L.B. Woolfolk

ii .  second proof :—parallelisms of character .

1st .  what is a dragon ?

A great error has obtained as to the personality of a Dragon .  During the ignorance and superstition of the Middle Ages, the idea of a mythical Dragon arose, which resembled a winged crocodile .  But the historical dragon of antiquity, which was the universal conception of a dragon prevailing at the time the Revelation was given, was a great serpent .  A fact is mentioned in the early history of Rome which shows what was the classical and historical idea of a Dragon .—When the Roman army, under Regulus, invaded the Carthaginian territories in North Africa, a great dragon appeared in the neighbourhood of the Roman camp, and devoured a number of the soldiers .  The Romans were greatly terrified, but finally killed the monster by hurling stones upon it with their balistas .  This dragon was undoubtedly a boa constrictor, which had found its way across the desert from Central Africa .  The Dragon of Revelation, then, was a great red serpent .

2nd .  Parallelisms Of Character .

We have seen that certain things in the natural world are chosen by Divine inspiration, to symbolize the powers they set forth, on account of a resemblance in character between the symbol and the power symbolized .—Thus, the Great Red Dragon is chosen by Divine inspiration to symbolize the London Money Power, because, in all the realm of nature, nothing but a great serpent resembles the Money Power, in its character, and its modes of action .  In its character, and all its activities and methods, the Money Power is like a snake .  The Great Red Dragon, like all great serpents, belongs to the constrictor species .  We must, therefore, look to the Boa Constrictor for the points of character and action, in which the parallel is to be found .  Prophecy represents the Money Power as a great Serpent, with its den in England, but its body extending in mighty coils all over the earth .

First Parallelism of Character :—The dragon is a devourer .  The Boa Constrictor, when it has devoured a sheep or a deer, remains torpid until its meal is digested :  then it lives for nothing else but to lie in wait, watching for another victim .  Its whole sluggish life is absorbed in devouring .  So the Money Power is a devourer of industry, commerce, wealth and property .  It lives for nothing else but to accumulate .  It differs from a Boa Constrictor only in its inordinate size .  A Boa Constrictor, if it swallows a sheep, is torpid for a time, till its meal is digested ;—but give it a mouse, and it is still hungry and wants more .  This Great Dragon, the Money Power, is so vast, that it can never be gored to repletion .  It is devouring industry, trade and property, all over the earth, and it never has enough .  The inspired prophet speaking of this Money power, says, “He 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 people .”

We have seen how the Money Power is devouring all over the earth .  It is devouring in Europe—in India, and all over Asia—in Egypt, South Africa, on the Congo, and wherever Africa is penetrated—in South America—in Mexico and Central America—in Canada—in the United States—in Australia, and the Isles of the ocean .  Everywhere it is devouring the industry and wealth of the earth .  It aims to devour all industry,—all manufactures-all banks—all shipping—all railroads—all commerce—all traffic, import and export, internal and foreign, wholesale and retail—all transportation—all mines, of coal and iron and silver and gold—all oil wells all city property—all farms—and all the wild lands of the world .

Besides the fact of its being a devourer, there is a certain method in its devourings that identifies the Dragon with the Money Power .  These points of similarity I point out in the several Parallelisms of Character next following :—

Second Parallelism of Character :—Unlike the lion or the tiger, which spring upon their prey with a roar, so that all the neighbourhood knows when the victim is destroyed, the Serpent steals secretly upon its victim, and seizes it noiselessly .

So the Money Power is sly and secretive in its methods, and steals upon its victims secretly, and destroys them without noise or struggle .  The secret sly methods of the Money Power are exemplified in every assault it has made upon our industries .  Thus it stole upon the merchants of New York City—the oil well owners of Pennsylvania—the operators in beef, pork, cotton and all the various business enterprises it has devoured .  So silently, so stilly is it now stealing on the cattle ranches—the coal mines—the retail merchants—the breweries—the flour mills—the farmers—and all the business interests it is now devouring .

Third Parallelism of Character :—The serpent charms its victims, and lures them to their doom .

So the Money Power has charmed and is charming the world, with the lure of its money .  It lures people from all over the world to its London den, to get money to build railroads, and water works, and gas works—and, in the end, all that was built with the money it devours .—It lures miners after money to develop mines :  and it crushes the miner and devours the mine .—By starting a boom in cattle, it lures farmers, merchants, mechanics, to borrow money on mortgaged property and put it into cattle ranches :  and then it devours the mortgaged property, and the ranches in which the borrowed money was invested—By starting booms in cities and towns, it lures all classes who have property, to borrow money on mortgage and invest it in town lots :  and then it devours both the mortgaged property, and the boom investment .

