George Schorb

"Lincoln says: "When I first went to Washington as President, I soon received a call from a Baptist preacher of my old neighborhood. He said: 'My Church is too poor to support my family, so I came to see whether you had a little job for me. You are the very man we want I said; 'we are a little short of honest men here.' We found him a place in the revenue department at two thousand dollars a year, and told him we would try to give him something better soon. But he said: 'This is good enough for me. I don't want anything better.'' 'What an honest man!' I said to myself. Then the war came on, and amid the multitude of other things I quite forgot about him. Shortly before the end of my term he came into my office in broadcloth and silk hat, and said: 'I came to bid you goodbye. I have given up my office.' 'Why so?' I said. "Stay a little longer, and let us go home together.' 'I've had it long enough,' he said; 'let somebody else have a chance.' 'Honest man,' I said again. Soon after another neighbor called, who said: 'You did pretty well by the preacher.' 'O/ I replied, 'we gave him two thousand dollars a year, the best we could do for him.' 'Well,' he said, laughing, 'he got a hundred thousand out of it, and he has gone on a trip to Europe.' " A selfish system increases selfishness, the disease aggravates itself, and breaks out in luxury and extravagance, which is bad for the body, the soul, and the pocket"

"Lincoln, speaking of what we owe each other through failure and bankruptcy, called it "the National debt ;" and he himself had so great a horror of debt that once, while he was a clerk, and accidentally took a sixpence too much from a lady customer, as soon as he discovered the mistake, he walked two and a half miles that he might return it at once. O for a revival of such honesty! "

"But corporations combine to fix prices, and they boycott any man or company that will not submit to their terms. Railroad combines refuse to carry the freight of any road that will not join the ring. Two years ago the Chicago Tribune broke its contract with the carriers, who sold penny papers. It was a boycott against the cheaper paper, the subscribers, and the carriers. The Distillers' Union not long since at- tempted to blow up an independent distillery in Chicago, and would have destroyed life as well as property, if the plot had not been prevented. The Standard Oil Co. is openly accused of blowing up the wells of competitors. But what paper or politician denounces these acts of injustice? As Shakespeare puts it: "Plate sin with gold, And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks. Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it.""

"Thus we breed anarchists, till our cities are under police government."