Part 18 (1/2)

Thus, to recapitulate, the Astors debauched, swindled and murdered the Indians; they defrauded the city of land and of taxes; they a.s.sisted in corrupting legislatures; they profited from the owners.h.i.+p of blocks of death-laden tenement houses; they certified to thieving administrations.

Once having wrested into their possession the results of all of these and more fraudulent methods in the form of millions of dollars in property, what was their strongest ally? The Law. Yes, the Law, theoretically so impartial and so reverently indued with awe--and with force. From fraud and force the Astor fortune came, and by force, in the shape of law, it was fortified in their control. If a starving man had gone into any one of the Astor houses and stolen even as much as a silver spoon, the Law would have come to the rescue of outraged property by sentencing him to prison. Or if, in case of a riot, the Astor property was damaged, the Law also would have stepped in and compelled the county to idemnify. This Law, this extraordinary code of print which governs us, has been and is nothing more or less, it is evident, than so many statutes to guarantee the retention of the proceeds of fraud and theft, if the piracy were committed in a sufficiently large and impressive way. The indisputable proof is that every single fortune which has been obtained by fraud, is still privately held and is greater than ever; the Law zealously and jealously guards it. So has the Law practically worked; and if the thing is to be judged by its practical results, then the Law has been an instigator of every form of crime, and a bulwark of that which it instigated. Seeing that this is so, it is not so hard to understand that puzzling problem of why so large a portion of the community has resolved itself into a committee of the whole, and while nominally and solemnly professing the accustomed and expected respect for Law, deprecates it, as it is const.i.tuted, and often makes no concealment of contempt.

LAW THE STRONGEST a.s.sET.

In penetrating into the origin and growth of the great fortunes, this vital fact is constantly forced upon the investigator: that Law has been the most valuable a.s.set possessed by the capitalist cla.s.s. Without it, this cla.s.s would have been as helpless as a babe. What would the medieval baron have been without armed force? But note how sinuously conditions have changed. The capitalist cla.s.s, far shrewder than the feudalistic rulers, dispenses with personally equipped armed force. It becomes superfluous. All that is necessary to do is to make the laws, and so guide things that the officials who enforce the laws are responsive to the interests of the propertied cla.s.ses. Back of the laws are police forces and sheriffs and militia all kept at the expense of city, county and State--at public expense. Clearly, then, having control of the laws and of the officials, the propertied cla.s.ses have the full benefit of armed forces the expense of which, however, they do not have to defray. It has unfolded itself as a vast improvement over the crude feudal system.

In complete control of the laws, the great propertied cla.s.ses have been able either to profit by the enforcement, or by the violation, of them.

This is nowhere more strikingly shown than in the growth of the Astor fortune, although all of the other great fortunes reveal the same, or nearly identical, factors. With the millions made by a career of crime the original Astors buy land; they get more land by fraud; the Law throws its s.h.i.+eld about the property so obtained. They cheat the city out of enormous sums in taxation; the Law does not molest them. On the contrary it allows them to build palaces and to keep on absorbing up more forms of property. In 1875 William Astor builds a railroad in Florida; and as a gift of appreciation, so it is told, the Florida Legislature presents him with 80,000 acres of land. It is wholly probable, if the underlying circ.u.mstances were known, that it would be found that an influence more material than a simple burst of grat.i.tude prompted this gift. Where did the money come from with which this railroad was built? And what was the source of other immense funds which were invested in railroads, banks, industrial enterprises, in buying more land and in mortgages--in many forms of owners.h.i.+p?

The unsophisticated acceptor of current sophistries or the apologist might reply that all this money came from legitimate business transactions, the natural increase in the value of land, and thus on.

But waiving these superficial explanations and defenses, which really mean nothing more than a forced justification, it is plain that the true sources of these revenues were of a vastly different nature. The millions in rents which flowed in to the Astor's treasury every year came literally from the sweat, labor, misery and murder of a host of men, women, and children who were never chronicled, and who went to their death in eternal obscurity.

THE BASIS OF WEALTH'S STRUCTURE.