Fourth Parallelism of Character :—Unlike the lion and the tiger, and all other beasts of prey, which rend and tear their victims in furious assault, the Boa destroys its prey by enveloping it in its coils, and crushing it .

So the Money Power always envelops the industry it assails in the coils of its capital, and crushes it by constriction .—Thus it enveloped the oil industry—the New England Mills—the New York merchants—and all the industries it has devoured .  In every instance, it used its immense capital in such a manner as to crush the operators instantly, as the boa constrictor crushes its victim in its coil . —The method of the Money Power is identical with that of the Boa .

Fifth Parallelism of Character :—The Boa constrictor crushes only to devour, and devours all it crushes .—In this it is unlike the tiger or the leopard .  The tiger will destroy forty sheep, and eat only one ;  or will kill half a dozen bullocks, and devour only a part of a single carcass .  In this they resemble political despotisms, of which such wild beasts are made the symbols .  For such political powers wage grand and destructive wars, and in the end, the conquering state gains only a petty acquisition .  Thus, all the grand wars of the first Napoleon ended in but small accessions of territory :  Prussia, after crushing France, gained only Alsace-Lorraine .

This is unlike the Money Power which, like the serpent, attacks only to devour, and devours all it attacks .  It never attacks any business interest, unless it means to devour it .  It did not attack the New England Mills, or the iron interests of Pennsylvania, till the time came for them to be devoured .  A caged Boa will leave the rabbits in its cage unharmed for days, till it is ready to devour them .  So the Money Power will work side by side with business interests for years, without showing any hostility, till the time comes when it is ready to take possession of them ;  and then, it makes its attack suddenly, and crushes them inexorably .  We find illustrations of this, in all the operations of the Money Power in this country .  It has never assailed an American business which it did not devour .  It is now assailing the cattle men—the lumber men—the wholesale merchants-the retail merchants- the farmers, and other business interests ;  and is crushing them ;   and, unless its career be arrested, it will devour them all, as it did the New York merchants and the oil well owners .

Sixth Parallelism of Character :—The Boa always has to beslime its victims, before it can devour them .—It pounces upon a deer and crushes it, bones, flesh and tissues, till all within its hide is perfectly soft .  Then, before beginning to swallow the victim, it beslimes it from head to toe ;  when it begins to swallow gulp after gulp, until the entire victim is engorged in its maw .

Thus the Money Power always beslimes its victims with the slime of its capital before devouring them .  Thus it beslimed our railroads with construction capital—our mines with capital, to develop and operate them—blocks of city property and broad areas of farming lands, with mortgages .—The Money Power always beslimes everything with its capital, before devouring it ;  and it surely devours all business, and all property, it is allowed to beslime .

Seventh Parallelism of Character :—The Serpent's victims are paralyzed and powerless to resist .

It is one of the most remarkable phenomena in the destructions of the Money Power, that none of its victims have ever been able to make the slightest resistance .  There is always a conflict in ordinary trade contests, before one of the parties is crushed .  But the victims of the Money Power never resist :  they are paralyzed in the coil of the python, and submit quietly to their fate .  Thus the New York merchants, the oil well owners, the mill owners of New England, the cattle companies, and all whom the Money Kings have crushed have submitted to their fate as quietly as a rabbit in the coils of a boa .  This paralysis of its victims is one of the reasons why the destroying career of the Money Power has attracted so little attention .

Eighth Parallelism of Character :—The Serpent swallows its prey whole .—In this it is unlike all other beasts of prey .  The lion, the tiger and all other beasts of prey devour their prey mouthful at a time, and leave the bones and horns and hoofs .  And they always leave a portion of the prey to the jackals and other beasts that follow their footsteps .

The Money Power is like the serpent in this regard .  It always takes entire possession of every industry it seizes upon .  It did not content itself with dividing the business with the New York merchants, or the oil well owners ;—it devoured the entire business .  So with every business :  it never divides with previous competitors ;  it devours the whole business it takes possession of .—It never will engage in any business, unless it is put into a joint stock company ;  and it always demands the controlling interest in the stock, before it will invest .  And then it is only a question of time when it will devour it all .

Ninth Parallelism of Character :—The lion and the tiger gorge their prey at once :  unlike them, the serpent is a long time swallowing its prey :  it requires many gulps before it is finally engulfed in its maw .

