Life — March 30, 1911 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

616 Conversation on Fifth Avenue HOS. nies, General Dis- content and Popular Unrest, were walking down Fifth Avenue together. They had come from nothing and were going no- where in particular. As usual, they were simply roaming around jooking for a chance tomake trouble. They two old cro- about their old sweet- heart, Madame Guil- lotine. They had tired of her long ago and after they had deserted her she had been compelled to find a place in the employ of the French Government. “Those were hard days, Pop,” said the General. “We didn't have any muck-raking magazines or demagogic yellow journals to help ‘stir things up.” “T don’t think it’s any easier no’ rejoined his companion. “ Then the peo- ple were half-starved, half-clothed and half-sheltered. No matter how hard or how long they worked they couldn't get even the necessities of life, much less the comforts, Now, any man who is willing to do an honest day’s work can xet a day’s pay for it. Our only friends are the fellows who don’t want to work or who don’t know how to work and who want the Government or some one else to support them. Even if there are a lot of half-baked malcontents breaking into print, they can’t help us much Never in the world’s history have so many people been getting so much com- fort, and even luxury, with so little ex- ertion and so little equipment for earn- ing a living as they enjoy right now and right here in the United States of Amer- ica. You can’t make a fellow who's well fed and comfortable think he’s being very badly abused. “You're wrong, Pop. It's all a mat- ter of degree. In the old times we were able to make those who had nothing hate every one who had anything. Now all we have to do is to make the fel- low who has something hate the fellow who has more. Tha easy. It's trouble to create hatred in the brea the day-laborer who'd like to job of the union man with his big wages, his eight hours a day and double pay for overtime and holidays. Same way with the fellow who gets only fifteen hundred a year when the man over him draws ten thousand. Or the man with two automobiles and a country place and the ‘LIF &- other fellow with eight automobiles, a steam yacht and country-houses at New- port, Lenox and Palm Beach. It isn't what a man’s got that makes him want to upset things; it’s what the other fel- low’s got.” “That's all right, but going to get to them?” “Easiest thing you know. In the rapid growth of this country there has been a lot of stealing. There's a lot of stealing still going on, but we are begin- ning to take notice of it. But to make trouble, all we have to do is to keep re- peating that every one’s a thief, Every pinhead likes to believe that every one who has more than he has stole it. Pretty soon we'll have every one in the country believing every one else is a thief. Then they'll begin to lynch one another, starting in with those who have stolen most, until there will be only one man left and he'll probably go and hang himself, because we will have made him suspect even his own honesty.” “What are you going to do first to spread this Gospel of Hate?” “You know our old friend, Loose Thinking?” Yep Well, printing is so cheap now that he finds it easy to get simple folks to read the kind/of stuff he writes. So much so that he has had to get his old pals, Inaccurate Statement and False Conclusion, to help him. The whole how are we bunch are working for our friends, So- cialism and Anarchy, Plain Lie will join the staff presently, and but for one thing we could look forward to a fine old bloody time in the near future.” “ What's the one thing?” “The original Yanks and their de- scendants are pretty shrewd people. So are the foreigners who have been here long enough to become Americanized. All these realize that we have a pretty good form of government as govern- ments go. They may wake up and con- clude to run it themselves instead of let- ting the lawyers and professional politi- cians do it for them.” “What have the lawyers got to do with it?” erything. They keep the laws from being enforced and devise schemes to protect the thieves and help them to steal, I tell you, Pop, if we can’t stir up a general ruction, it would be mighty easy to organize a lynching bee to string up @ few thousand leading lawyers and professional politicians.” “That looks good to me, But say, General, aren’t those two fellows in the big automobile friends of ours?” “Certainlee. It’s Pierp Morgan and Jack Rockefeller. Come on. Get busy.” The two old chaps lined up on the curb, and, at the tops of their voices, began to yell: “Where did they get it? Where did they get it?” Messaj Flectcam. “HAGGAGE TRANSFERRED TO YOUR HOTEt..” comicbooks.com