Class Book 2__a^ Copyright N?. COPYRIGHT DEPOSnV ,ii;(!®i4ilki!i The People's Hour And Other Themes GEORGE HOWARD GIBSON Original Drawings hy Ralph M. Grow Workers of the world, unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains, you have a world to gain, — Marx. When the populace takes to reasoning — all is /os/.— Voltaire. THE ENGLEWOOD PUBLISHING HOUSE CHICAGO ILL. COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY GEORGE HOWARD GIBSON. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 243174 CONTENTS Foreword 7 The People's Hour 9 The Point of View 11 "The Sacred Right to Labor" 12 Proof of Manhood 14 The World for the Workers 15 The Disturber (Roosevelt) 18 The Working- Fighting Phalanx 20 Joseph's and His Brethren's Dreams 22 The Question of Room 26 The Truly Great 27 Something for Nothing 28 Get Off the Earth 30 By Combining Conquer 32 Truth's Approaching Triumph 33 The Heart of the Masses 35 The Prevailing Blindness 38 Give Joy Unconfii^ed to the Victors 39 Respectable Business Selfishness 41 The Manhood-Destroying Struggle 43 Religious Individualism Valueless 45 On Sunday at Church 47 On Monday in Business 47 The Gospel of Power 49 Original Orthodoxy 50 A Drowning Cry 51 The Social Incarnation 52 Use Up the Last Dollar 54 Easy Lessons 55 A Vanderbilt Poodle 57 If I Were a Voice 58 The Love of Comrades 59 The Mad, Mammon-Worshiping World 61 Their Annual Bath 63 The American Marseillaise 65 In Manhood's Name 67 The Star Spangled Banner 68 CONTENTS— Con/rnucJ Gentlemen, Let Me Make You Acquainted 70 Power 72 Our Line of Defense 73 A Mistaken Versifier 74 The Aliases of Evil 75 "I Said in My Haste—" 78 The Worst Kind of Kings 80 The Common Greatness 82 The Money Power 83 Monopoly Mastery and Spoliation 86 The Latest Good News 88 The Right of Monopoly 89 In Memoriam 91 To an Ideal Labor Leader 93 A Passing Power 95 A Cry, and Something More 96 The Common Life 98 Thy Kingdom Come 100 The Law and the Prophets 102 The Sons of God 104 God Save the People 105 The Social Economy of Deuteronomy 106 A Rich Man's Thoughts 107 The Alarm Beat 108 The Writing on the Wall 109 Paradise Regained Ill The Get Together Gospel 114 We Must Have a Ballot-Box Union 116 Sunrise on the Hills 117 When Men Are Wiser 1 19 A Part of Heaven 120 Faith's Service 122 Progression 123 Heaven 126 Together 131 ADDENDUM. Monopoly Versus The People [ Wentworth] 133 The Basis of the Struggle [La Follette] ". 135 VI V^ V^ Vs^ %^ "^ ^ ^ FOREWORD The author of this book is a working man, one who would be ashamed to live either lawlessly or lawfully on the labor of others. In periods of enforced idleness he has had time to become well informed, and to think around and through things. But experience has taught him most, and made him in manhood sympathy alive. He knows what the wage-workers and out-of-works are up against. All their problems have been his. This volume is of the workers and for the workers — and no others. The pro- fessional book reviewers who look for pleasing literature, and such of the book-reading public as care only for entertainment, have not been regarded. It is not a book for the class of people who are contented with things as they are, but for the overburdened, dependent, discon- tented masses. Its themes are vital, its language plain, its ideas necessarily disturbing to the income-drawing, labor-commanding classes. After all, one man is like another, like every other. Each man has in him the promise or possibility of un- limited development. All good is for all men who will together work for it. The natural measure of develop- ment for each and every man is the measure of good Vll communicable from all mankind, from an educated all- serving humanity gfowing up into Divinity. Is it not true that good dies when and where we limit it? There are no superioi* classes with separate, satisfy- ing pleasures. Art is not for the few, but must be the full up-flowering of the working life of the world. Let us have justice as the foundation of all good. Let us unitedly demand and command equal natural rights in the land and in the inseparable services of society; then all can live wealthily, healthily, ideally, and all work can be lifted into the realm of delightful art, or can be made easy with the science of economic machinery and abun- dant motive power. THE AUTHOR, 419 W. 67th St., Chicago. vni The People's Hour. THE PEOPLE'S HOUR. The State — ^what is it, but the answering power Where cry the wronged, or where mute want must cower ? Greed cannot grasp its high and far dominion, Nor reach again fair Freedom's outflung pinion. The state is conscience, justice, law unbroken. The ten commandments — yea, the eleventh, Christ-spoken. The state is not a ruling king or kaiser; Nor parliament, nor congress of the wiser. Take the whole bunch of scheming politicians. Add wealth, add privilege, add class traditions, Throw in the courts to seal all deeds of power — And what are these when comes the people's hour? We are the people, rousing after slumber; We are the working masses — note our number. At last we feel as feels the man and brother, And rush to ranks, intent to help each other. By the Eternal, equal rights are ours, To mines and mills, to sunlit fields and flowers, God made the earth — His chidren, then, shall share it. The workers made all wealth — theirs, we declare it. Climb down, you income-takers, midst the workers ; G^t busy serving, all you soft-palmed shirkers. You plunderers all, respectable and striped. Henceforth it's sweat for every man-like biped. The People's Hour. It's work for all, hence work in reason's measure; Short hours, vacations, culture, travel, pleasure; Machines and power unlimited to labor, And no one scheming to out-trade a neighbor; Creation's joy sustained by recreation, And universal, lifelong education. He that will not work according to his faculty, let him per- ish according to his necessity; there is no law juster than that. Work is the mission of man in this earth. A day is ever strug- gling forward — a day will arrive in some proximate degree — when he who has no work to do, by whatever name he may be named, will not find it good to show himself in our quarter of the Solar System. — Carlyle. It is right and necessary that all men should have work to do. Work should be the chief thing in every human life. It should be worth doing; it should be pleasant; anxiety should be abolished in connection with human work; all shams and tricks and profits should be eliminated. Then we would develop art by the people — a joy to the maker and to the user. — William Morris. If manual labor is a blessing, not a curse, I want my share of it ; if it is a curse, not a blessing, I ought to take my turn. — Vida D. Scudder. Property can have no other origin than labor. Whosoever does not work has no right to obtain the means of existence from society. — Fichte. Those who labor in reality feed the pensioner (called the rich) and themselves. — Edmund Burke. The best way to comprehend is to do. What we learn most thoroughly is what we learn to some extent by ourselves. — Kant. 10 The People's Hour. THE POINT OF VIEW. To be looked up to, honored and respected, And draw an income from the class subjected; To grasp a measure of superior power — Through wealth, or law, or what seems mental dower- And feel in worth above one's serving neighbors As much as one can profit by their labors ; To live secure from want, with cultured classes, And give employment to the landless masses: So to be served and saved makes class and station Seem natural, and good for all creation. To be looked down on — reckoning worth by wages ; To work and want through life's dull, hopeless ages ; Long hours, long years to toil among wealth makers. And still remain dependent on its takers ; To sweat for others who yet do not love us, Creating incomes for the ranks above us ; To live a treadmill life, with narrow pleasures, Unthrilled by art, and wanting all its treasures: So with the rich to rank in correlation, Seems not so fair and fine for all creation. 11 The People s Hour. "THE SACRED RIGHT TO LABOR." The Parry-led Philistines, after profits and per cents, Disposed to stay in power and knowing whence it springs, Have gone to preaching ethics, with an interest intense In "the right of men to toil" — for them, the toil that tribute brings. And how they love the workers, The "free" non-union workers, The brave strike-breaking workers, The "heroes" known as scabs ! And how they hate the unions. The leaders of the unions. The solid front of unions — The class who won't be scabs ! "The sacred right to labor" — how zealously they urge it!— ''The right to sell one's 'capital' as pleases one" — the boss; But, O, the blow to freedom when men with manhood merge it And follow trusted leaders into idleness and loss ! 'Tis then they love the workers, The "free" non-union workers, The brave strike-breaking workers. The "heroes" known as scabs I And how they hate the unions. The leaders of the unions, 12 . The People's Hour. The solid front of unions — The class who won^t be scabs ! Somehow this narrow Parry-sort of Pharisaic preaching Sounds true and fair and Gospel-Hke when suitably applied ; The right of men to labor is good universal teaching, And that what is right is duty can by no one be denied. Then why lock out the workers, The brotherhood of workers. The faithful, able workers Who claim the right to toil? And why insist that shirkers. The income-drawing shirkers, The lily-handed shirkers, Should be exempt from toil ? The vital point at issue is, how wealth shall be divided — Shall those whose sweat creates it say, and none be born to rule? Or shall wage and life conditions by employers be de- cided. And the toiler be a purchased thing, a profit-earning tool? The right of all to labor, The need of all to labor, The blessedness of labor — Free labor — let us teach. And justice to our neighbor. Our robbed and wounded neighbor. Our long neglected neighbor. Let's add to what we preach. 13 The People's Hour, PROOF OF MANHOOD. A man is a man if he chooses to work, And scorns to Hve by the sweat of others. He is less than a man, who prefers to shirk And draw support from his toihng brothers. Mere lords and thieves and beggars belong ('When they choose to be carried, and toil are shirking) To a morally loathsome, leech-like throng. The fear and torment of people working. Let infants draw from their mothers' breasts. Let children lean on the arm of labor; But curse the fellow full-grown who rests And feeds on the back of a toil-worn neighbor. You may curse divinely — and curse yourself. If more for less you are gladly getting ; Per cents and bargains of lovers of pelf, By Truth and Justice are called blood-letting. 14 The People's Hour. THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS. By the toil of steel and steam, Save the ^people; Give them time to grow and dream. All the people. Banish hunger, grim and gaunt, Banish dreariness and want. Drive anxieties that haunt. From the people. *Even in this comparatively new, largely undeveloped coun- try more than half of the people are landless and must contribute a fourth to a third of what they receive in wages as rent. They must also produce in excess of the wages paid them dividends for the capitalists and interest for the banking and private money- lending class. Periodically also millions of those most poorly paid are thrown out of employment, because more has been pro- duced to sell above cost in wages than the wages paid will pur- chase. The ample underground stores of coal and oil and iron and other minerals, designed equally for all, constituting a part of the inalienable birthright of all, have been wrongfully deeded to the few, and enable them to dictate prices to the many. Any measure of monopoly furnishes the power to extend and increase monopoly exactions, to build up a greater monopoly ; correspond- ingly and correlatively, poverty compels contracts and exchanges which perpetuate and extend poverty. Thus it has come about that the so-called labor-saving, labor-multiplying-power machines have been bought up by capitalists, and machinery, steam and electricity benefit them alone. There are but two ways of living — ^namely, by the sweat of your own face, and by increasing the sweat of your neighbor's face — by doing the necessary work of the world, or by climbing on the backs of the workers. The workers could stand it to carry the robbers, thieves, beggars, forgers, embezzlers, counterfeiters, gamblers and other outlaws, they are relatively so few in num- ber. But the burden of the not yet outlawed income-drawing, respectable parasite class is becoming intolerable. 15 The People's Hour, Let us do it — the ideal. For the people ; Let us make the gospel real Reach the people. Millionaires and billionaires Seem to think the world is theirs ; But "the meek" are equal heirs, As the people. To the poor of every name In the nation, Let the Government proclaim Restoration. Blow the jubilee again For the landless, homeless men. And assure the masses then Occupation. Give the workers back their tools — Don't refuse them — Mines and mills, as well as schools; Let them use them. Loose the forces of the sky ; Let the harnessed lightning fly With the wheels of industry — God would use them. In creating there is joy (Tell the shirkers), Pleasures that can never cloy With the workers. And when all the wheels are driven By the tireless forces given, Earth will come to be as heaven For the workers. 