Theft Part 13

{Knox}

(_Shrugging his shoulders._) If you will have it so.

{Starkweather}

I am like a certain gentleman from Missouri. You've got to show me.

{Knox}

And I'm like the man from Texas. It's got to be put in my hand.

{Starkweather}

I shift my residence at once to Texas. Put it in my hand that I steal on a large scale.

{Knox}

Very well. You are the great financier, merger, and magnate. Do you mind a few statistics?

{Starkweather}

Go ahead.

{Knox}

You exercise a controlling interest in nine billion dollars'

worth of railways; in two billion dollars' worth of industrial concerns; in one billion dollars' worth of life insurance groups; in one billion dollars' worth of banking groups; in two billion dollars' worth of trust companies. Mind you, I do not say you own all this, but that you exercise a controlling interest. That is all that is necessary. In short, you exercise a controlling interest in such a proportion of the total investments of the United States, as to set the pace for all the rest. Now to my point. In the last few years seventy billions of dollars have been artificially added to the capitalization of the nation's industries. By that I mean water--pure, unadulterated water. You, the merger, know what water means. I say seventy billions. It doesn't matter if we call it forty billions or eighty billions; the amount, whatever it is, is a huge one. And what does seventy billions of water mean? It means, at five per cent, that three billions and a half must be paid for things this year, and every year, more than things are really worth. The people who labor have to pay this. There is theft for you. There is high prices for you. Who put in the water? Who gets the theft of the water?

Have I put it in your hand?

{Starkweather}

Are there no wages for stewardship?

{Knox}

Call it any name you please.

{Starkweather}

Do I not make two dollars where one was before? Do I not make for more happiness than was before I came?

{Knox}

Is that any more than the duty any man owes to his fellowman?

{Starkweather}

Oh, you unpractical dreamer. (_Returns to his note-book._)

{Rutland}

(_Throwing himself into the breach._) Where do I steal, Mr.

Knox?--I who get a mere salary for preaching the Lord's Word.

{Knox}

Your salary comes out of that water I mentioned. Do you want to know who pays your salary? Not your parishioners. But the little children toiling in the mills, and all the rest--all the slaves on the wheel of labor pay you your salary.

{Rutland} I earn it.

{Knox}

They pay it.

{Mrs. Dowsett}

Why, I declare, Mr. Knox, you are worse than Mr. Sakari. You are an anarchist.

(_She simulates shivering with fear._)

{Chalmers}

(_To Knox._) I suppose that's part of your speech to-morrow.

{Dolores Ortega}

(_Clapping her hands._) A rehearsal! He's trying it out on us!

{Sakari}

How would you remedy this--er--this theft?

(_Starkweather again closes note-book on finger and listens as Knox begins to speak._)

{Knox}

Very simply. By changing the governmental machinery by which this household of ninety millions of people conducts its affairs.

{Sakari}

I thought--I was taught so at Yale--that your governmental machinery was excellent, most excellent.

{Knox}

It is antiquated. It is ready for the sc.r.a.p-heap. Instead of being our servant, it has mastered us. We are its slaves. All the political brood of grafters and hypocrites have run away with it, and with us as well. In short, from the munic.i.p.alities up, we are dominated by the grafters. It is a reign of theft.

{Hubbard}