In this characteristic, the serpent strikingly resembles the Money Power .  As has been said, these Money Kings always want a controlling interest in an enterprise before they will invest, and then they begin a systematic process of gulping down the remaining stock of the company .  They never buy up all property in an enterprise at once .  They begin with a mere start, as the serpent begins with the head of its victim ;  and then they keep on devouring till they have swallowed the whole .—Thus, they began with a few wells in the oil region, to start the business :  afterward, they kept on devouring till they had swallowed it all .—So in a gold or silver mine, they must always have a controlling interest in the stock ;  and then they begin systematically to freeze out the other stockholders .—This small beginning and persistent continuance in devouring, till all is engorged, is not the least striking of the parallelisms between the Dragon and the Money Power .—Who can doubt that Divine inspiration meant by the Great Red Dragon to set forth the London Money Power ?

The Serpent is chosen by Divine inspiration to be the symbol of the London Money Power, because, in all the realm of nature, the serpent alone perfectly resembles the Money Power .  In its character, as well as in its processes, and methods and modes of activity, the Money Power is like a snake .

We have seen the striking parallelisms between the Money Power and the Serpent, exhibited in its methods of devouring :  let us now mark some of the parallelisms, in disposition and intrinsic character .

Tenth Parallelism of Character :—The serpent is the synonym of worldly wisdom, craft and cunning :  “wise as a serpent”.

The Money Power displays the wisdom of the serpent in all its policy—in its entire career .  It never takes a step that is not thoroughly matured .  It never alarms its victim by a premature attack .  Its assaults are always made on a well considered plan, and have always been successful .—How skilful its attack on the oil wells !  first building a railroad, and then constructing a pipe line to it .  How thoroughly matured the plan !  how skilful the execution !  Like the combinations of a great military genius, the movement was irresistible !—What consummate skill in its mode of getting possession of the railroads, by first mortgage bonds for the iron !  first furnishing the money to build the road bed, on city and county bonds that had to be paid ;  then getting possession of the railroads upon first mortgage bonds for the iron !—How wise its attack on the New York merchants !  by establishing branch houses, and then starting drummers to take away their trade !—How crafty their booms !  building up a city by lavish expenditure of capital, and getting multitudes to invest and make partial payments, and then stopping all investment and letting the boom collapse ;  so that, when prices fall, they can take back the property for the remaining payments, and have it all ready for the next boom !—Still more crafty their booms in small towns, where they buy the land around a country village, build up the town to fifteen thousand in a couple of years, and so make the world believe it will be a city of one hundred thousand inhabitants ;  and when the gulls have bought prairie lots at high prices, let the boom drop, pocket the money made, and take back the lots, for final payments !

But why particularize ?  They never make a blunder .  All their acts are marked by wonderful skill and wonderful wisdom .  But if there is any act showing most consummate craft and skill, it is their wonderful attack on the New England Mills .  We have a saying, “Sharp as a Yankee .”  But these Jew Money Kings far surpass all American shrewdness .  American wisdom had exhausted itself in devising measures for the protection of the New England Mills from the competition of foreign merchants .  But these Money Kings found a flaw in our system of protection, through which they crept like a serpent, and enmeshed the New England Mills in the coils of their capital, and crushed and devoured them .  And they did it all so skilfully, so quietly, so secretly, that, to this day, nobody knows it was done !

The serpent is wiser than all the beasts of the field ;  and it only, is a fit symbol of this crafty secretive devourer .  The Money Power is a veritable embodiment of the wisdom of the serpent .

Eleventh Parallelism of Character :—The serpent hides in the grass .

So the Money Power systematically hides its operations from the eyes of mankind, in such a manner that its path can hardly be traced .  It always operates through joint stock corporations, in which its identity is concealed under the agencies it establishes .  The stockholders of these corporations are the London Jew Money Kings .  But they elect directors and officers in the country where the corporations are established ;  and the people believe that the men who manage the corporations are their owners .—The Money Kings put a man at the head of a railroad system, as its ostensible owner, and the public does not suspect that the owners are in London .—They loan money by billions of dollars, on city property and improved farms, through their agencies, and make the public believe that it is American capital .—They ruin business, and own property all over the country, and yet manage to conceal their identity .

