated minority is bribery and . T
V fraud, and the ballot box, palladium of our liberties, ·
if taints of political corruption and dishonor. `  
  The effects socially are such as tend to array class
against class and man against man. Set your .
if embossed, cushioned, diamond studded ease and com- T
  fort along side of the pain and the weariness, the é
is hunger and nakedness, the darkness and no hope of your {
— neighbor. He beholds the splendid and sunlit lives of {
_ your wife and your children. He finds himself com-  
I J pelled to eke out a miserable existence; he sees his wife  
  ' a galley slave to a tub, his children the heirs of his own  
  half-fed fate. Do you wonder that the contrast incites E
'V to anger and moves him to crime? Again the spectacle `
  presented in many instances of great wealth notoriously l
iili won by corrupt methods has undermined the very foun- 4
, dations of honesty. The consequences of the appropri- li
· ration of the nation’s wealth by a few have made possible tl
  a policy of monopolizing the control and profits of the q
  industries of the country, never before even imagined as  
  among the possible perils of society.  
The third effect has been upon industry and has been i
to bring the wage earner more completely under the l
3 thumb of the employer. The small tradesman and  
_ manufacturers have quite as much to fear from monopo- l
e lies as have the poorest class of laborers. As one after  
f another of the departments of business pass under the ;
V control of the syndicate, the business men with moderate