It was they who finally had to bear the cost of exorbitant rents; it was their work, the products which they created, which were the bases of the whole structure. And in speaking of murder, it is not deliberate, premeditated murder which is meant, in the sense covered by statute, but that much more insidious kind ensuing from grinding exploitation; in herding human beings into habitations unfit even for animals which need air and suns.h.i.+ne, and then in stubbornly resisting any attempt to improve living conditions in these houses. In this respect, it cannot be too strongly pointed out, the Astors were in nowise different from the general run of landlords. Is it not murder when, compelled by want, people are forced to fester in squalid, germ-filled tenements, where the sunlight never enters and where disease finds a prolific breeding-place?

Untold thousands went to their deaths in these unspeakable places. Yet, so far as the Law was concerned, the rents collected by the Astors, as well as by other landlords, were honestly made. The whole inst.i.tution of Law saw nothing out of the way in these conditions, and very significantly so, because, to repeat over and over again, Law did not represent the ethics or ideals of advanced humanity; it exactly reflected, as a pool reflects the sky, the demands and self-interest of the growing propertied cla.s.ses. And if here and there a law was pa.s.sed (which did not often happen) contrary to the expressed opposition of property, it was either so emasculated as to be harmless or it was not enforced.

The direct sacrifice of human life, however, was merely one substratum of the Astor fortune. It is very likely, if the truth were fully known, that the stupendous sums in total that the Astors cheated in taxation, would have been more than enough to have constructed a whole group of railroads, or to have bought up whole sections of the outlying parts of the city, or to have built dozens of palaces. Incessantly they derived immense rentals from their constantly expanding estate, and just as persistently they perjured themselves, and defrauded the city, State and Nation of taxes. It was not often that the facts were disclosed; obviously the city or State officials, with whom the rich acted in collusion, tried their best to conceal them.

GREAT THEFTS OF TAXES.

Occasionally, however, some fragments of facts were brought out by a legislative investigating committee. Thus, in 1890, a State Senate Committee, in probing into the affairs of the tax department, touched upon disclosures which dimly revealed the magnitude of these annual thefts, but which in nowise astonished any well-informed person, because every one knew that these frauds existed. Questioned closely by William M. Ivins, counsel for the committee, Michael Coleman, president of the Board of a.s.sessments and Taxes, admitted that vast stretches of real estate owned by the Astors were a.s.sessed at half or less than half of their real value.[158] Then followed this exchange, in which the particular ”Mr. Astor” referred to was not made clear:

Q.: You have just said that Mr. Astor never sold?

A.: Once in a while he sells, yes.

Q.: But the rule is that he does not sell?

A.: Well, hardly ever; he has sold, of course.

Q.: Isn't it almost a saying in this community that the Astors buy and never sell?

A.: They are not looked upon as people who dispose of real estate after they once get possession of it.

Q.: Have you the power to exact from them a statement of their rent rolls?

A.: No.

Q.: Don't you think that ... if you are going to levy a tax properly and fully ... you ought to be vested with that power to learn what the returns and revenues of that property are?

A.: No, sir; it's none of our business.[159]

This fraudulent evasion of taxation was anything but confined to the Astor family. It was practiced by the entire large propertied interests, not only in swindling New York City of taxes on real estate, but also those on personal property. Coleman admitted that while the total valuation of the personal property of all the corporations in New York was a.s.sessed at $1,650,000,000, they were allowed to swear it down to $294,000,000.

Here we see again at work that fertile agency which has a.s.sisted in impoveris.h.i.+ng the ma.s.ses. Rentals are exacted from them, which represent on the average the fourth part of their wages. These rentals are based upon the full a.s.sessment of the houses that they live in. In turn, the landlords defraud the city of one-half of this a.s.sessment. In order to make up for this continuous deprivation of taxes, the city proceeds time and time again to increase taxes and put out interest-bearing bond issues. These increased taxes, as in the case of all other taxes, fall upon the workers and the results are seen in constantly rising rents and in higher prices for all necessities.

LICENSED PIRACY RAMPANT.