They have induced government to fix the laws of joint stock corporations, with the special purpose of concealing their identity .—All other real estate is transferred on record books open to public inspection .  These joint stock corporations own real estate in railroads and city property, in business houses in which they transact their business, in improved farms, in wild lands ;—and yet the stocks which represent all this real estate are treated by the law as personal property, and are transferred like a horse, or any other personal property .  All transfers of stock are made on the books of the company, and the public is never allowed to know who the stockholders are .  The whole system of laws regarding joint stock corporations has been devised for the special purpose of concealing the stockholders from the public .—As a snake hides in the grass, so the Money Power systematically hides its operations and its existence, behind the concealment of joint stock corporations .

Indeed, when this hiding secretive Money Power, always seeking concealment, is now presented as an Imperialism actually existent in the world, all are astonished, and wonder how such a terrible Imperialism could have risen in the earth, and mankind be kept in utter ignorance of its existence .  It is now overshadowing the whole earth with its monopolies of trade and industry, and has almost ruined the world, and yet its existence is unknown .  How strikingly like a serpent hiding in the grass !

The trail of a snake can never be found, except where it crosses a dusty road .  So, it is only at death where evidence can usually be found that a man is the agent of the Money Power .  If A.T. Stewart were still living, he would be universally believed to be worth over $100,000,000 .  His death revealed him as the agent of the Money Power .  The track of the serpent could only be found as it ran across his grave .  So, the death of Jim Fisk revealed the fact that he and his partner, Gould, instead of being the owners of the Erie railroad, were the agents of the Money Kings .—The Money Power hides all its operations under the guise of agencies .

Who can doubt that it is the crafty, secretive hiding Money Power which is symbolized by the Dragon ?

Twelfth Parallelism of Character :—The serpent crawls on his belly .  The curse of baseness was fixed upon it at the beginning .

The whole course of the Money Power is a tissue of fraud, falsehood, trickery and treachery, comparable to nothing but a serpent crawling on its belly .  Its career is a living lie, as it systematically hides itself behind its agents, pretending that they are the owners of the business they control .  Like the garroter, it throttles and plunders its victims in the dark .  Like the gambler, it entices its victims to bet in its gambling hells, the Boards of Trade, upon the rise and fall of stocks, and the rise and fall of produce ;  while it holds the game in its hands, and stocks the cards for the robbery of its victims .  It is a slugger, whose purse, filled with gold, is its sandbag, with which it strikes down in the dark its victims, in all the busy avenues of trade .  There is honour among thieves :  the robber is true to his “pal;”—but the Money Power systematically plunders its partners, freezing out minority stockholders, and all men who take part in its enterprises .

It knows that if the world knew of its system of plunder, mankind would rise up against it :  it therefore robs through agencies, and makes agencies the “cribs” where it hides its plundered goods .  Its whole career, from the first, has been a tissue of lying, robbery, fraud and concealment .  It has acted falsehood in the past, to hide its trail :  And now that it is discovered, and exposed to the eyes of the world, it will no doubt attempt to escape, like the scuttle fish, by making the waters around it inky black with falsehood, causing its minions to swear in the columns of the press, that its existence is a myth, that the discovery of it is a “mare's nest,” and that this exposure of it is all imagination .—The Money Power is always a snake crawling on its belly .  Its whole life is a living lie .

Thirteenth Parallelism of Character : -The serpent is a cold blooded malignant beast .  In this it strikingly resembles the Money Power, which is without either heart or conscience ;  and which, in pursuit of its selfish aims, displays a cold blooded remorselessness, without a parallel in the history of the world .

The Money Power operates entirely through vast imperial joint stock corporations ;  and, in such corporations, there is no place for human sympathy, or a sense of individual responsibility .  Such a corporation has no conscience—no soul .—An individual is withheld from too flagrant wrong, by sympathy, by conscience, by a sense of moral responsibility ;  but no one connected with the management of these grand Money Power Corporations feels any sense of personal responsibility .  The stockholders feel none ;  for they are away off in London, and do nothing but elect the directors .  The directors feel no sense of personal responsibility ;  for they are not principals, but only agents ;  and they simply appoint the officers and leave the management to them .  The officers feel that they have no individual responsibility, because they are under orders, like the officers of an army, and are not acting for themselves, but for the directors and the stockholders .  They come to feel that their only duty is to take care of the interests of the corporation .—The management of these imperial corporations is utterly selfish, without a tinge of sympathy or generosity .

This does not apply to ordinary business corporations, where individuals incorporate themselves into a company for the transaction of business .  There are many advantages in such an incorporation, and it is free from objection .  In such corporations, conducted as individual enterprises, on a moderate scale, the sense of justice influences the minds of the stockholders, and pervades the management, as much as in the individual management of business .

