INVITATION DECLINED.

Grey River Argus, 22 November 1910, Page 2

INVITATION DECLINED.

. BILL NYE'S LETTER TO A. i. COMMUNIST. Dear Sir, — Your courteous letter of the first dnst., in which you cordially/ consent to share my wealth and dwell 'together with me in fraternal sunshine, is duly received. While I dislike to appear cold and distant o one who seems so yearnful and so ;. ngmg; and while I do not wish to.be regarded as purseproud or arrogant, I must decline your kind offer to -vhaoc u.o. . ■-..'•.' You have not heard, likely, that T air: not now a communist. I used to be, I admit, and the society no doubt neglected .to strike my .name off ..the ' r oll of >adrive' members. : E6c a numbei of years,;l:was quite a>«t:'ve as a communist.-, ,I ' wouid have lieoi more active, -.but I had conscientious sciuples, against being active in .anything.then. >■■■',;,-. ..:•.;■'.;■;::.■ -:',.-:. ,yV' While you may- be perf ectly^sin'cere in your belief that the great capitalists like Mr Gould and Mr "v'anderbilt should divide with you> you will have great difficulty in making 1 it clear to them. They will, probably, demur and delay, and. hem,, and haw, and procrastinate, until finally they . will get out of it in some way. Still. I do- not wish; to throw cold water on; your en-, terprise. If the other cap.italis.ts look favourably on the plan, V -will cheerfully co-operate. with them. You can seV what you can do with MrVanderbilt and then come to me . d.You go on. at some length to; tell nic how the most of the wealth .us in tb/e hands of few men, and thenVyou attack those men and 'refer to them m a way that makes my -blood run cold. 'Yoii tell the millionaires of America to beware, tor the hot breath of 'a bloody-handed Nemesis is' already in the air. . ." . You may. Say. to Nemesis, if you please, that f have a double-barrelled shotgun standing at" the head of my bed every night, and that I am in-: the Nemesis business. You also rett;r' to the fact that the sleuth-hounds of eternal justice , are camped on the trail of the pampered millionaire, and you ask us to avaunt. If you see the other sleuth-hounds of your society within a week or two. I wish you would say to them that at a regualr mceHng- of the millionaires of this cduhtryi after the minutes of the . previous meeting had been read and approved, we voted almost unanimously to discourage any sleuth-hound that we found camped on our trial after ten p.m. Sleuth-hounds who want 'to ramble over our trails during office hours may do so with the utmost impunity, but after ten o'clock we want' to us© our trails for other purposes. No man wants to go to the great iexpense of '.maintaini.ng a trail winter and summer, and them leave it ou* nights for other people to use and return it, when they get ready. I do not censure you, however. If you could convince every one of the utility of communism, it would cer.cainly be "a great boon to you. To those who are now engaged in feeding themselves with .flat beer out of a tomato can, such a change as you-sug-gest would fall 'like a ray of sunshine, in .a rat hole; but alasl.it may never be I tried it a. while, but .my efforts "'were futile. The effect of mr great struggle seemed to be that ..men's hearts grew more and more stony, and my pantaloons got thinner and thinner' on the 'seat "till it seemed - to me that the world never was so cold Xt was only when I sat down for ? long time,! felt how cold and rough ' the world really was. Perhaps it is. so with you. Sedentary habits and stale beer are apt to mak* us morbid. Sitting on the stone door . sills of hallways and ■ public build ings during cold. Aveather is .apt tc> give you ah erroneous impression o* Ut». ' Of course, I am willing to' put my-' money into a common fund if I .can b« convinced that it is best. T was a? inside passenger on a Leadville coach some years ago, when a few of you^ friends suggested that we -all put our' money into a common) fund, and 1 w.is almost the first one to see tha> ■they were right; They went away into the moulitains to apportion Hip money they got from our party, bu', I never got my dividend.. Probably ■thiy lost my post office address.