16 The People's Hour, 17 The People's Hour. THE DISTURBER. Rough and ready cometh Teddy, Piatt and bullet-wise, to office. Confident as any novice; Great as Caesar, yes, and greater, Born to be the regulator Of whate'er needs regulation — Business, politics, creation. Modern Moses ! what a pose is His who harps upon square dealing, And attacks big business stealing ! Square ? Absurd ! Why, all are reaping Spoil, advantage, power — and keeping Those subdued in legal- fetters. With their children's children debtors. Sure as logic, demagogic Is the man who spurns from under What he chose to rise by — plunder. How was Roosevelt elected ? As the masses are subjected. Business gives to each his station ; This is a *'big business" nation. Business thrones him, business owns him ; Business is the power behind him. Business gives the word to bind him. 18 The People's Hour. Congress, courts, all politicians Bow to business for positions. High and low must wear the collar Of the world's almighty dollar. Not enthusing, but amusing, Teddy's turns with real power coping. And his talk of railroad roping. Not a trust has yet been bu'sted ; But Big Business got disgusted, Couldn't stand his tiresome teaching, Threats of law, and business preaching. So "The System" up and hissed him; Wall Street gently roared and rumbled, Bulls and bears together tumbled ; Dollars hid — while all affrighted Wondered, as the earth was blighted. Thus they bumped him, thumped him, crushed him, Tamed the President, AND *HUSHED HIM. *The foregoing was written Thanksgiving Day, 1907, under the first shock and submerging wave of the Wall Street anti- Roosevelt panic. The last line, of course, has turned out to be an overstatement, for nothing can tame the Roosevelt tongue. However, while the first of politicians had undoubted capacity for disturbing, when president, he was only noisy, superficial and irritating. The "malefactors of great wealth," concerning whom he has much to say, actually did finance the Roosevelt political campaigns. It was proved absolutely by the Hughes investiga- tion. And he must have known where the funds were coming from for those campaigns. Mr, Roosevelt is neither worse nor better than others in the business and political game. Business is business. Politics is also business — that is, an each-for-himself struggle. What's wrong with it? Everything, or practically nothing, Roosevelt does not see that the whole game is wrong. The rules of the game of get 19 The People's Hour. THE WORKING-FIGHTING PHALANX. Written at time of the 1902 anthracite strike and first pub- lished in The Pilgrim. Of fraternal deeds sublime Spread the fame o'er all the earth ; Sing, ye may, of manhood's prime, Sing of Brotherhood's great birth; Give the loyal miners meed of matchless worth. Hardest pressed on either hand, Firm in fellowship they stand. Steadfast, grand! Front and rear divided far. Mining comrades fight as one ; Workers all with strikers share. While the greatest deeds are done. Manhood thus its march of triumph has begun. Strikers fed, their strength renew ; Want and fear can ne'er subdue Comrades true. and hold and dictate and exploit are not meant to be fair. They are the rules — ^business, politics, government — of the rulers, that's all. There can be no square dealing between the dependent and independent. Sift it clear, and what is it Roosevelt, or Taft, or Bryan asks for the dependent class ? Nothing, absolutely nothing. They are trying to limit the plunder of the big exploiters, which would merely add to or preserve the plunder of the smaller exploiters. The exploited masses were not regarded and are not interested in the petty measures of the upper and middle class struggle. Suppose the big fine against Standard Oil had held in the highest court, it would not have relieved the wage-earning class in the 20 The People's Hour. Herald far the phalanx plan, Organize with greatest zeal, Put to proof the Social Man, Catch the thrill that comrades feel ; Strike together, and the mightiest throne shall reel. Corporate rule must pass away ; Comradeship's resistless sway Comes, to stay. Over all the names we know, Glorified by battle's rage, Mitchell's and his men's shall show On the far historic page, — First as brothers, bringing in the golden age. They in sharing showed the poor How to enter freedom's door, Barred no more. least. The suits against the packers have not reduced the price of meat. The Aldrich-Cannon-Taft revision of the tariff is like the Dingley and the Democratic Wilson revisions — a huge strug- gle between the greedy and the powerful for the spoils, but of no interest to the spoiled. Put aside preconceived notions for a moment and let us reason together. The trusts (Steel, Meat, Coal, Copper, Standard Oil, etc.) are great organizations of industry, as are also the rail- roads, telegraphs, telephones, express business, street railways, and the rest. It is inconceivable that any possible measure of governmental supervision of books and accounts can force the water from trust stocks, or so hedge about natural monopolies as to remove their power to exact tribute from the people. Private ownership on so large a scale as obtains at the present constitutes monopoly power which can be removed only by public ownership. And there is nothing about public ownership to fear. It is simply en- larging the circle of stockholders so that it shall include all the people, that all may share the benefits. 21 The People's Hour. JOSEPH'S AND HIS BRETHREN'S DREAMS. In one of his more recent political poems Kipling, with splendid power of thought and expression, dilates on 'Things and the Man," undergirding his title with this text, from Genesis : "And Joseph dreamed a drearn, and he told it his brethren; and they hated him yet the more." The poem is individualistic to the limit, and is made to fit, in praise that could not have been greater had the individual been a Jesus, one Joseph Chamberlain. Here is the middle of the Kipling poem, the introductory stanza and the one ending ''Once in our time is there a man?" being omitted. What could be finer than this conception and description of one-man power: "He single-handed met and threw Magicians, armies, ogres, kings ; He, lonely 'mid his doubting crew, In all the loneliness of wings ; He fed the flame, he filled the springs. He locked the ranks, he launched the van Straight at the grinning teeth of things. Once on a time there was a man. ''The peace of shocked foundations flew Before his ribald questionings. He broke the oracles in two And bared the paltry wires and strings; He headed desert wanderings ; He led his soul, his cause, his clan, A little from the ruck of things. Once on a time there was a man. 22 The People's Hour. ''Thrones, powers, dominions block the view With episodes and underlings ; The meek historian deems them true, Nor heeds the song that Clio sings, The simple central truth that stings The mob to boo, the priest to ban. Things never yet created things. Once on a time there was a man." But this Joseph, as England's Colonial Secretary, and many think at the instigation of the Rand gold and dia- mond mine owners, dreaming of empire, precipitated the terribly bloody Transvaal war of conquest which crushed out the Boer republics ; since which he has supported these millionaires' demand for cheaper, imported Chinese coolie labor, at a fixed wage too low for whites or even Kaffir blacks to live upon ; finally, he has fathered a political scheme to tax the food of the poor of England in order to extend the reach and power of its ruling class. Such individualistic and ruling class dreaming and scheming deserve not to be praised at all. It is only those in whom is the universal, the common, the uniting and all-serving spirit who enter into what is for all great and good and lasting. In place of empire, let us all dream of brotherhood. So Joseph dreams, of brethren bowed Before a brother throned in power ; Of modern brethren who must crowd To masters, mightier hour by hour In wealth withdrawn from those who cower. But these have dreamed, as dreamers can. Of equal title, right and dower — And every dreamer is a man. 23 The People's Hour. Oh, ye who think the earth belongs To those with power to hold, to seize, Ye care not for the ancient wrongs, But force the landless to their knees. And on their shoulders climb to ease. So, borne, the lordly lead the van. Spread empire, tax, and starve, and freeze- And one, the greatest, ranks "a man!'* Ye masters, ye who rule as kings. Who more, who less, than man can be ? Against your thrones of gathered things, Your statesman, scribe and Pharisee, We mass the spirit of the free. We stand at last a workers' clan, A host that dreams of liberty. And every dreamer acts the man. A workers' clan — excluding none, Since fellowship was born to bless ; Opposing autocrats alone. But reaching out to all distress. And ending dread and loneliness — A growing, world-wide workers' clan Astir with cosmic consciousness. And God revealed in every man. Ignoble graspers of the world. Hence ; let oblivion hide your shame. For aye, let flags of blood be furled. And yield to peaceful workers fame, 24 The People's Hour. To honest toil the noble name. Yield each his place in Nature's plan — His honored place — with glad acclaim, Since God is God, and man is man. I take my place in the lower classes. I renounce the title of gentleman because it has become intolerable to me. Dear Master, I understand now why you took your place in the lower classes, and why you refused to be a gentle- man. — Ernest Crosby. I cannot myself understand how any one who knows what the present manner is can think that it is satisfactory. To me, at least, it would be enough to condemn modern society as hardly an advance on slavery or serfdom, if the permanent condition of industry were to be that which we behold; that 90 per cent of the actual producers of wealth have no home that they can call their own beyond the end of the week; have no bit of soil, or so much as a room that belongs to them; have nothing of value of any kind, except as much old furniture as will go in a cart; have the precarious chance of weekly wages, which barely suffice to keep them in health; are housed for the most part in places that no man thinks fit for his horse ; are separated by so narrow a margin from destitution that a month of bad trade, sickness or unexpected loss brings them face to face with hunger and pauperism. In cities, the increasing organization of factory work makes life more and more crowded, and work more and more a monotonous routine; in the country, the increasing pres- sure makes rural life continually less free, healthful and cheerful ; whilst the prizes and hopes of betterment are now reduced to a minimum. This is the normal state of the average workman in town or country, to which we must add the record of prevent- able disease, accident, suffering and social oppression with its immense yearly roll of death and misery. But below this normal state of the average workman there is found the great band of the destitute outcasts — the camp-followers of the army of indus- try — at least one-tenth of the whole proletarian population, whose normal condition is one of sickening wretchedness. If this is to be the permanent arrangement of modern society, civilization must be held to bring a curse on the great majority of mankind. — Frederic Harrison. 25 The People's Hour. THE QUESTION OF ROOM. There is always room at the top. — Daniel Webster. There is plenty of room at the top, A castle of ease and a crown ; But the people below are squeezed, you must know, They are crushed out of shape by the fortunes that grow, They bear up the weight of the world, with its woe. The weight of the top pressing down. There is room for a few at the top ; But how about those underneath ? Did not Deity plan for the average man When the purposeful ponderous planet first ran From the hand of its Former, and circling began. Ere those to inhabit drew breath? There is plenty of room for us all, And this was the law from the first: 'Twas divinely decreed each should sweat for his need. Each should toil for himiself and be honest in deed ; The crowding is caused by the entrance of greed, A spirit for ever accursed. 26 The People's Hour. THE TRULY GREAT. Who are in spirit great, Where are earth's noblest found? Not in the halls of state, Not among men renowned, Not in the mansions fair Where wealth, proud wealth, resides; They toil in vain and fight despair In homes where W^ant abides. The classes count success, As robbers count their spoil, Nor heed wealth's cost and stress Borne by the mass who moil ; 'Tis these who stand the strain Of earth's great load and need, Yet faith and manliness maintain While pressed by devilish greed ! And these, like gods, shall grow. With visions of the free — Their rights and wrongs shall know, Their power in unity. The classes, mean, shall cower ; The masses, men, shall stand With honest grasp and use of power. And all God's good command. 