has earned it, saved it and inherited it. It is the grand moving power
of society as it now stands, and without it we would return to the
savage state. Society can never be too wealthy, any more than it can be
too powerful, and the one is the synonym, to a great extent, of the
other.

But capital with interest, as the agent and assistant of competition,
is destructive. Capital joined with labor builds manufactories,
railroads, towns, and is the great moving power of civilization; but in
the growth of civilization vast amounts of it have accumulated, and
being unevenly distributed, there are those who are constantly seeking
its use to help them to business and to elevation, and have been ready
to pay a royalty, which we call interest, for the use of it. This has
made capital a commodity.

The progress of arts and inventions has been, in modern days, in such
increased ratio to the increase of capital that it has created so great
a demand that a monopoly has been made of it; more is paid for the use
of it than its real worth, so that wealth, even in this democratic
country, is piling up in colossal fortunes by being drawn from the
great body of society. Consequently, classes of people grow relatively
poorer as fast as other bodies of people or individuals grow richer;
the extremes of riches and poverty constantly increasing.

Every advance in the producing capacity of machinery gives organized
capital a better hold on labor, because capital owns the machinery,
and, in homely phrase, labor "is the under dog in the fight" all of the
time. It makes no practical difference to it whether the laborer
becomes capitalist or no, for the moment he becomes so he is engaged in
the same crusade. He is no better nor worse than the one whom we called