Tarifa took its name from Tarif-Ben-Malik, the
most enterprising Robber Baron of his day, and thus the Lords of Tarifa
were the progenitors of the Robber Barons of the Black Forest, New England
and Pittsburgh. Tribute was the name the Moors gave their robbery, which
was open and aboveboard. The Coal Kings, the Steel Kings and the Oil Kings
of the modern world have contrived to hide the process; but in Spain the
palaces of their forefathers rise in lonely and solemn grandeur just as a
thousand years hence the palaces upon the Fifth Avenue side of Central Park
and along Riverside Drive, not to mention those of the Schuylkill and the
Delaware, may become but roosts for bats and owls, and the chronicler of
the Anthropophagi, "whose heads do reach the skies," may tell how the
voters of the Great Republic were bought and sold with their own money,
until "Heaven released the legions north of the North Pole, and they
swooped down and crushed the pulpy mass beneath their avenging snowshoes."
The gold that was gathered by the Spaniards and fought over so valiantly
is scattered to the four ends of the earth. It may be as potent to-day as
then; but it does not seem nearly so heroic. A good deal of it has found
its way to London, which a short century and a half ago "had not,"
according to Adam Smith, "sufficient wealth to compete with Cadiz." We have
had our full share without fighting for it. Thus all things come to him who
contrives and waits.
Pages:
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185