27 The People's Hour. SOMETHING FOR NOTHING. The robber is after your purse ; And you righteously curse Whoever would take without giving, The man who would steal for a living. Getting something for nothing is crime — Whether robbing direct, Or with arts none detect, Let's call it and make it a crime. You call for a gun— or a rope — And a jailer to cope With the horsethief, highwayman and sneak Who spoil the unarmed and the weak. It's right; drag them all off to jail — Every last mother's son Who robs with a gun, Every thief, should be helped off to jail. But wait. Are there wardens enough To lock up the tough ? Are the prisons sufficiently spacious To hold all whose greed is rapacious? How many are there who obtain More wealth than they give? How many who live On what they from others can gain? 28 The People's Hour. Wherever men meet in the mart Each thinks it is smart To drive a hard trade with his neighbor, To gobble his goods and his labor ; The more he can get than the worth Of that which he sells, The prouder he swells, — While he fences the poor from the earth. If '^something for nothing" is crime, There's a reckoning" time — A day when the just shall have risen To put all who plunder in prison. Oh, woe to the rich and the strong When Truth shall surprise Their refuge of lies, And land them where robbers belong ! ^ N< How can one who lives without thanks upon the labor of others, who has been dandled all his life in the strong arms of the laborers so that his feet have never for a moment felt the drastic earth, who has never wrestled naked with God for a blessing, or felt a common elemental need — how can such an one know anything of the omens of history, how judge rightly and decide what is human and of immortal value in books and pictures, or what is just in laws? How can he fight the battles of the weak, or answer the questions of the simple; interpret the meaning of the prophets, or comprehend the passion of Christ? — Charles Ferguson in The Religion of Democracy, Funk & Wagnalls. Succeeding quotations from Ferguson are from this remark- able book. 29 The People's Hour. GET OFF THE EARTH, No trespass here ! Get off the earth, You own no land upon it ; You've lost for aye your right of birth, And we by might have won it. We landlords all have got you down, A list of poorest tenants. So climb the air, or jump and drown, And thus do dying penance. Get off, get off, get off the earth ! Our titles prove we own it, Get off, get off, get off the earth ! We can't have tramps upon it. "A right to life ?" Absurd, we say. And must our rentals feed you? Your seeking work from day to day Is proof that no one needs you. Your social value only lies In dragging labor deeper ; We use your hungry children's cries To make its prices cheaper. Get off, etc. You have no legal claim on men Who hold the land beneath you. The 'birds have nests, the beasts a den ;' But law does not bequeath you 30 The People's Hour.^ A place to live ; you're general slaves, Too poor to find a master ; Hence, driven forth to paupers' graves Or worse than death's disaster. Get off, etc. Your share of land with ours creates The thrones that crumble never; The title deeds to large estates Have made us kings forever. We live in luxury and pow'r, With slaves increasing 'round us ; And only those who cease to cow'r, The organized, confound us. Get off, etc. If you pass by the least considerable man, you pass by all the humanities and the divinities, and set your heart on what is transient and cheap. There is a wide ocean of dif- ference between taking in the last man and leaving him out. It is not a question of one man, but of humanity. If you leave anybody out, you must leave your own soul out, and must live thenceforth by the butler's standard. It is a fearful thing to belong to the exclusive circles. — Charles Ferguson. No idle man, however rich he may be, can feel the genuine independence of him who earns honestly and manfully his daily bread. The idle man stands outside of God's plan, outside of the ordained scheme of things ; and the truest self-respect, the noblest independence, and the most genuine dignity are not to be found there. The man who does his part in life, who pursues a worthy end, and who takes care of himself is the happy man. There is a great deal of cant afloat about the dignity of labor, uttered mostly, perhaps by those who know little about it experimentally ; but labor has a dignity which attaches itself to little else that is human. — J. G. Holland. 31 The People's Hour. BY COMBINING CONQUER. Fellow craftsmen, fellow thinkers, fellow moilers, Worthy workers at whatever tasks and place, Last and greatest looms the struggle of the toilers- 'Tis the crisis of the ages that we face. Prize we freedom, prize we honor, prize we power? These are gifts that go together; they belong Not to those who plead for work and weakly cower, But to those who band together and are strong. Time has come when each must be a slave or brother, Stand alone and be exploited, or combine, • On the principle of each for every other. And with marshaled hosts confront the battle line. True as might is true, the strongest combination Is ordained to gain possession of the earth ; By the broadening of interests grows salvation. To the goal of universal wealth and worth. 32 The People's Hour. TRUTH'S APPROACHING TRIUMPH. O Truth, thou approachest with blessing, The shadows are fleeing away, The light of the dawn is increasing, And Evil slinks back from the day; As a bridegroom that leaveth his chamber, Rejoicing in strength for the race. Thou comest ! Thou comest ! Thou comest ! And heaven is seen in thy face ! Its glory has gilded the mountains. And soon, where the Spoiler has trod. We shall follow in light to the fountains And beautiful gardens of God! Thou'rt publishing peace to the nation. And helping the poor to be free ; Thou'rt bringing a present salvation From every injustice men see. Thy face is a terror to tyrants. It withers their strength and they fall; But to those who are under oppression. It seemeth the fairest of all. Its glory, etc. Thou teachest the folly of fighting. The waste of competitive strife ; Thou showest the need of uniting ZZ The People's Hour. In equal industrial life. Thou shamest the pride of the classes, Who prey on the landless and weak ; Thy light is a light for the masses, The hope of the poor and the meek. Its glory, etc. Oh, never a lie but thou knowest Its evil, its folly, its pain ; And never a good but thou showest How all its advantage shall gain. The earth shall be filled with the knowledge Of that which is helpful and just. And Truth shall disarm the Deceiver, And force him to grovel in dust. For glory, etc. 34 The People's Hour. THE HEART OF THE MASSES. Deep in the heart of the masses the spirit of manhood is moving, Quickened by social constraint and stirred into strenu- ous action ; Grouped by the power of oppression and driven perforce into loving, The workers are forming in ranks, and fellowship swallows up faction. Tyranny challenges m.anhood; and fellowship grows into fineness ; So shall the hidings of power be brought to a wondrous unveiling. Fellowship, fineness and might the trinity make of divine- ness, Masterful, working perfection, joined to the forces unfailing. Not from above can be looked for the spirit of comrade- ship needed ; Society sinks, or is saved by the masses despised and rejected. And better the rage of a people whose grievances shown are unheeded — • Better industrial war — than tyranny always accepted. 35 The People's Hour. Scathingly hot is the scorning a class giveth now to its traitors, When never were manhood and meanness in contest so desperate meeting; But struggling, a lover of lovers seems always a hater of haters, And better were brotherhood passion than brotheriess, heartless competing. Stern in their manhood and loyal must be the class that would master The forces gigantic of evil, the lords who so long have distressed us ; Fear not their strength or their fierceness, dream not of social disaster When for the poor and the weak they are striking the hands that oppressed us. Given a cause that is basal and broad as humanity's need is, Given a class that is conscious of interests firmly united — Moved by this bond and incentive, and growing as good as its creed is. The class shall march on with the cosmic, and ancient- est wrongs shall be righted. Union and freedom forever! Why in the struggle be parted. Men who in manhood are equal, men who the burdens are bearing? Workers alone can be noble ; and they are the tenderest heavted, Z6 The People's Hour, They are the best and the bravest, who for their com- rades are caring. The man — the divine — that is in us we show in our outward relations, Our visible growth is the growth of bodies with brotherhood spirit; The kingdom shall come to the landless, to all the op- pressed of the nations — And when they shall stand by each other, as equals the earth to inherit. We can postpone the issue no longer. Democracy now at length, the world over, takes in the last man; and that is fatal to the old way of the world. For the last man is a mil- lion — the hitherto bulked, estimated multitude. It was some- thing that the masses should get themselves enumerated, and should become a multitude. But that is nothing to what is in store ; the counters are going to take a hand in the play. This is the very whirlwind of moral revolution. The world has never seen anything like it up to this date. Always, heretofore, revolutions have meant merely some wider dis- tribution of privilege, more top hats and togas, and that ten thousand instead of ten should mulct the multitude. But now at length it has been decided that the multitude should not be mulcted any more ; and this resolution, adhered to, will turn the world around and set the foundations of society on new and hitherto undiscovered bases. — Charles Ferguson. The problem of perpetual rest is as trying as that of perpet- ual motion and it has engaged the attention of whole generations of the most respectable families time out of mind. — Richard Whiteing. Z7 The People's Hour. THE PREVAILING BLINDNESS. We are worshiping externals, and the good one day in seven, While the glory of the Infinite through everything is shining ; The paths of honest labor are the avenues to heaven — The gates of joy are open — yet we grope, and grope, repining ! WeVe restored the veil in worship, which the life of Jesus ended ; We've inclosed the Omnipresent in a sacred place of shadows ; So in factory and market we have lost the vision splendid. And we've fenced away the toiler who would find Love in the meadows 1 88 The People's Hour. GIVE JOY UNCONFINED TO THE VICTORS. Suggested by the growing liberality of the churches toward pleasure-seeking, as illustrated in the debate on Amusements in the Methodist General Conference at Los Angeles. Praises to Pov/er, unlimited pleasure now is allowed by the up-to-date preachers; Card-playing, dancing and theatre-going, they '^vote, need no more be prohibited. All else dividing the world from the Church long ago was allowed by our teachers, And good being all things desired, each must struggle to — er, get it distributed. Struggle, commercial, self-seeking, of course is the law of our social relations, The natural method of lifting the victors to rulership over us ; *The vote, following a very heated discussion of the proposed amendment to strike out of the discipline its prohibition of danc- ing, card-playing and theater-going, stood for the amendment 188, against 441. So the prohibition of these pleasures remained the church law with Methodists, But it is a fact known to all, and urged by the minority who opposed the dishonesty of the dead letter, that the old requirement is not being and cannot be enforced. All the strong denominations and divisions of the Church have greatly changed their attitude or their practice, or rather have changed from the practice of the apostolic Church, in relation to worldly goods and power. And since the Church has sanctioned and indulged in the each-for-himself struggle of business, the struggle of each to command as much goods or service as possible from the rest, it follows logically and by the same self-seeking right that the property and pleasures struggled for belong to the victors in the commercial warfare, to their heirs and assigns forever. 