Topeka, Kan., January 5, 1905.
Dear Sirs: I have followed Mr. Lawson's article very closely and, as I understand it, he intimates that he has a remedy for the rotten condition of affairs now prevailing. What I, and many more of your readers, would like to know is, whether Mr. Lawson, in offering a remedy, is taking into consideration the 22,000,000 people of the country who neither invest in stocks nor hold any amount of insurance, or is his remedy meant merely to protect the four million small capitalists from being eaten up by what he terms the "System."
It is very evident to some of us that if he cannot show us how to protect the great majority of the people who, although they are not even small capitalists, are the ones who are really footing the bills, his remedy will not be the grand success he anticipates.
J. P. Ferriter.
My Remedy will benefit the whole American people. It will help most the man who nowadays in America deserves most to be helped—the producer, who to-day is exchanging the efforts of all his working hours for the bare necessities of himself and family; not those bare necessities which the white slaves of Europe are ground down to believe are their only requirements, but those which the free and enlightened American believes, and has taught his family to believe, should be his necessities.
It is intended to benefit most the man who has nothing left over after paying his bills Saturday night but the terrors of not being able to meet them the coming week. It would indeed be a parody on a Remedy if it did not bring relief to this class.
Next, my Remedy will benefit that great middle class whose savings go to make up the billions in the savings-banks, national banks, trust and insurance companies, which are used by the "System" to secure for themselves a hundred, a thousand, and ten thousand per cent. interest on their capital, while the owners of these billions must be content with two and a half to four per cent. per annum; and
Next, it will benefit that class which possesses large fortunes honestly acquired, inasmuch as it will enable them to know what there is behind their investments. None but those who have plundered the people—acquired overnight fortunes many times larger than any honest lifetime efforts could possibly bring—can possibly be hurt by the application of my Remedy.
You are right—any remedy which would do other than what mine proposes to do would be a farce.
Transcriber's Notes:
Page vi: Scheheherezade sic
Page 40: Missing "l" added to "loser" in Footnote 2
Page 59: guerilla sic
Page 62: dumfounded sic
Page 64: villany sic
Page 99: gayly sic
Page 107: Machiavelian sic
Page 134: Machiavelian sic
Page 154: "slighest" amended to "slightest"
Page 175: Comma added after "perjury" in Footnote 12
Page 193: "metres" amended to "meters"
Page 277: dumfounded sic
Page 289: Opening quotes added to "Every one of us...."
Page 348: millionnaire sic
Page 352: Comma added after "defalcation"
Page 388: milllionnaire's sic
Page 447: cohoots sic
Page 471: "very rich men" amended to "very rich man"
Page 478: haling sic
Page 482: Corea and Porto Rico sic
Page 490: "managment" amended to "management"
Page 548: "insuarnce" amended to "insurance"
Hyphenation has generally been standardized. However, when hyphenated and unhyphenated versions of a word each occur an equal number of times, both versions have been retained (baseball/base-ball; blackjack/black-jack; blacklisted/black-listed; chessboard/chess-board; cooperation/co-operation; downtown/down-town; handshake/hand-shake; headlight/head-light; headlines/head-lines; setback/set-back; typewritten/type-written; uptown/up-town; viewpoint/view-point).