But an imperial system of corporations, bent upon attaining a universal control of industry, and a universal monopoly of wealth and property, like an ambitious conqueror, is utterly selfish and remorseless .  The cold blooded heartlessness of these Money Kings is glaringly displayed in the entire course of the Money Power .  Its whole course is a black night of oppression, injury and wrong .  It is as useless to attempt to particularize, as it is to seek the darkest cell in a dungeon, or the foulest corner in a lazar house .  The Money Kings are bent on getting all the business, all the wealth, and all the property of the earth into their own hands :  they can only do it by bankrupting all the business men in the world, and reducing the great mass of mankind to the condition of serfs, subject to their will, and dependent upon them for bread ;  and they are pursuing their aim of the subjugation of mankind with ruthless energy .—The Money Power is as cold blooded, pitiless and malignant as a snake .

I have now presented thirteen Parallelisms between the Dragon and the Money Power :—

I.) I have showed that, like the Boa Constrictor, the Money Power is a devourer .

2.) I have showed eight points of Parallelism between the serpent and the Money Power, in respect of the manner in which they both devour their prey .

Both steal secretly on their prey, and destroy them silently ;  and so secretly, that the world knows nothing of the destruction :—both charm their victims, and cause them to come to them, and place themselves in their power :—both crush their victims in their coils, the serpent, of its body, and the Money Power, of its capital which constitutes its body :—both crush only to devour, and devour all they crush :—both beslime their victims by their secretion before devouring them, the serpent with slime, the Money Power with money :—both paralyze their victims by their attack, beyond the possibility of resistance :—both swallow their prey whole, leaving nothing behind :—both swallow their prey gradually .—The devouring of the Money Power is, in all points, like the method of the serpent, and is like that of no other beast of prey on the earth .

I have showed four points of Parallelism in Character between the Money Power and the serpent .

Both have certain personal characteristics peculiar to themselves, among all the beasts of the earth, and all the powers that have ever risen .—Both are wise, and skilful, and cunning and crafty, beyond all comparison with others of their kind :—both are secretive, and habitually hide themselves from the eyes of men, the one in the grass, the other behind its joint stock corporations :—both are despicable, false and treacherous, habitually crawling on the belly :—both are cold-blooded, and malignant and remorseless .

But these thirteen Parallelisms do not exhaust the likeness between the Serpent and the Money Power .  There yet remain seven other parallelisms to be mentioned .  The proof already offered is sufficient to convince the most incredulous that the Dragon is the symbol of the Money Power .  But the evidence is abundant even to nausea .  I proceed to mention four other parallelisms between the Dragon and the Money Power, in respect of the modes of activity .

Fourteenth Parallelism of Character :—It was a “Great” Dragon .—The great Boa, unlike other wild beasts which appear in one spot, may stretch its long body afar .

Prophecy well chooses the python as the symbol of the Money Power ;  which, while its head is in England, stretches its body all over the earth, embracing in its folds India, China, Africa, Australia, Europe, South America, Mexico, Canada and the United States .  Everywhere, the body of the Boa appears .  It is as active in Europe, and Asia and America, as in England .  England is its den ;  but the Dragon is, indeed, a great Dragon ;  its body encircles the earth, and it has everywhere enveloped industry in its folds .

Fifteenth Parallelism of Character :—The Boa, as it lies along, may throw its folds around many objects .

So, the Money Power has, in its huge length, many folds, which encoil about many objects .  We call these folds of the python "Rings,” or Monopolies .  Each monopoly is a “Ring,” formed by a fold of the serpent, thrown around a branch of industry, or branch of trade .  “The whiskey ring,” “the railroad ring,” “the oil ring,” “the cotton ring,” “the wheat ring,” “the cattle ring,” “the coffee ring,” “the sugar ring,” “the packing ring,” and all the other grand monopolies are each only fold of the serpent thrown around the industry .  Woe to the man who attempts to operate inside of one of these “Rings .”  Instantly the coils of the Boa will be around him, and he will be crushed in its folds, and devoured .

Sixteenth Parallelism of Character :—The grand Boa Constrictor habitually twines upon a tree, while watching for victims which pass beneath .