39 The People's Hour. Struggle discovers the worthy, the elect, and establishes all in their stations, With Rockefeller ranking the highest, and spreading his goodness to cover us. Business is business — that settles a thousand and one of the old-time ethical notions ; The respectable self-seeking struggle takes rank of all good, as upholding all ; After it, resting upon its results, come pleasure and Sun- day devotions — But business, forget not, is sanctified while, under and over, enfolding all. Give joy unconfined to the victors, then, since by might men the earth must inherit. The struggle to gain from each other, held good, makes goodness no longer a rarity; It fixes, according to portion grasped (and grasped legally), the measure of merit "The poor in great numbers are with us ?" O yes ; but observe how they stimulate charity. And how could the poor have the Gospel preached were it not for rich men's sustentation ? And how could our colleges live were it not for endow- ments from millionaires ? The rich give us good news of heaven, and employment, and — ah ! well — tribulation. The while with our sweat we are building all thrones as one throne for the ^billionaires. *For those who have been cheated of their birthrights in the earth, for the masses who labor and are heavy laden, for the great multitude of common people who create wealth and suffer poverty we bring the good tidings of all good things at hand. It is not necessary to slave and suffer need generation after genera- 40 The People's Hour. RESPECTABLE BUSINESS SELFISHNESS, If commanding power you crave, Spell it plunder; Crowd the weak in deals, and save Selfish plunder. Swap your swag for titles clear To the fields and houses near; With the aid of fences rear Thrones of plunder. Realty commands its rents, Landlord plunder; Stocks and bonds their like per cents, Also plunder. Grasp of mine and mill and soil Gives control of those who toil. Makes the landless class who moil Lawful plunder. tion, waiting for relief in death, or for God to come in power. He chooses not to overawe the world. Even One with infinite power cannot so perfect a world, or complete for us a ready- made heaven. "The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's ; out the earth hath He given to the children of men." Judgment is in our hands. The final decision is with the majority. The voice of the people is the voice of God. The landless shall inherit the earth as soon as in the spirit of com- radeship they present a collective demand for it. All good waits merely on our getting together in a fraternal organization. There is a people's band wagon at the door. Climb into it, everybody. The working man who will not join the union of his trade and the party of his class is either pitiably short-sighted, or morally of the meanest. 41 The People's Hour. Might makes law, and law makes right- Think around it ; Wrong is strong, so right is might — Thus confound it. See what ceaseless tribute brings. Riches that shall ne'er take wings; Good is based on solid things, Power must bound it. Jacob, seeing Esau's need. Drives his bargains. Brothers we, in fact ; but greed Drives its bargains. Business wisdom, as of old. Prices man and God with gold! Heaven and earth are bought and sold In our bargains. Income-takers all have trod Workers under ; And they dare to worship God With their plunder ! Usurers, robbers, murderers they Who upon their brethren prey. Comes there, then, a judgment day For those who plunder ? People have got to be shocked to wake them up out of old absurd routine. Use paralyzes us to almost every injustice; when people are shocked they begin to think and inquire. — Harriet Beecher Stowc. 42 The People's Hour. THE MANHOOD DESTROYING STRUGGLE. This beastly struggle of divided, contending interests, culminating in monopoly and slavery, must give place to a national industrial corporation of citizenship stock- holders. O the eager strife for things, And the wretchedness it brings ! Each at war for private gain, Spreading world-wide want and pain! Slave and rival, lord and leech, Each the selfish foe of each! None we deal with seems to care How we live or what we bear. Brothers, comrades, lovers none; Struggling all our lives alone. Workers' lives are bought and sold — Going prices — weighed in gold ; Prices made by need and greed, ''Might is right" the market creed. They who buy and they who sell Breathe the atmosphere of hell. All — the greatest and the least — All are branded by the beast. Brothers, comrades, lovers none; Each must struggle on alone. 43 The People's Hour. Covering all its lies with care, Business oft is bland and fair; But beneath its smoothest side Selfishness is yawning wide. Shoddy goods that rivals use, Truer merchants can't refuse ; Wages that the meanest give, Better men must pay — to live. Brothers, comrades, lovers none; Each must fight the world alone. Left to care for self apart, Plans for self possess the heart. Wife and children, made to bless, Spur and strengthen selfishness. Anxious thoughts of future need Hold us back from those who bleed ; Neighbors plundered, wounded, lie Near us — but we pass them by. Brothers, comrades, lovers none ; Each must love himself alone. Christ, as king, is downward hurled ; Craft and Greed conduct the world. Church men are no longer "fools;" Worldly wisdom shapes the schools ; Preachers now are hired to preach ; Teachers, too, are hired to teach; Lawyers all are hired to lie ; — Worship mammon, then, or die. Brothers, comrades, lovers none; Each must love himself alone. 44 The People's Hour. RELIGIOUS INDIVIDUALISM VALUELESS. We are learning at last that even when desiring good we cannot be saved individually. Few men can be found — apart from professional preach- ers — who would trust themselves singly to neighbor- love. There seems to be no faith in any church regarding brotherhood in material things. Christ has his temples, or places named as his and reckoned holy, where week-day mammon-worshipers congregate to hear and utter words religiously in- toned — and rest from strife ; But straightway on the morrow back they plunge into the thick of selfish, warring interests, and live as in the faith that gain is godliness, or good supreme. The eager, striving, grasping world, into which the visible church long since merged and lost itself, in effect declares that Christ-like love in business is out of place, impractical, impossible, a Utopian dream. And yet, how plain it is that almost the whole vast sum of evil flows and grows out of the selfish struggle, out of the scheming to gain at others' cost, and corner talent;, and land, and labor's needful tools. A word with those who bear the name of Christ and think themselves in love with love. Can love use selfish methods? Can love gain by striving? 45 The People's Hour. Can social love-life build itself out of the bottomless pit and mire of such foundations? Let. us have done with attempts to live a dual life, with preaching the love principle on Sunday, and prac- ticing its opposite on Monday. Our self-seeking may be entirely respectable, reputable, by the church uncondemned, and yet our week-day deeds make Sunday's worship mockery. ''Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of Sabbath worshipers, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." The long-prayed- for kingdom of heaven is at hand; it is not for those who hope to enter it by and by. It is the spirit and good of the whole controlling our lives individually. It is whatever helps forward the democratization of industry. It is not a mystical or formal communion, but a real union — for instance, trade unions of workers with membership loyal, with manhood set firm against tyranny, divine in their unity. oS \s I! ^ 46 The People's Hour. ON SUNDAY AT CHURCH. "How sweet, how heavenly is the sight, When those who love the Lord In one another's peace delight, And so fulfill his word ! "When each can feel his brother's sigh. And with him bear a part ! When sorrow flows from eye to eye. And joy from heart to heart! "When, free from envy, scorn and pride. Our wishes all above. Each can a brother's failings hide. And show a brother's love ! "When love, in one delightful stream, Through every bosom flows. When union sweet, and dear esteem. In every action glows ! "Love is the golden chain that binds The happy hearts above; And he's an heir of heaven who finds His bosom glow with love." ON MONDAY IN BUSINESS. How sad, how evil is the sight, When those who "love the Lord" On Monday mix in mammon's fight. And so destroy his word ! The People's Hour. Each "seeks his own," and counts as fair Whate'er the world allows; He grasps, who can, the larger share, Nor heeds his Christian vows. None deem it practical to love In struggling business life ; And can it be that God above Objects to selfish strife? A brother's tremblinsf words and sighs On Sunday move the heart ; But moans and groans and fainting cries Are drowned in Monday's *mart. The week-day robbed and wounded need A neighbor's strength and care ; But those who pass propose a creed, And, Sunday, offer prayer. *In the each-for-himself commercial struggle by which we live self-love is cultivated and neighbor-love neglected. All evil roots itself in that self-centering principle which we have accepted as legitimate in business. Every dollar that is gained in selfish struggle may be used in selfish gratification. It is legal to buy up the land and forever exploit and keep poor the millions who must use it. Unselfishness nowhere and at no time is required, but if inherent kindness, or the sense of universal kinship, be not en- tirely choked out and destroyed by business relations, the self- ishly intrenched and well-to-do may dare dole out something as charity. However, judged by the universally accepted business principle, every such giving of money or service is a work of supererogation. The business principle is that of warring commercial inter- ests. Commercial might is the measure of established right. But the hand-to-hand, brain-to-brain, family-against-family struggles 48 The People's Hour. THE GOSPEL OF POWER. Complete a man and brother, Jesus comes ! Take heart ! Rejoice ! The great Deliverer comes ! Fearless of soul, against all wrong he moves, And round him press the poor, whose friend he proves. His rage is just — and thieves from worship fly ; His words jar thrones — and priests cry, ''He must die!" The King of men heaven's law of love makes plain ; But all the ruling ranks oppose his reign. They killed the Christ. And who can save us now ? Two thousand years — and still the landless bow. . . . But hark ! Behold, where Truth full-orbed has risen, The Social Christ comes forth with power from prison! Its conquering strength united labor learns, And, joined in heart, all heaven unto it turns. The face of God through earth's dark clouds appears, And toil-worn hands ring in the ^'thousand years." of the past are being succeeded by group warfare, by corporation, trade union and ballot-box contests. Corporations and trusts are predatory bands developing along lines of monopoly and abso- lutism. On the other hand, trade unions and labor and Socialist parties are the squarely opposing armies which cultivate the brotherhood spirit, and lead on to the Co-operative Common- wealth, in which all will live by working, under equal natural rights and governmentally associated benefits. 49 The People's Hour. ORIGINAL ORTHODOXY. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. — Gen. 3:19; II Thess. 3:10. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. — Lev. 19:18; Matt. 22:39; Rom. 13:10; Gal. 5:14; James 2:8. The land shall not be sold in fee simple for ever ; for the land is mine. — Lev. 25 :23. Is not this the religious exercise that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy bur- dens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke ? — Isa. 58 :6. The Lord will enter into judgment with the ruling classes, the landlords and capitalists ; for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord. — Isa. 3 :14, 15. Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place to live except as terms are made with monopolists. Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil ; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness ; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight. — Isa. 5 :8, 20, 21. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.— Matt. 19:24. He that hath given forth upon interest for an income, and hath taken increase, shall he then live? He shall not live. — Ezek. 18:13. SO The People's Hour. A DROWNING CRY. Oh, is there heaven for me? Earth has no room. Friendless, from man I flee Forth to my doom. Can God be hard and cold. Like those who strive for gold? Will he refuse to give Lost ones a home? Fainting with toil, I've borne Wages forced down. Work I have sought each morn, Facing man's frown. Now on the street I'm cast; Struggling, I sink, at last; Thrown from the slums of earth, Helpless, I drown! God save what man destroys, Reaching for gain; God curse what man enjoys. Bought with such pain. Worship ? It calls for toil, Justice to those who moil, Breaking oppression's yoke ; Words are but vain. 51 The People's Hour. THE SOCIAL INCARNATION. Mother of Jesus, thou wert still a woman, A common mother of a common man; And they exalt thee who declare thee human, A normal mother in great Nature's plan. A common man is the divinest being That God begets and mother-love conceives ; A common woman, so with God agreeing, Can give him sons to-day if she believes. Brood lovingly and labor, blessed mothers. In hope of other sons of God-like kind ; Jesus the elder must have many brothers Before the incarnate glory is defined. Think not of God revealed in one, most human. And since withdrawn; in natural life he lives, In. every babe of every loving woman Who reaches after good and, God-like, gives. Give only good, give greatness in gestation, Give breadth of vision to the opening mind ; Have faith as Mary in ideal creation, And link the unfolding life with all its kind. A son of God is one whose heart connects him And toil relates him to all human lives ; Who feels with all, so that their need directs him As for the greatest good he thinks and strives. 