WEALTH AND IMPERIALISM

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 31, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 44.

WEALTH AND IMPERIALISM.

PROF. GOLDWIN SMITH, who will not be accused of socialism, speaks thus of the plutocratic tendencies in this government: "The resources of the continent, marvelously developed, and financial speculation have bred a body of wealth having its center in the East headed by a fabulous multi-millionairism, intrenched by a multiplicity of great corporations and trusts, daily absorbing money and extending its influence, feeling more and more the general unity of its interests, and threatening, if its ascendancy be not moderated, to dominate the State."

The Springfield Republican remarks:—

"This tremendous power is past the stage of timidity; it boldly grasps the scepter of government."

Professor Smith further says of this wealth power:—

"It may buy legislatures, judiciaries, municipalities, perhaps even churches. . . . It may command the public journals and thus control public opinion. It may kill commercially any one who opposes it. Even universities fed by its bounty, may fall under its political influence. A limit can hardly be set to the extension of its power in an age in which the universal object of desire is money, with the enjoyment which money provides."

Its education, its trend toward imperialism, is thus stated:—

"At heart it sighs for a court and aristocracy. It is even introducing the powder-headed footman, while he is going out of fashion in England. Its social center is shifting more and more from the United States to monarchical and aristocratic England, where it can take hold on the mantle of high society, get more homage and subserviency for its wealth, hope perhaps in the end to win its way to the circle of royalty, and, if it becomes naturalized, to obtain a knighthood or even a peerage. It barters the hands of its daughters and its millions for aristocratic connection."

And there is much more, but one more remark of the professor will suffice:—

"The republic of Florence, without change of its political forms, was effectually enslaved by the wealth of the Medicis. Florence was small, it is true; but so was the wealth of the Medicis compared with the collective fortunes of the United States."

How aptly all this, without such a thought on the part of the writer, coincides with divine prophecy—prophecy which Prof. Goldwin Smith does not believe. In James 5 God has told us that the rich men have heaped up their treasures "in the last days." Habakkuk personifies this wealth power, and declares that he is a "haughty man, and that keepeth not at home; who enlargeth his desire as hell, and he is as death, and can not be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all peoples." See Hab. 1 to 2: 5, R.V. But these prophecies also warn of the evil time which this wealth gathering will provoke among the poor and oppressed until the rich shall "weep and howl." And the prophet asks of this all-grasping money power, "Shall not they rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them?"

All these to the Christian are omens of the better day, when Christ shall come. To the oppressor they are solemn warnings.