Fordham University - Maroon Yearbook (New York, NY)

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Demammonizing the Country Commencement Speech ACH century has had its special aims and individual aspirations and one might say its providential work. In ours, attention has been directed to imminent social problems and its mission seems to be to seek a permanent peace in the formidable struggle existent today between the world of capital and the world of labor. The great working class of the country has finally grown impatient at the conflict and has demanded that it cease. And so to-day we are face to face with one of the most important questions of the time, a question which has divided nations, whose answer has been vainly sought in bloodshed and revolution, bringing in their wake a series of consequences that threatened the stability of law and order. Philosophers, philanthropists and economists ascribe the social unrest of the times to the accumulation of great wealth on the part of a few and a consequent depreciation of the necessities and comforts of life to the millions of the workers of the country. We do not decry the possession of wealth in itself. We recognize in every man, be he pauper or millionaire, the right to private property, a right that is come to him not through legislation, not through the common consent of the people, but a right that is born in him and is as firmly and as deeply rooted in his soul as is his natural right to life. Wealth in itself is not intrinsically wrong. The evil lies in the methods of accumulation and the means of disposal, for the same natural law that justifies the possession of a single dollar justifies the possession of a million. It is the mammoth fortunes, accumulated by wrongful means, by fraud, trickery and chicanery, by the underpayment of employee, by an unnecessary increase in the prices of the necessities and comforts of life; fortunes that are used to defeat the ends of justice and secure special privileges to the few, that to-day stand forth as the peril of the classes. W'hen such wealth, accumulated by a few, becomes so great that it is detrimental to the common good and defeats the end of society, then that wealth is excessive and should be circulated. On all sides we see the evils of excessive wealth. It has cleft the country in twain. The facts are patent to all. Year after year the rich have become richer, and the poor poorer, until to-day the

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Columbia 495 Columbia AIL, goddess fair, O'er freedom's land presiding. Midst happy folk abiding, Hail! Beneath thy rule, no curse Of war can hurrid trumpet blare, Nor wrinkled care Oppress us. Oh, guide our destiny aright; Bless us With all prosperity; Nor with temerity Let any foe assail our might! E. R. M., 15.

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Demamtnonizing the Country 497 wealthy and the indigent practically constitute the two classes of the country. Between the two the gorge of separation is steadily becoming wider and wider. By the poor we do not simply mean those who are in poverty, those who are without even the necessities of life, but we mean those thousands who are living from hand to mouth, the thousands we see going to and from their daily work, receiving a wage that does not enable them to adequately provide for that time in their lives when they can no longer toil. These are the poor of the country and their number is steadily increasing. It is true, perhaps, that there is still a middle class, but just so surely as that class has decreased in the past, so under similar circumstances will it continue to decrease. This condition cannot long continue. Men will not always quietly acquiesce in social conditions that enable the few to live in affluence, luxury and ease, while the masses of the people cannot adequately provide for the future. History repeats itself and the history of India, Greece, Rome and Judea should stand as a lasting warning to all America. What greater misery and tyranny than among the castes of India, what greater social inequalities than among the ancient Greeks; what greater class distinctions than between the patricians and plebeians of Rome—all the fruits of the unjust accumulation of great fortunes by the few? In our own country to-day we have practically these same castes, the rich and the poor, we have the same great class distinctions and bitter class antagonism, and most of all we have among us modern Pharisees, who rob the workers in the coal fields of Pennsylvania and the iron workers of Colorado, and then in the guise of philanthrophv, establish foundations for the propagation of godless education and donate free libraries to a gullable public instead of giving decent wages to their employees. This great estrangement of the rich and the poor will reach the breaking point. The poor see themselves deprived of the necessities and comforts of life, they do not fail to realize that through their low wages they are increasing the fortunes of their employers, while they can scarely maintain themselves. Among them is sown the seed of discontent and resentment at the injustice that is done them. They yield to the harangues of the Socialist demagogues, and are influenced by men of evil principles, who deceive them with artful promises and excite foolish hopes which usually end in useless regrets and the loss of all they possess. On the other hand, we see the enormously rich striving after