52 The People's Hour. How mean are lords of labor, feeling elateness, Compared with one who rightly lifts the hod? A commoner in spirit reaches greatness Of universal good, of very God. Despised was Jesus — numbered with the masses Of landless workers, robbed of rights in earth; A carpenter — he led against the classes The mighty union seen before his birth. Out of the pit of poverty sang Mary The world's Magnificat of love and power; For all the oppressed, whose heart and flesh are weary, She saw a time when tyrannies must cower. Though tarrying long, the kingdom comes — believe it; By unexpected means, by workers' worth, By common men united to retrieve it. The meek shall soon hold title to the earth. Stronger and stronger grow the federations Of those who toil, whose labor still is priced ; Nearer and nearer comes the dream of nations Ruled by the people's voice — the people's Christ. 53 The People's Hour. USE UP THE LAST DOLLAR. "An equal division of unequal earnings/* You say, with mock laughter, we're after today ; But not for the wealth of the rich have we yearnings ; Use up the last dollar youVe gathered, we say. Use up the last dollar, use up the last dollar. Use up the last dollar you've gathered, we say. Consume what you have when no longer you're "toiling," And no one will question who earned it for you. The thing we denounce is the work of despoiling ; It's eating your plunder and keeping it, too. It's eating your sponge cake, it's eating your sponge cake. It's eating your sponge cake, and keeping it, too. By usury's magic, while others are working. Producing and wanting, your wealth grows itself ; As kings and as princes you tax us while shirking. You conquer the workers by means of your pelf. You dictate to workers, you prey on the workers, You plunder the workers by means of your pelf. 'Tis equal division of work, we're demanding. And laws which compel every eater to sweat; 'Tis justice we'd force on your dull understanding Who think that the shirkers may hold us in debt — Who think the monopolists, grafters and shirkers May hold us, the workers, forever in debt. 54 The People's Hour. EASY LESSONS. Do you know why the markets are glutted and dull, And the hands of the workers, which ought to be full, Are lacking in power to obtain ? It's partly because what we make is controlled By wealthy employers — they gather and hold The goods, and a part of equivalent gold They keep, as legitimate gain. "Net profits," they call it, and so it is, too ; Net losses from many enriching the few. A growing advantage, a limitless power It gives, till the masses in slavery cower, And struggle in want and in pain. Do you know why the workers must live by their sweat, While others, no better, hold millions in debt. And never do aught but consume ? They craftily bought up our birthrights to land ; So live on the wealth that they take from our hand ; Their children forever are bom to command, And ours, to pay rental for room. Men fence up the earth they're too lazy to use ; And keys to the kingdom of God they refuse To famishing legions, who ask but to toil ; — The greater the number shut out from the soil. The higher its prices will boom. Did you never, in thinking, consider that all Are affected by losses they suffer to fall 55 The People's Hour. On those who are beaten in trade? First, men who are filling the markets will find, Injustice permitted reacts on their kind; Depression will follow low wages, and bind The strong where the weakest were laid. With wages or prices of products forced lower Than equity's line, a few will have more ; But many in need have no money in hand ; So labor is injured by loss of demand, Which spreads through the circle of trade. But he who does nothing, or nothing but plan To gain what the workers have made, is the man Whose loss is the greatest of all. He loses himself, and the love of his kind ; He sinks to the level of brutes, and is blind To the beastly reflection that's seen of his mind, A likeness to robber and thrall. Though one should win titles to have and to hold The whole of the earth, or its value in gold. The joy of creation exceeds it in worth; In honest wealth-wa^m^ true joy has its birth, And the workers stand God-like and tall. 56 The People's Hour. A VANDERBILT POODLE. Vm. a Vanderbilt pet poodle — hear me? Just a dog, like all the other dogs, Barking at the public who come near me; But observe my *"togs"! Yes, it took an easy thousand dollar Railroad dividend to buy and place Round my neck this poodlecratic collar, Kingly in its grace. And I shine, I tell you, at the parties Of the princely pups that live in style ; Not a dog of all the high-nosed ''smarties" Dares to growl or smile. Mistress says some people sniff their noses, And object to dogs in such a dress. Envious wretches ! Who that's sane supposes Princes' pets need less? More than this, says William (that's my master) : ''Tell the workers, who pay all the freight, I am lord, and heed not their disaster, Since my wealth is great. Sweat, ye slaves of brutes, the wealth Fve taken And the legal rights I've gathered up. Build for us a throne that stands unshaken ; Serve me, serve my pup." *The rich spend small fortunes on the unnatural clothes and gold and gem set collars of their pet dogs. Poodle parties are also a plutocratic custom, at which the invited and assembled canines sit at the tables and are served with the choicest viands. But how can we declaim against the lawful and generally pre- sumed absolute right of the rich to spend their incomes as they please, unless we perceive and insist that any and all incomes drawn from others' labor are fundamentally and grievously wrong? 57 The People's Hour. IF I WERE A VOICE. If I were a voice, an eloquent voice, I'd travel the wide world round, To tell in the marts of the trampled hearts, And the souls that greed has bound. I'd show to the strong the hideous wrong Of robbing the meek who moil ; I'd picture the homes where hunger comes. And the treadmill round of toil. The beautiful face, the terrible face Of Justice my words should show, Till evil would shrink o'er the shadowy brink. And be chained in the depths below. The wealth that now rolls in usury tolls I'd trace to its rightful hands ; And robber and shirk, who are lords of work, I would brand with indelible brands. The hopeless hells where poverty dwells. Supporting the rich at ease, I'd hold to the light — with another in sight That is patterned, perhaps, by these. The beautiful face, etc. 5S The People's Hour. THE LOVE OF COMRADES. The institution of the dear love of comrades. — Walt Whitman. Alone, unloved, we live, And heaviest burdens bear; For whether in strife we gain, or give. There is always want and care. We cannot with gold control. We cannot with things supply. The inmost need of soul for soul. The heart's deep hunger cry. O for the love of comrades, The dear, dear love of comrades ! For things, for power, we strain — As men who would grasp a crown — But all of our gain is loss and pain For those whom we trample down. And evil and loss return, With never a glad surcease, To those who spoil the hands of toil. And so their wealth increase. O for the love of comrades, The dear, dear love of comrades! Shall men be less than things, Arid ever the strife go on? The struggle for power results in kings ; But never a heart is won. 59 The People's Hour. The service of slaves — ah me ! 'Twere better by far to gain One single heart than rule the mart, And so, unloved to reign. O for the love of comrades, The dear, dear love of comrades ! As love is born of love, And spirit alone has worth. Whoever will love, like those above, Begins to redeem the earth. In giving is all of gain. In loving is all of good ; And hearts in pain, in strife and strain. Are crying, with tears and blood: O for the love of comrades. The dear, dear love of comrades ! Freedom of contract for the laborer without capital is merely freedom to die of hunger; for how can he live if he does not accept whatever conditions may be imposed upon him? Freedom to go when he likes, is another meaningless phrase ; for is not the working man who has a wife and children tied to the spot where he is settled? How can he seek employment elsewhere when he lacks the means of satisfying his first needs. Freedom of labor, what is it, except the competition of laborers reducing their wages to the lowest point? — Von Ketteler. Always one class has preyed upon another class. The strong, from the beginning, have stolen their bread ; and, what is worse, they have despised their bakers. They have dis- credited the natural facts of alimentation, and they have sponged upon the poor. What hope of wise, deliberate science, of joyous, perennial art and permanent civic glory in a world that is ashamed of its stomach, filches its food, and despises the souls of laborers? What hope of religion if you flout the central sacrament of the body of God.^ — Charles Ferguson. 60 The People's Hour. THE MAD, MAMMON-WORSHIPING WORLD. Strange! Strange! That a man feels good when he's beaten another And fastened himself on the back of a brother! Isn't it passing strange ? But isn't it so? With Jacob we bargain at Esau's cost ; We're pleased with profits the hired have lost ; As gods (turned devils) we call for rents ; As usurers, gloat over cent per cents ; Our riches, religion and culture we roll, A straining mass, on each body and soul Of the landless class. We double their toil. And feast as leeches on those who moil. And then — and then, we patronize workers, And proudly fellowship robbers and shirkers ! Strange ! But isn't it so ? God pity, with workers 'tis so ! For among all classes is eager desire To rank, and grade, and to climb up higher. Away from the grime and smell of the soil. Away from the need of physical toil. Away from the vulgar, serving masses And in with the ruling, cultured classes. The whiter one's hands and the less one labors, 61 The People's Hour. The more he is thought of by friends and neighbors. Even with workers 'tis so ! Hence, hard is the task Of those who insist that all are brothers And live by their faith, to emancipate others. The rich raise the cry of ''Dangerous teachers !" The middle class fly from radical preachers ; The proletaire, blinded, are pitiful creatures, With spirit and courage blurred out of their features ; And fear makes a desperate task. ^ Capital is said by a Quarterly Reviewer to fly turbulence and strife, and to be timid, which is very true; but this is very in- completely stating the question. Capital eschews no profit, or very small profits, just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum. With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent will insure its employment anywhere ; 20 per cent certain will produce eagerness ; 50 per cent, positive audacity ; 100 per cent will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent, and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely encourage both. Smuggling and the slave-trade have amply proved all that is here stated. — P. J. Dunning. The great beauty of capitalist production consists in this — that it not only constantly reproduces the wage-worker as wage- worker, but produces always, in proportion to the accumulation of capital, a relative surplus population of wage-workers. Thus the law of supply and demand of labor is kept in the right rut, the oscillation of wages is penned within limits satisfactory to capitalist exploitation, and, lastly, the social dependence of the laborer on the capitalist, that indispensable requisite, is secured; an unmistakable relation of dependence, which the smug political economist . . . can transmogrify into one of free contract between buyer and seller, between equally independent owners of commodities, the owner of the commodity capital and the owner of the commodity labor. — Marx. 62 The People's Hour. "THEIR ANNUAL BATH.'* "Chicago waifs were given their annual bath." — News item, Chicago daily. A myriad infant innocents, Chicago's sons and daughters, Are kept in crowded tenements Beside these boundless waters ; And once a year the pitiful. The generous few, collect them, The poorest of the city full. And bathe and disinfect them. Water for once to cover with — But, oh, the wealth it costs us ! Ere one but bright day is over with Sweet charity exhausts us. So back to rags and griminess. To dark and desperate places, To reeking, rotting sliminess. We drive the pale young faces. It's needful — don't you see it is ? — To crowd our weaker brothers ; It's man's will, and the Deity's (?), That some should sweat for others. The stronger grasp earth's properties, And sell the poor employment; So labor spreads monopolies. And loses earth's enjoyment. 63 The People's Hour. But these, the disinherited, Children of wage dependents, As much of earth have merited As richest lord's descendants. 