So, the Money Power twines about the government, while plundering its people .  The Money Power habitually twines about governments .  The British government is its servile instrument :  it sways India with autocratic rule :  the European governments yield to its will .—In our own country, it too often controls Congress, and State Legislatures, by lobby influence .  The lobby,—“the third house,”—controls all legislation that effects the interest of the Money Power ;  procuring legislation to suit its aims, and preventing legislation injurious to it .  Not only does the government leave industry defenceless in the grasp of the Money Power :  it also, by vast land grants,* by paying interest on bonds in gold that were, by law, to be paid in paper, and in various other ways, gives to it immense bonuses .  Our country is hardly in a less degree than England in the grasp of the Money Power .

Seventeenth parallelism of Character :—The Boa Constrictor, waiting for its prey, hides in a tree, behind the green foliage .

So, the Money Power hides its own bloated wealth under the guise of national prosperity .  Thus, our people are deceived by the statement that the United States is now the richest nation in the world .  The wealth consists, not so much in the wealth of the American people as, in the growth of the Money Power and its investments .  The Money Power has built railroads, factories, and city improvements ;  is opening up bonanza farms ;  is pushing forward with its capital many branches of production and trade ;  but it owns them all .  The American people are getting poorer :  the Money Power has mortgages upon two—thirds of our farms :  the Money Power alone is getting rich .

It is investing in our country the revenues it derives from its world—wide manufactures and commerce .  These investments increase the amount of its wealth, located in this country .  But it is not our wealth :  it is not the green foliage of national prosperity .  It is the body of the Boa ;  and, instead of helping our people, its wealth is an engine of oppression, destroying Americans engaged in independent business, crushing our farmers, and devouring our national wealth .

Two oaks, standing in the forest, are alike vigorous and flourishing .  A wild ivy vine twines around and around one of the oaks, and girdles it from bottom to top in its twining folds, and wraps trunk and limbs in a mass of most luxuriant foliage .—How gloriously the oak seams to flourish .—But soon it ceases to grow :—and finally, it begins to wither .—But the ivy vine flourishes more and more luxuriantly :  its twining folds around the oak grow larger and larger ;  until the tree is strangled in its clasp, and dies !—Our country is the oak ;  the Money Power is the twining ivy vine .  Already our oak is pining .  Limb after limb has withered and fallen .  The great farming branch, with many others, is slowly dying .  But the twining ivy vine,—the Money Power, with its vast possessions,—is flourishing ;  and it crowns our dying country with a greener foliage than in the days of our greatest and most real prosperity .—The serpent folds of the Money Power are throttling us .

Besides these Parallelisms, there are three others which show, especially, that

the money power is the enemy of the human race.

Eighteenth Parallelism of Character :—The serpent is the immortal enemy of the human race .

So also, a necessary antagonism exists between the Money Power and the human race .

The People Can Only Prosper by Doing the Business which the Money Power is doing, and covets to monopolize entirely .  If the individuals keep the business, they prosper, and their countries flourish ;—but the Money Power, under such conditions, will languish .  On the other hand, if the Money Power takes the business, those who had it before are reduced to poverty, just in the degree in which the Money Power flourishes .  The prosperity of the Money Power is the ruin of the human race .

The Money Power is hostile to the well being of man beyond all despotisms that have ever existed .  It is more oppressive than any national despotism .  A despot rules by law, and makes specific exactions by taxation .  No despot desires to break down people in business—to plunder them of their property—to reduce them to bankruptcy—and to appropriate their property to himself .  No despot enters the home, to take it from the owner .—The Money Power does all this .  It crushes individuals :  it oppresses people en masse .  It cheats :  it swindles :  it extorts :  it plunders :  it destroys :  it devours .

The Minotaur, a monster which, every year, devoured a shipload of victims which Athens was compelled to furnish, is the most horrible monster of legendary antiquity .  But the Money Power is worse than the Minotaur .  That monster was kept in its den, and could only devour the victims brought to it .  The Money Power is an immense Serpent, going at large, and devouring all the victims it can find .  More, it is a Crowned Imperialism, which controls governments, and is above all law .  It bankrupts the merchant, the manufacturer, the miner, the farmer ;  and drives them and their families out from their homes into the world, beggared, and perchance to die heartbroken and despairing .

The Money Power is worse than any despot that ever reigned .  The despot is restrained from excessive wrong and oppression, lest the prosperity of his people be destroyed .—But it is the aim of the Money Power to destroy the prosperity or all persons engaged in independent business ;  in order that, amid the ruin it works, it may ravage, and devour industry and wealth .

The Money Power is worse than any monster that ever roamed the earth, or was conceived by human fancy .  For the monster needs only to devour a few, to appease its hunger ;—but this Serpent is so huge, that it encircles the earth with its folds, and the ruin of nations can not appease its insatiable appetite to devour .

