Aristocracy

We would like to know my dear Sir why you are better than your neighbors, and why do you put on the airs of a premature lord, because you happen to possess a little more property than some other folks? Ain’t you made of perishing clay, like the rest of us? Ain’t you subject to disease and death, the same as Lazarus was, Won’t you eventually become food for the worms just like the poorest man in Polk county? Are you certain that your possessions will remain with you until the day of your death? And, my dear sir, while you are strutting around like a turkey cock on hot ashes, looking down with contempt on your laboring fellow men, and aiming with your slender abilities to establish and perpetuate social distinctions, are you certain that your property and your cash will pay 50 per cent of your indebtedness? Ain’t you head over heels in debt? We think you are. You like show, pomp, splendor! You like to sport the air and reputation of an aristocrat, while the opinion generally entertained of you is that you are no manner of account for any conceivable purpose in this world! –{Des Moines Register.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 3, 1862, p. 3