'Twas strong and cunning knavery That robbed the landless masses, And sunk them deep in slavery Beneath the landlord classes. Midst death and hell, here under them, They hold the wretched millions. And, pressed by hunger, plunder them Of work whose worth is billions. Their greed devoid of malice is. Yet rolls a sea of anguish On those who build the palaces. And who in slums must languish. O^ x^ 99 The People's Hour. "THY KINGDOM COME." "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Let us sing of the kingdom to come, The kingdom of peace and good will, Where the folly of striving the selfish shall see And the suffering masses at last shall be free, With abundance the hungry to fill. It is coming — the law of the poor, A gospel of power for the weak; Production by system can gather a store That for all (who shall labor) is ample, and more, When the earth shall be shared by the meek. What is love, to a neighbor professed, When a gang who are stronger surrounds. If we leave them to rob him of profit and rest. Of the fruit of his labor, or find him distressed And heal not his festering wounds? As the sounding of brass seem the creeds While the practice is each for himself; The possession of love is disproven by deeds, And the evils of life, its temptations and needs, Grow out of the struggle for pelf. What is love that professes to care To save from a hades unseen, 100 The People's Hour. Yet watches the poorest forced down to despair, And millions with burdens that others should share, Yet stands not for justice between? It is unity only can save, Division and strife must destroy; For the strong in the struggle will always enslave, And the landless, o'erburdened, are dragged to the grave, While idlers and robbers enjoy. The people oppressed must unite, Must move like an army in line ; Then workingmen's ballots shall win in the fight. And our laws shall be changed to conform to the right, The law of the kingdom divine. They shall build, in the kingdom to come. And dwell in the houses they raise; They shall plant, and the earth shall be fruitful and bloom For the workers, and each, in his beautiful home. Shall dwell to the end of his days. Do you wonder that the fine arts are overfine or under- fine ; that their beauty is wistful ; that the literatures lapse and die, and the great scriptures of the world, given for joy, sound in our ears only of judgment; that history swirls in dizzy, bewildering cycles ; that science is full of panic and terror, and philosophy is only a v/an surmise? It is to be written on the sepulchers of the old cities : They took the bread of the poor, and they despised the souls of the laborers. — Charles Ferguson. 101 The People's Hour. THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. Hush a moment! Hear the sound Going up the world around ! — 'Tis the moaning And the groaning Of the host oppressors wound ; 'Tis the sighing And the crying Of a thousand millions bound! Mother Earth's great heart is throbbing While she hears her children sobbing, And the pitying heavens resound. Tyrants, hear it. Ay, and fear it. "Justice!" is the prayer they utter, "Judgment" is the word they mutter — And the Lord of sabaoth listens To the laboring millions bound. He who speaks in crashing thunder Yet shall break our bands asunder; Bickering flame and roaring torrent Yet shall sweep and roll thereunder. And the throne of God shall triumph Over all our foes abhorrent, Over all who bind and plunder. 102 The People*s Hour. Hear and heed the ancient warning, Ye who equal rights are scorning; Think not men can stand unshaken On the land their greed has taken. He who made the clouds and fountains, Smoothing plains and lifting mountains, Storing earth's exhaustless treasure, Storing each an equal measure, Still is Lord of all the ground And of those who fence it round — Judgment in his hand is found. Therefore fear divine displeasure. Justice comes! Injustice showing. Hatred of its power is growing. Justice tarrying, to be tested. Rises as the floods, white-crested. Once in ages long before Did its winds and waters roar; Rumbling, muttering voices, grumbling, Jarred the depths and heights profound; Whirling winds and waters swirHng Swept away each ancient bound; Even the firmament seemed falling — Deep to deep was loudlv calling. As, with hopeless shrieks appalling. Hell enlarged its yawning wound. 103 The People's Hour. THE SONS OF GOD. Out of the world-stuff Love breathed on, joined in the darkness and fire, Out of the nebulous deep — as gods coming forth from the sea — Out of all matter and motion and wisdom come souls that aspire And that wrestle with Nature forever, divinely to know and to be. Perceiving the lines of ideals, and working with God in degree, We add to unfinished creation, we rise and assume its control. We conquer the fear of the finite, with spirits that never can tire, Pursuing the greater and better, we press toward the goal; We pass from self-centered division into the vast and the free. And the Infinite thrills us and fills us with boundless desire ! So from the cosmos we're coming, to compass and equal the whole And climb by the light of the stars to the heaven that is higher. To the fathomless being of Love, to the Soul of our soul, To the Father of spirits eternal, enthroned in the "cloud" and the "fire." 104 The People's Hour. GOD SAVE THE PEOPLE. "God save the king!" — so were the people taught, Till freedom had its birth, to sing alone. They lived, they died — they suffered, sweat and fought^ — To please a despot and advance a throne. But now we sing — God save the people, the common people, God save, God save the people. "Call no man lord, for ye are brethren all" — This word of truth dethrones all earthly kings ; And so we stand erect where slaves would fall. We bow alone to Him who freedom brings. And loudly sing — God save the people, the common people, God save, God save the people! The feudal barons built on heights of power Their castles, ruHng all the country 'round ; The lordly classes now, by deed and dower, The working poor throughout the land have bound. But now we cry — God save the people, the common people, Unite and save the people! 105 The People's Hour. THE SOCIAL ECONOMY OF DEUTERONOMY. O God, the unchangeable God and just, Is wealth obtained by the power of lust. By selfish struggle and grasp of trust. By corporate greed that says "You must" — Is war (the system of wealth discussed) The way of divine economy? Is usury now, as of old, accursed, And monopoly loathed by thee, as at first? Or is wrong made right, and good reversed. Since the time of Deuteronomy? If God be God, the selfish are fools, Who practice and preach and teach in the schools The science of greed, with its grab-all rules, Monopoly titles and grasp of tools. And cost and profit of men and mules — The system of legalized knavery. For men must worry and women must weep. And hunger must hound and cold must creep, While usury gathers a limitless heap. And labor is lost in slavery. The law to Adam and all his race — A rational law and a law of grace — Is this : that each in the sweat of his face Shall eat his bread. And we all can trace The outline here of a changeless base On which must be built society. But if land is sold for ever, to keep, Then labor must beg to be purchased cheap. And men must struggle and women must weep. And our lives must be filled with anxiety. 106 The People's Hour. A RICH MAN'S THOUGHTS. I have followed the rule of each for himself, And have won me place, and power, and pelf. I was keen in trade, getting more for less ; I took advantage of men's distress. The power machines for myself alone I bought, and upon them reared my throne. Coal and lightning and steel and steam — And slaves — have builded for me my dream. I hired the hungry at wages low, And they sweat to make my fortune grow. Foreseeing in cities immense demand. Where railroads center, I bought the land. Its rents keep rising and rolling in; So never an heir of mine need spin. I have won us a kingdom on land and sea, And my vassals wait for a nod from me. As tribute comes in I invest, and invest; And my business agents do all the rest. My titles are clear, and the law is strong; What's mine is mine — and the world lasts long. I have power — but, somehow, it isn't enough, For I feel alone in the midst of my stuff. Comradeship, fellowship, intimate friends, Were lost in pursuing my business ends. Even in my home it is hard to prove That a single act is an act of love. 107 The People's Hour. THE ALARM BEAT. United we stand ! Do you hear it, Ye workers who struggle alone? In union is strength — and they fear it Who reign on monopoly's throne. When workers united demand it, Defining and voting for right, No power upon earth can withstand it. No law of the tyrants we fight. Unite, then, unite ! O workers with ballots, unite! Divided, we're sweating for others, — They buy us for less than we're worth ; They mock at the claim that we're brothers Their equals, in right, to the earth; But we who are sold may be rulers — As Joseph, in Pharaoh's sight — And want be removed from the workers, Each having his own, as is right, Unite, then, unite ! O workers with ballots, unite ! We've voted for tricksters who ride us. The tools of the rich and the strong; And if they in future divide us 'Twill fasten the shackles of wrong. If bosses can Wind us and lead us In opposite armies to fight. Such party division will bleed us, And right will be mastered by might. Unite, then, unite ! O WORKERS WITH BALLOTS, UNITE. 108 The People's Hour. THE WRITING ON THE WALL. "At the feast of Belshazzar and a thousand of his lords, While they drank from golden vessels, as the Book of Truth records. In the night as they reveled in the royal palace hall, They were seized with consternation — 'twas the hand upon the wall. " 'Tis the hand of God on the wall, 'tis the hand of God on the wall ! In the scale of justice measured the record reads, 'Found wanting' — And the hand keeps writing on the wall! "See the brave captive, Daniel, as he stood before the throng And rebuked the haughty monarch for his mighty deeds of wrong! He interpreted the writing as the doom of one and all; For the kingdom then was finished, said the hand upon the wall." " 'Tis the hand," etc. In the last days of Louis, see the merry king of France, While the common people perish, with his lords and ladies dance. 109 The People's Hour. They despised those who labored, and attending rout and ball Only laughed at the warning of the shadow on the wall. "Tis the hand," etc. 'Tis the last feast of Mammon, and a myriad millionaires Whom the workers have created coldly turn from Labor's prayers. But the end that approaches sends a shudder through them all, For they see a hand above them and their record on the wall. " 'Tis the hand," etc. We cannot be separated from the rest. In spite of tariffs, the illimitable seas and all the old ethnic jealousies and exclusions, the world has all things common. Whatever happens to one man, happens to everybody. You cannot take your tea and be careless of the coolies. You would have to settle with them anyhow in a thousand years. You must settle a great deal sooner now, considering the regularity of the mails and the facilities of circulation. There is no social question anywhere that is not in the United States. There is no sort of tyranny, profligacy, or hard- ness of heart in any other country that is not here. The great contradiction of the age is wrought out here as it is in Europe. Here, as there, the old order, the regime of pride and privileges, is still lofty-looking, however desperately stricken with years and however fearsomely arrayed against the invincible stand- ards of democracy. — Charles Ferguson. What ought to be done can be done and if no one else is ready you are the one to do it. — Mary Lyon. 110 The People's Hour. PARADISE REGAINED. (Inscribed to Milton, Millet and Markham.) Escaped at last Ixion's burning wheels Of custom, pride and covetous desire; From round of social shams, and friendship's husks; From loveless pleasure and from idle power ; From care of worthless wealth and all its cost; From soul-imprisoning, heart-dividing things ; — Escaped alike from surfeit and from need; From bread unearned, and sweat unrecompensed ; From treadmill round and poisonous dust and din Of factory; from swarming sweaters' dens. And long, exhausting hours of changeless toil; Escaped from fear of want and all its strain, From loads of masters and the lords of land — We stand erect and free with God once more. Where men are free, where gardens grow, God walks- As once He walked in Eden — whispering love Through every planted seed and fruit and flower; In clouds and sunlight, frost and fire. He loves. He made the earth for all, and through it pours Himself, His life and spirit, to make us gods. Our Father works, and work lifts man to stand Beside the Deity and share creation's joy. 