Were a wild beast abroad, destroying as the Money Power destroys, masses of men would gather to hunt it to death .

Were a despot to oppress and ruin his people, as the Money Power is oppressing and ruining our country, he would be blown up with dynamite, or his head would be brought to the block, in less than a year .—The Money Power, like the Serpent, is the Arch enemy of the human race .

Nineteenth Parallelism of Character :—The color of the dragon is red .—This is a lusus naturae .  Nobody ever saw a red snake .  There must have been a special appropriateness in the color here, for it to be applied to the serpent .

This color always, in the book of Revelation, indicates that the power symbolized by a red color is a cruel, bloody despotism .  And indeed the red color was indispensable, in order to indicate the bloody character of the Money Power .  For the Money Power is a great destroyer—perhaps the greatest destroyer of human life, of all the despotisms that have arisen on the earth .

But it does not destroy its victims on the battle-field .  It is described in the third vision of Daniel, where it is said of it :  “In peace, shall he destroy many .” Daniel viii : 25 .  It does not strike its venomed fangs into the body, but the soul .  It reduces its victims to want and beggary ;  and multitudes of them, in utter despair, turn their faces to the wall and die .  Its victims have died—are dying—all over the earth .

Great Britain is the seat of its power ;  and there, by penury and want and vain longing and despair, it is, every year, crushing thousands of the poor into untimely graves .  I saw in London such poverty, and misery, such utter wretchedness, that the constant spectacle of suffering I could not relieve broke down my health, and I was compelled to leave the country before I had intended, in order to save my life .  Among the London poor, you hardly ever see a hoary head .  Poverty and want and helplessness and despair drive them to untimely graves, long before time can furrow the brow or blanch the hair .  The whole generation dies in the prime of middle life, destroyed by the conditions with which the Money Power surrounds them .  They are as actually murdered as though the dagger were driven to their hearts .  It is true, no blood is shed ;—but the Serpent never sheds the blood of its victims—they die a bloodless death, crushed in its oils .  So the poor people of Britain die, every generation, crushed to death by the constricting coils of the Money Power—crushed into direst poverty and want, till death comes to their relief .

India is completely in the coils of the Money Power .  The Monster killed five million Hindoos with Famine in order to compel them to become its serfs upon its plantations redeemed from the jungle .  And now, under the control of industry in India by the Money Power, half a million Hindoos die of starvation, every year .—It is said that, in the wars of Napoleon, waged during twenty years, all over Europe, and in Egypt and Syria, two million men perished .  In a time of profound peace, the Money Power, in a single country, destroys as many lives every four years, as Napoleon destroyed in twenty years ! !

In the United States, during the long oppression of low prices which it has maintained since 1820, with brief intervals, and in the terrible financial crises it has induced, thousands have died of heart-break, and multiplied thousands of penury .  During its long continued course of conquest in this country, in which it has been engaged for the last twenty years, it has broken down one branch of industry after another, and devoured them ;  and it has driven to untimely graves myriads of our countrymen .

There have been, for the last twenty years, about ten thousand failures, every year of prominent business firms .  The men in moderate circumstances who have broke are a great multitude who have not been reported .  Only the big fish caught by the Money Power are counted :  the multitude of little minnows that it has cast out of its net to die, are left to rot in the sunshine without notice .  Not to speak of myriads of small failures, in this country, caused by the Money Power, in the last twenty years, there have been, in the United States, two hundred thousand great failures, for the most part victims of the Money Power .

What became of those victims ?  Alas, we know not .  Some died of heart-break :  many drag on hopeless lives in some subordinate position :  the sons of ruined families have, many of them, swelled the ranks of the reckless, hopeless multitudes of our cities :  many of the cultured daughters are teachers, or seamstresses, or clerks ;  and many have sunk, through despair, into the great social deep lower than the grave ! !

All over the earth, the Money Power has its holocausts of victims .  They fall in the midst of peace .  They die, and make no sign .—Well is this bloody destructive Money Power represented by the Great RED Dragon .

Twentieth Parallelism of Character :—Inspiration drops the symbol at last, and calls the Dragon the devil .—The Devil was incarnate in the serpent, in Eden, to induce the fall of the human race .  In the book of Revelation, Satan is represented as incarnate in the Dragon .  The Money Power is an embodiment of Satanic selfishness, craft, cunning, skill, fraud, deceit, malignity and destructiveness .  It constantly breaks down industry in its selfish greed :  it destroys the prosperity of the whole earth, in the pursuit of gain :  it crushes multiplied millions of the human race :  it overshadows the whole age with darkness .

