The gulf between employers and the employed is constantly widening, and
classes are rapidly forming, one comprising the very rich and powerful,
while in another are found the toiling poor.
As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the
existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is
struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel.
Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the
law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's
masters.
Still congratulating ourselves upon the wealth and prosperity of our
country and complacently contemplating every incident of change
inseparable from these conditions, it is our duty as patriotic citizens
to inquire at the present stage of our progress how the bond of the
Government made with the people has been kept and performed.
Instead of limiting the tribute drawn from our citizens to the
necessities of its economical administration, the Government persists in
exacting from the substance of the people millions which, unapplied and
useless, lie dormant in its Treasury. This flagrant injustice and this
breach of faith and obligation add to extortion the danger attending the
diversion of the currency of the country from the legitimate channels of
business.
Under the same laws by which these results are produced the Government
permits many millions more to be added to the cost of the living of our
people and to be taken from our consumers, which unreasonably swell the
profits of a small but powerful minority.
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