'Tis toil that brings us to the heart of things, And opens wide the treasure-house divine. And builds in man "the music and the dream." Ill The People's Hour. All food, all thought, all things that nourish life Grow upward from the clod, where Love lies hid. What! Seize, or buy and claim in fee God's breasts, God's rounded hemispheres of every good. And hold them back from hungered, orphaned ones, Dictating use per cents from all who toil, Whom force and craft have disinherited — So draining workers of wealth and spirit and life, The price of lordship being want and wretchedness? Dear earth, dear heart of God, exhaustless streams Of tender love flow through thy vast, fair bosom! Thou art the Infinite Mother of us all. Thou are the uncurtained temple of mankind, Containing neither Jev/ nor Gentile court, Whose only rite is labor, glad and free, Where all ahke should serve in joy, and feast With ever widening fellowship and power. Great source of good — the land — no more may lords And priests and judges range themselves between To shut us out from Love's sweet fount of life. And tribute charge for each approach to God. The land is holy, and shall not be sold And held in fee by mammon's worshiping class. The land is holy — sink the fact in mind ; 'Tis man, not God, who fences 'round the earth. And holds his fellows back from Paradise. As heaven is, so is earth, of heaven a part, A star among the stars all wonderful, A star at hand, to study deeply and long, 112 The People's Homy. A gate of heaven thrown open wide for all! Oh, wait not! Walk on earth the hills of Love, And plant the vales, and join the birds at dawn. And watch the growing light in answering eyes. Heaven reaches, maybe, far beyond the stars — But seek it not across the nights of space. Free work is blessed with love, with fellowship. With joy divine in what our hands create Through partnership with God. And goods unpriced— Which freely measure out God's love and ours, God's life and ours — yield sacramental joy. They only live who love, and therefore work. By work comes individual health. And social harmony, and growing power To shape the mold of matter and draw forth The world-ideal of God for God-like men. This common hoe, with blade of burnished steel, This polished shaft, in strong and loving hands. Calls forth the latent life in seed and clod. Conducts Creation's further thought and plan. And makes the fairest dream of beauty live. It gathers life for life, associates lives. Connects the soul with other growing souls. Suggests machines that serve with tireless strength. And proves the means of fellowship and power By which to reign with God amidst the stars. Out of democracy shall come poets, saints, artists, world- lovers of an unprecedented kind. How do we know? They will come because it is necessar3^ — Charles Ferguson. 113 The People's Hour. THE GET TOGETHER GOSPEL. There is nothing here so wrong that it cannot be righted. Cheer up, brothers, come along! Nothing's lost, nothing's wasted, nothing's lastingly blighted — Act together and be strong. Solidarity shall save us from Want's wide, weltering evils ; Sympathy, the masses leaven ; Ranked together, we shall vanquish Greed's whole gang of devils. And from very hell make heaven. See ! the sun, by earth's turning, breaks forth each glori- ous morning, And the clouds drop softening rain. We can make the whole earth Eden-like in its adorning; We can banish want and pain. We can share and share alike in all earth's stores, God- given ; Capital we too can share ; Then machines, our own machines, by tireless forces driven, Freely, loads for all will bear. 114 The People's Hour. There is music yet undreamed of ready for rendition, There is art for all who work. No more hovels, no more cheap things, nevermore sub- mission To the income-taking shirk. Calling man, mere man, our master is not Christian meekness ; It's the clanking of a chain. Brothers, we have naught to lose in union but our weakness, And we've all the world to gain. ^ Not the most gifted man that ever lived, in the practice of any art or science, and paid at the highest rate that exceptional genius could demand from those who have worked for their money, could ever earn a milHon dollars. It is the landlords and the merchant princes, the railroad kings and the coal barons (the oppressors to whom you instinctively give the titles of tyrants) it is these that make but no man earns them. What artist, what physician, what scientist, what poet was ever a mil- lionaire? — William Dean Howells. 115 The People's Hour. WE MUST HAVE A BALLOT-BOX UNION. The workers all should organize and ask for higher pay; 'Tis grand to stand together in a bold and manly way; But something more is needed, for, do whatever we like, Employers, also organized, can break the strongest strike. The class in power will stay in power while working men divide And vote against each other — they who should vote side by side. The rich must be defended by the soldiery and laws Till the workers get together and vote for labor's cause. O workers, weary workers, who stand the rubs and knocks, The road that leads to freedom runs past the ballot box ! 'Tis the lesson pressed upon us, the wisdom of the hour — The ballot is our weapon, the ballot is our power. The transportation tyrants subtract enormous toll, They stand between producers and all rewards control; The gold monopolizers per cents from work demand. And billions drawn from labor enrich the lords of land. But all this legal plundering at Toil's behest should be Itself outlawed forever, that so we may be free. We all must vote together for sacred birthrights lost, For land and tools and commerce secured to us at cost. O workers, fellow workers, etc. 116 The People's Hour. SUNRISE ON THE HILLS. Long has been the night of weeping, Hopeless all the period past, Moral truth in man was sleeping, But his spirit wakes at last. Light eternal breaks in splendor, Light the pure in spirit fills. And through mists come voices tender From the sunrise on the hills. Through the clouds we glimpse the glory Of the sunrise on the hills, Sunrise on the hills, sunrise on the hills, Sunrise, sunrise, sunrise on the hills. Tell to all the sad and sighing, Joy has come, has come to reign ; Morn approaches, cease your crying. Ye who've labored long in pain ; Full deliverance day is bringing, Error flies with all its ills, And the earth breaks forth in singing, For 'tis sunrise on the hills. Through the clouds, etc. Slowly truth from truth evolving Fashions forth the form divine, 117 The People's Hour. And the clouds and mists dissolving Lets the light of justice shine. Slowly man, from error turning, Meets fraternal love that thrills. Meets the growing light that's burning In the sunrise on the hills. Through the clouds, etc. The growth of those corporations to which we give the name "trusts" has lessened the force of one stock argument against Socialism, and added a wholly new argument in its favor. The difficulty of managing colossal enterprises formerly stood in many minds as the chief consideration against nationalization of capital and industry. What man, or what body of men, can possibly be wise and skillful enough to handle such operations? They are now, in some instances, in process of handling them, and those who wish to change the present order tell us that all we have to do is to transfer the ownership of them to the state, and let them continue working as they do at present. We have found men wise enough to manage the trusts, and probably, in most cases, they are honest enough to do so in the interest of the stockholders. On the question of honesty the Socialist has the advantage in the argument, for he will tell us that with the private ownership of capital made impossible by law, the tempta- tion to dishonesty is removed. If the Socialistic state could be warranted free from "graft," this would constitute the largest single argument in its favor. As the difficulty of nationalizing production has been reduced, the need of it has been increased, for the trusts are becoming partial monopolies, able to raise prices, reduce wages, cheapen raw materials, and make themselves, if they shall go much farther in this line, altogether intolerable. Indeed, the single fact of the presence of private monopoly, and the lack of any obvious and sure plan of successfully dealing with it, has been enough to convert a multitude of intelligent men to the Socialistic view. — Prof. John Bates Clark in Atlantic Monthly. 118 The People's Hour. WHEN MEN ARE WISER. Vv^hen men are wiser, overwork and worry, The strain of life, the fear and care and hurry ; The social pressure, warping, twisting, tempting; Diseases foul, the flesh with pain pre-empting; Prenatal drafts and lawlessness, entailing For generations debts most hard at scaling — All the long list of human ills we know, With added wisdom we shall yet outgrow. When men are wiser, the machines that master The force connections, and create wealth faster Shall shorten hours for all the weary moilers And lighten labor for the host of toilers ; To all oppressed, their tireless strength and blessing Shall come at length — like hands of power caressing. In the near future steel and iron and steam And leaping lightning, God's great love shall seem. When men are wiser, man as man shall measure, And all shall work, and workers all have leisure; The strifes and wastes shall cease ; and art inspiring And science guiding, work shall not be tiring, But Godlike joy in all its wealth creations. And fellowship, through mutual ministrations. None now conceive how fair the earth shall be When man and God and man and man agree. 119 The People's Hour. A PART OF HEAVEN. Know you the earth is heaven, A star with stars of even, That rhythmic, glorious throng Which swell Creation's song? Search not the depths, nor yet the- heights above. And wait not for a future World of Love. The Heart of all the spheres Is close to earthly tears, Close to the lonely life. The spirit worn with strife; Fear not to fall where, centered, thou canst rest; Rejoice in all, and be supremely blest. Exclusiveness is death; Inclusiveness, the breath. The life, the joy of heaven, The lasting good that's given, The good that grows, and fills each growing soul With all in depths and heights — the boundless whole. Give as God's sons must give — Service of love — and live To finish the fair ideal, The plan of the perfect real. Together we here must rear the crystal walls Of the City of Truth, whose vision from heaven falls. 120 The People's Hour. O wonderful world to be, Building by men left free, With socially limitless dower Merging and mastering power ! Fairer it shall be than dreams of the beauty above, With strife and poverty ended by union, by love. The fourth commandment is two commandments, one nega- tive and the other positive. Usually we think of it only in its negative part: "On the seventh day thou shalt do no work," But the positive half needs to be emphasized. "Six days shalt thou labor." The fourth commandment forbids work on the Sab- bath., It commands work on all the other days. The people who work only two or three days a week or who do not work at all are violating the fourth commandment just as surely as the people who work on Sunday. — /. R. Miller. Kingdoms rise and crumble, institutions appear and perish, fortunes take form and fade. Let us not wonder, for at the heart of them all is selfishness — the worm of death. Upon the ephemeral Is, presses the eternal Ought. Behind this Ought presses the shoulder of God; and under that pressure all things change, all things rise and fall — fall Only to re-arise in a restless reaching for the Ideal. Only the Ideal endures. What ought to be will be — this is my faith. — Edwin Markham. They confined their sermons on Sunday to the decorous wish-wash in which average men treated in a harmless way sub- jects to which the people were indifferent. — Edward Everett Hale. It is at our own will whether we see in the despised stream the refuse of the street, or, looking deep enough, the image of the sky. — Ruskin. Life is no idle dream, but a solemn reality based on and en- compassed by eternity. Find out your work and stand by it. — Carlyle. 121 The People's Hour. FAITH'S SERVICE. For those whose heart-cries meet with stern denial, The enslaved, the bruised, the suffering mass beneath To whom "good news of good" seems wasted breath, And ''kingdom come" a mockery of trial ; For freedom's soldiers who must fight and perish This side the land where ''milk and honey" flows, At most but glimpsing what for others grows, And sinking down, at last, with none to cherish — What is the good if Hfe be unconnected, From naught beginning and to naught returned — The dust to dust, the breath where breath is burned — With "endless life" a dream to be corrected? Is life worth living? Yes, if deemed immortal; For, so believing, we have poise and power, We grasp the good in every changing hour And tread in triumph here Life's starlit portal. Is pain worth bearing? Yes, for life's full rounding. For births, and social sense and sympathies That give great joy to power, pain welcome is. All social pain must end in joy abounding. Is death worth dying? Yes, if so the spirit. Unclothed and clothed upon, can cleave the sky. And swifter than the swiftest light waves fly To visit worlds the sons of God inherit. 