Bill Nye To A Communist

Dear Sir: Your courteous letter of the lst inst., tn whieh you eordially consent to share my wealth and dwell together with nie in fraternal sunshinc, is dnly received. While I dislike to appear cold aud distant to one who seenis so yearaíul and so clinging, and wliilc 1 do not wish to be regarded as purse-proud or arrogant, I must declino your kind offer to whaok up. You had not heard, very likely, that I am notnow ji communist. I used to be, I admit, and the society no doubt neglected to strike niy name off the role of active menibers. For a number of years I was quito active as a communist. I would have been moro active, but I had conscientious scruples against being active in anything then. Whilo you bo perfectly sincero in your belief that tlie great capitalists like Mr. Gould and Mr. Vanderbilt shouid divido with you, yTou will havo great dilliculty in making it perfectly clear to theni. Thoy will probably demur, and delay, and hem, and haw, and proerastinate, until linally they will gct out of it in somc way. Still I do not wish to throw cold water on vour enterprise. If the other capitalists look favorably on tho plan, I will cheerfully co-operate with theni. You go andsee what you can do with Mr. Vanderbilt, and thcncomo to me. You go on atsome leugth to tell me how most of the wealth ís in the hands of a few men, and then you attack those men aud refor to them in a way thal makes my blood run cold. You tell the millionaires of America to beware, for the hot breath of a bloodyhanded Nemesis is already in the air. You may say to Nemesis, it you plcise, that I have a double-barrel shotgun standing at the head of my bed every night, and that I am in the Nemesis business. You also refer to the fact that tho slouth-hounds of eternal justice aro 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 regular meeting of the millionaires of this country, after the minutes of the previous meeting had been read and approved, we voted almost unanimoiuify to discourage any ?leu.thhuud that we fouad oamped on onr trail after 10 o'clock p. m. Sleuth-hounds who want to ramble over our trails during office liours may do so with the utmost impunity, but after 10 o'clock we want to use our trails for other purposes. No man wants to go to the great expense of niaintaining a trail winter and simimcr, and then leave it out nights foi 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 couimunism, it would certainly be a great boon to you. To those who ure now engaged in feeding thamselves with flat beer out of a tomato can, such a change as you suggest would fall like a ray of sunshino in a rat hole; but alas! it may never be. 1 triod it a while, but niy efi'orts wero futile. The effect of ruy great struggle seerued to be that mon's hearts grew more and more stony, and niy pantaloons got thinner and thinner on the seat till it seemed to me that the world never was so cold. Then I made some experimenta in manual bor. As 1 began to work; harder and sit down less, I found that the world was not so cold. It was only when I sat down a long time that I feit how cold and rough the world really was. Perhaps 1 1 is so with you. Sedentary habits and stalo beer are apt to ruako ns morbid. Sitting on the stonu door sills of hallways and public buildings during cold weatber is apt to give you an erroneous inipression of life. Of course, I am willing to put my moiiay into a common fund if 1 can be cenvinced that it is best. I was an outside passenger on a Leadville coach somo years ago, when a few of our friends suggested that we ail -put our nioncy into a common fund, ana I was almost the iïrst one to see that they were right. They went away into the motintains to apportion the money they got from our party, but I nover got my dividend. Probably they lost