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Ladies and gentlemen:
I've, on several
occasions, had the particular honour of being invited
to make some speeches that I was supposed to get
some kind of Honoraria for. I started to say
moratorium.
One time over in
Cleveland I was supposed to get $250, and one time
in New York I was to get five, six, seven hundred
dollars, but my conscience wouldn't allow me, on
either of these occasions, to take the money.
Now, however, I have
never made a free speech. I never made a speech
unless it was before a court or before a crowd where
I was trying to get votes or before an audience
where I was trying to get converts. And I am
probably addressing, for the benefit of the work I
am pursuing, the most important and probably the
farthest-reaching organization that I've ever had
the pleasure of speaking to, because you are the
people who have the contact with the American
people....
According to the
tables which we have assembled, it is our estimate
that 4 percent of the American people own 85 percent
of the wealth of America, and that over 70 percent
of the people of America don't own enough to pay for
the debts that they owe.
Any man with a
thimble-full of sense ought to know that if you take
85 percent off of that table and give it to one man
that you are bound to have 2/3 the people starving
because they haven't got enough to eat.
How many men ever
went to a barbecue and would let one man take off
the table what's intended for 9/10th of the people
to eat? The only way to be able to feed the balance
of the people is to make that man come back and
bring back some of that grub that he ain't got no
business with!
Now we got a
barbecue. We have been praying to the Almighty to
send us to a feast. We have knelt on our knees
morning and nighttime. The Lord has answered the
prayer. He has called the barbecue. "Come to my
feast," He said to 125 million American people.
But Morgan and Rockefeller and Mellon and Baruch
have walked up and took 85 percent of the victuals
off the table!
Now, how are you
going to feed the balance of the people? What's
Morgan and Baruch and Rockefeller and Mellon going
to do with all that grub? They can't eat it, they
can't wear the clothes, they can't live in the
houses.
Give 'em a yacht!
Give 'em a Palace! Send 'em to Reno and give them a
new wife when they want it, if that's what they
want. But when they've got everything on
God's loving earth that they can eat and they can
wear and they can live in, and all that their
children can live in and wear and eat, and all of
their children's children can use, then we've got to
call Mr. Morgan and Mr. Mellon an Mr. Rockefeller
back and say, come back here, put that stuff back on
this table here that you took away from here that
you don't need. Leave something else for the
American people to consume. And that's the program.
We will call in Mr.
Rockefeller, Mr. Morgan, Mr. Mellon....Dear Mr.
Mellon, We're not going to destroy the capitalistic
system, but we're going to put in a limit, you can
have up to 4- to 5-million dollars and that's all.
We're not going to destroy the Gulf Refining
Company; we're not going to destroy the Standard Oil
Company, but we're going to say that the limit of
any one man's stock ownership in the Standard Oil
company is from 3- to 5-million dollars for that
individual and the balance to the people of America
who own the balance of what the Standard Oil company
is worth!
Then, we start from
the bottom. That the 25 or more million American
families shall have a homestead. Up to $5,000....a
home and the comforts of a home, including an
automobile and a radio, the things it takes in that
house to live on...
We say to America,
125 million, none shall be too big, none shall be
too poor, none shall work too much, none shall be
idle. No luxurious mansions empty, none walking the
streets, none impoverished, none in pestilence, none
in want, but in the land blessed by the smile of the
Creator with everything to be consumed, to be eaten,
to be worn, that America will become a land, sharing
the fruits of the land, not for the favoured few, not
to satisfy greed, but that all may live in the land
in which the Lord has provided an abundance
sufficient for the luxury and convenience of the
people in general! I thank you.
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