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Title: Russell Sage Author: Emma Goldman Date: August 1906 Language: en Topics: capitalist, Mother Earth, Libertarian Labyrinth Source: Retrieved on 25th April 2021 from https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/the-sex-question/emma-goldman-russell-sage-1906/ Notes: Published in Mother Earth 1, no. 6 (August 1906): 1–3.
WHAT an indictment against Society! Impure and poisonous, indeed, must
have been the soil that nurtured such a plant.
The champions of the capitalistic system assert that the majority will
ever have to live in poverty and misery, and that millions of backs are
to remain forever bent, to sustain the magnificent structure called
civilization.
Were we all to toil to produce the mere necessities of life—they say—who
would foster art, poetry, and literature? Surely, there must be a select
few. By their culture and aestheticism, by their refinement and beauty,
they illuminate and elevate those predestined to a life of darkness and
despair.
Such is the philosophy of capitalism. But even this philosophy, absurd
as it is, will fail to justify the life of Russell Sage. It would search
in vain for even the faintest reflex of himself, or of his tremendous
wealth, in the lives of those that dwell in the abyss.
Russell Sage! Accumulation, with him, was not a means, but rather the
sole aim of life. The notion that the social mission of wealth is
philanthropy and charity was brutally caricatured by the personality of
this man. Not even his own life derived any benefit from his riches, let
alone the lives of others. Indeed, he serves as the most striking proof
of our social insanity, which suffers thousands to starve, that a few
calculating human machines may pile dividends upon dividends, [2]
Russell Sage undoubtedly considered himself indispensably valuable to
society. Several years ago a man, crazed by poverty and exposure, came
to his office with the intention of taking the valuable life of the
great benefactor of the human family. Does a Sage outweigh the countless
lives his greed has crushed ?
When Uncle Russell realized the character of his visitor’s mission, he
acted in a truly Christian spirit. He called his secretary and placed
him between himself and the attacker. Naturally, the bomb did not strike
the right person. Sage was saved and continued to indulge in his
criminal proclivities; the secretary remained a cripple for life. The
most humble human being would have felt indebted to the savior of his
life, but dear Russell would have reproached himself for the rest of his
existence, were he to waste money on his poor victim. The latter carried
the case to the courts. But where are the men in American Halls of
Justice that would dare to decide against a Russell Sage?
He left a hundred million dollars, but the case of his victim is still
pending in the courts.
Sage was the most worthy, most consistent representative of our system
of robbery and theft. Unlike the dilettant philanthropists, such as
Carnegie and Rockefeller, he never feigned any hypocritical
humanitarianism. In this respect, at least, Sage was superior to the Oil
King of Sunday-school fame, and to the Homestead slave- driver,
immortalized by libraries and the blood-bath of July 6, 1892. He never
donned the garb of beneficence. Had he undertaken the building of the
Panama Canal, for instance, he would not have called it a work of
progress and civilization. His keen eye would have beheld only the long
row of figures and the profits.
Tf an artist had suggested a great masterpiece as a memorial, Russell
would have shown him the door. Why tins nonsensical enthusiasm for art
and science? There is only one thing of consequence in life, and that is
to “earn” the highest interest on money safely invested.
He was not far from the truth, with regard to his co- gamblers, Morgan,
Rockefeller, and Carnegie. Probably he suspected that their pretended
interest in art and science was but a feeble attempt to quiet their con-
[3] -sciences. At least his attitude was more frank, more honest. And he
was more self-centred. He was not so stupid as Morgan, who invests
fortunes in poor copies of great masters, to the amusement of European
artists and art connoisseurs.
This character-study of Russell Sage is, in a small measure, a portrayal
of our social economy, — cold, cruel, heartless; with no other purpose
than the accumulation of fortunes by the few, the grinding to death of
the many.