It would destroy the dawning era of liberty and advancement now rising upon the world, as the serpent destroyed Eden .  It would break down our grand Republic, and establish upon its ruins a mighty Despotism, to overshadow the hopes of man :  it would, with Jewish hatred of Christianity, break down our churches :  it would destroy our rising civilization, and reduce mankind to the condition of serfs, without the possibility of education or enlightenment :  it would arrest the progress of the world toward the Millennium, and grind mankind beneath the heel of a despotism worse than that of the Feudal Ages .

The Money Power seeks to destroy our Republican liberties, and to bring the world under a subjection to its own grand Imperialism of wealth and monopoly ;  in which it, and its agents, will be the privileged Aristocracy, having all culture, and refinement and power ;—while the mass of mankind are its serfs, tilling its lands, and doing its work in the various departments of business life, and sunk into abject poverty, with all its concomitants of ignorance, vice and debasement .

Instead of allowing the human race to share in the benefits derived from the power of steam, it seeks to monopolize all those benefits to itself, and use them as a weapon to crush all individual industry, and to subdue the world beneath the imperial sway of its capital .  It converts the blessings conferred by Divine Providence upon mankind into a curse .  It seeks to introduce a new Feudal Era, in which it, and its agents, will parcel out the world anew, and bring back the wrong and oppression of the Dark Ages .

The iniquity of the Money Power surpasses human depravity .  It is Demonic,—in its selfishness and greed—in its cold-blooded heartlessness—in its knavish trickery—in its bold robbery—in its cunning and craft and chicane—in its falsehood—in its lying concealment—in its malignity—in its murders of victims driven by ruin to despair and death,—in all this—and in its other unspeakable turpitude, and wrong and baseness, the Money Power is utterly satanic and devilish .

Who can Doubt That the Dragon is the symbol of the London Money Power ?  Let us briefly recapitulate the line of evidence :—

There are but three Parallelisms of Character between the Lion with Eagle's Wings and the Babylonian empire ;  and only two, between the Bear and the Persian empire ;  and none of them very remarkable .—But here are Twenty Parallelisms of Character between the Dragon and the Money Power ;—ten times as many, and far more remarkable .

Review the Entire Career of the Money Power as it has been presented, and its every trait, its every act reveals it as a gigantic Serpent .

1) It is Like a Serpent in being essentially a devourer .

2) It is Like a Serpent in Its Method of Devouring Its Victims :—it charms its prey, luring them to their doom—it seizes its prey secretly—it paralyzes its victims by its attack—it crushes its prey in its coil—it crushes only to devour, and devours all it crushes—it beslimes its prey before devouring it—it swallows its prey whole, leaving nothing—it swallows it by repeated gulps, and only after repeated efforts engulfs it in its maw .

3) The Money Power is Like a Serpent in Its Characteristics :—it is full of worldly wisdom and craft—it hides in its agencies, as the serpent hides in the grass—it continually grovels in debasement, lying, fraud and trickery, as the serpent crawls upon its belly—it is cold blooded, remorseless, cruel .

4) The Money Power is Like a Serpent in Its Habitudes :—like the serpent it stretches afar ;  its head in England, its long body enveloping the whole earth in its coil—it throws many coils of its huge length around many industries, in various countries all over the earth, every coil a “ring”—it hangs on governments for support, as the Boa Constrictor hangs on a tree it hides its own bloated gains under the guise of national prosperity, as the Boa hides in the leaves of a tree .

5) The Money Power is a Veritable Serpent in Its Relations with Mankind :—it is the necessary enemy of mankind, because its interests are opposed to the well being of humanity, there being as natural an enmity between the Money Power and mankind as between the serpent and man .—The Money Power, like the Dragon, is RED with the blood of multitudes of victims, slain by it in its continual wars upon industry—finally, the Money Power is, indeed, the very embodiment of Satanic malignity toward mankind .

In Every Particular, the Symbol has Its Counterpart .  Not one point of likeness fails .  No other power can possibly be found that embodies all the characteristics of a serpent .  In no other power that has ever existed can these characteristics be found .  The Money Power is the only Imperialism that has ever risen on the earth, that is like a snake, in any particular .  It is like a snake, in every point .  And it is like nothing else .—These strange and startling resemblances cannot be fortuitous and accidental .  They prove most indubitably that the Money Power it the Imperialism symbolized by the Great Red Dragon .