122 The People's Hour. PROGRESSION. There is a harmony heard by listening men, The voice of All, divinely leading higher The willing, yielding, yearning soul ; and when Transfigured peaks are passed we still aspire, Still look beyond and long for Deathless Love. Each life is infinite in its desire; And as the lark that, singing, soars above, We rise from earth to heaven and never tire, — We lift our longing eyes where glows the Central Fire. "All things are yours" : — The broad horizon grows, And as it grows each truth more clearly shines; Each fact revealed reflects new light and shows Truth within truth, the fairer hidden lines Of wisdom flashing forth, and Love's designs ; And so Love grows more lovely, truth more dear. As length and breadth more clearly each defines. And richer joys flow in from Love's enlarging lines. Progression toward the infinite is ours. An endless life, and growing more intense, More multiplex, more wondrous in its powers. More delicate and deep in every sense. Holding the past with growing grasp immense. The child, the man, the sage, the angel rise ; And each beyond where now archangel towers, 123 The People's How. Forgetting naught, shall pass, with all surprise, Through endless heights of power in Love's unfolding skies ! The sounds of earth our grosser ears can hear, From thunder's depth to highest trill of bird. Subdue the ravished soul; yet scales as clear In finer, perfect concord shall be heard. All power is pitched and vibrant, far and near Strung tense ; all actions, keyed, in chords sweep on ; Above — ^below — they reach the spirit's ear, Vibrations slow, and swiftest light-waves stirred — The separate music of each circling sphere. And all the stars, we yet shall hear in song, While sons of God in joy creation's praise prolong! All forms of life, all crystals flashing light, All things the senses grasp and mind can know, All rolling spheres that, gem the brow of Night From three or four score kinds of atoms grow ; And if with these variety as seen — Dream, blessed souls, of worlds whose kinds shall show No limit and combine in forms between Simple and most complex, in every varying mean ! God's life of love in social current runs From heart to heart in ever-widening sweep Of numbers and of fellowship ; as sons. As brothers serving, none, alone, need weep. Even the last dread enemy unites Past, present, future in the worlds that keep 124 The People's Hour. Wide open portals; for adown the heights Come angel messengers for those who sleep, And bear them upward, homeward, past the darkened steep. Progression ! Hope of every growing mind, From child to eldest angel lifted high! The thought that thrills, the courage of the blind, The growing light which charms the opening eye ! (We lose the hope, and straightway wish to die.) O blest immortals, sons of God, ye are, Born to inherit all of earth and sky. With perfect, finer spheres that rise afar, Beyond the present range of highest rolling star! There is no infinity in just dying; but to see a man that is willing to die for love, that goes to meet death in the way, that makes a boast of pain, and, with perfect sweetness and sanity, celebrates defeat — that is to be witness of the palpable infinite. It is like an arrow passing swiftly up into the air and not returning; like the still energy of planets or the re- sistless growing of the grass, or like the haunting, thrilling murmur of remembered music that faded down the avenue as the soldiers went to war. You are left endlessly expectant; you cannot come to an end, but must follow that which is beyond, and still beyond. — Charles Ferguson. What but the greatest things can come of the nation that has conceived the idea of the sacredness of labor, and that has sincerely expected prophets from the back-country, and salva- tion out of Nazareth 1 This inspiration is not of the old order of things, nor by any means to be conciliated therewith. It is a blast of destruction for the old order, and a breath of crea- tion for the new. — Charles Ferguson. Life and religion are one thing or neither is anything. — George Macdonald. 125 The People's Hour. HEAVEN. Since Science needs a central source of motion, And so of beauty, wisdom, spirit, mind, There is a Heart that claims the heart's devotion, There is a Friend whose plans are wise and kind. On northern heights — as told in olden story — Around the Throne, the axis of the skies, Jerusalem, the golden goal of glory, Creation's great metropolis, doth rise ! It crowns a vaster central world supernal That swings the universe with steadfast power, A sphere translucent in the Light Eternal, And Love's full heart throbs through it hour by hour. Surpassing dreams of grandeur, richness, splendor, Of beauty's tints and forms and music's swell, And aethers fine and sensories most tender — Must be the place where perfect spirits dwell. A morning land of flowers — its changeful breezes Have filled the air with every sweet perfume ; And near and far the wondrous prospect pleases, A grand mosaic work of tint and bloom ! The blessed wake where glory makes its dwelling, A City vast through shifting clouds is seen ; 126 The People's Hour. And answering choirs, from outmost heights, are swelling The notes of song, which linger long between! Yet this would tire. Since something more than singing And Sabbath rest unending souls require. Let science last, its endless problems bringing; Let love work out its limitless desire. There is no finished heaven. Beauty is growing-^ Within, without through finite minds and strength; City and country there, as here, are showing Perpetual change throughout their breadth and length. Twere well to escape from drudgery distasteful, From wearying tasks, o'ertaxing strength and skill; But mastering power, with energy unwasteful, Creative art in heaven shall bless us still. Where work is art, there work is "joy forever" — And growing dreams and schemes need boundless room ; The far-hid stars the abyss would seem to sever, Even here by art from outer darkness come. As man has mastered earthly space and forces, So, and much more, the heavenly he shall bind, Till galaxies on galaxies in sweeping courses Transfer his thoughts and bow before his mind. The heaven of heavens must be the social center Where all the minds of all the ages meet; And worlds beneath, whose teeming millions enter, May each be made a fair suburban seat. 127 The People's Hour. And heaven flung out shall yet include creation In all its depth and height and widening range; Its central sphere and farthest constellation, For social ends, our work shall change and change. And on, and on, forever and forever. Before the Throne, or at creation's marge Watching the awful forces bind and sever, Our sense of Power and Wisdom shall enlarge. But oh, to think of truth for aye unfolding. Of reason's widening range and memory's sweep, The past and present full and clear beholding. And outward spaces answering, deep on deep ! Love wills, Love fills the far, concentric measures. Attraction's lamps, which light the shoreless vast. Pendant and polar, lead to endless pleasures, And over which no shades of night are cast. By mighty angels borne, aforetime mortals Through centering, star-strewn highways yet shall rise, And, strengthened, pass the pearl-like shaded portals Of that all-wondrous City of the skies. And oh, my heart, thy longed-for Home is yonder; Nor empty will it be, nor strange will seem ; Its group is growing, and they watch and wonder If each approaching pilgrim comes to them! A shimmering tide rolls past palatial mansions; A crystal structure near of plan divine; 128 The People's Hour. A garden fair of Eden-like expansions; An open door and golden threshold shine; A smiling face enframed, a form of brightness, Substantial, and athrill with tireless powers. Arrayed in robes of soft and silvery whiteness — Fair, and more fair, through life's unfolding hours ! From heart to heart our earth-life love was flowing, When death removed thee — soon to memory lost; Yet still the fountain grew, and in its growing Piled up a stream like that where Israel crossed. Sweet mother, mine — ^bright, promised place of meet- ing— My filial thoughts and fancies center there. And all the love of years will flow in greeting When reunited in that world so fair! A long embrace, and tenderest kisses falling, My dearest angel, on thy starry brow ; A long-lost voice in sweetest tones recalling The baby boy that man-like meets thee now! And then — O heaven! — with infinite, passionate yearn- ing, In view of depths beneath and heights above. The soul its Source shall seek, and, throneward turning. Itself behold the thorn-marked face of Love ! Note. — The celebrated mathematician and astronomer M. Lambert, in his "Letters on Cosmogony," suggests that all the stars in the universe are bound together in systems ; that all the 129 The People's Hour. systems are in motion ; that the individual stars or suns of each system move round a common center of gravity, which may possibly be a large opaque globe ; and that all the systems of the universe, as one related system, revolve around some grand center, common to the whole. "All those systems of worlds," says the astronomer, "resemble, but in different scale, the solar system, inasmuch as in each the stars of which it is composed revolve round a common center, in the same manner as the planets and comets revolve round the sun. It is even probable that several individual systems concur in forming more general systems, and so on. Such, for example, as are comprehended in the Milky Way, will make component parts of a more en- larged system; and this way will belong to other milky ways, with which it will constitute a whole. If these last are invisible to us, it is by reason of their immense distance. It would not be at all astonishing, if milky ways, situated still farther from us in the depths of the heavens, should make no impression on the eye whatever." Again M. Lambert says : "The sum of the milky ways, taken together, have their common center of revolu- tion ; but how far soever we may thus extend the scale we must necessarily stop at last; and where? At the center of centers, at the center of creation, which I should be inclined to term the capital of the universe, inasmuch as thence originates mo- tion of every kind, and there stands the great wheel in which all the rest have their indentation. From thence the laws are issued which govern and uphold the universe, or, rather, there they resolve themselves into one law of all others the most sim- ple. But who would be competent to measure the space and time which all the globes, all the worlds, all the worlds of worlds, employ in revolving round that immense body — the Throne of Nature and the Footstool of the Divinity! What painter, what poet, what imagination is sufficiently exalted to describe the beauty, the magnificence, the grandeur of this source of all that is beautiful, great, magnificent, and from which order and harmony flow in eternal streams through the whole bounds of the universe !" After ISO years of marvelous advance in scientific knowledge, since the above was suggested by the famous Frenchman, all scientists are in agreement concerning the universality of gravi- tation, and not one known fact fails to accord with the concep- tion of a "center of centers" giving motion and law to all. G. H. G. 130 The People's Hour. TOGETHER. As midnight turned toward Christmas morn- So runs the ancient story — Across the night that Christ was born Heaven opened forth its glory. Its host of angels sang of peace, Good will to all who labor, A coming time when strife should cease And each should love his neighbor. Oh, slowly, slowly men have learned To feel for one another, And common interests discerned To make of each a brother. But now fraternal circles grow, And stronger grows the tether; We feel the man, a man we know, And so we stand together. Oppression, still intrenched and strong, Would yoke our necks, as cattle; But organized we face the wrong, And man for man shall battle. Not czar nor emperor nor trust, Their utmost forces wielding. Can crush the mass-man in the dust, Or make his spirit yielding. 131 The People's Hour. Ho, comrades, men, believe again That all the earth inherit. Let's join our hands in loyal bands And claim the part we merit. O workers, workers everywhere, Come on, let's stand together; Let's put an end to want and care. Let's mass for stormy weather! Together — clouds of war shall clear, And strife at last be ended ; Together — good is here, is here. Through brotherhood extended. "Together" is the gospel true Of power and peace and healing; "Together" is the kingdom due, A world of joy revealing. This shall be the land of change, flux, progress ; every- thing must flow. We will have nothing fixed and settled, since nothing in nature is fixed and settled — not the ribs of the earth nor the anatomy of a man. We take everything to be plastic, and we do not think that any beautiful thing is im- possible. We expect the miraculous according to the ordinary run. — Charles Ferguson. Democracy, regarded as a balloting contrivance for equat- ing the hoof and claw of warring private interests, is an in- genious futility. Let it pass now to its place in the museums of antiquities along with the devices for the solution of im- possible mechanical problems, like that of perpetual motion. — Charles Ferguson. You knock a man into the ditch and then you tell him to re- main content -in the position in which Providence has placed him. — John Ruskin. 132 The People's Hour. ADDENDUM MONOPOLY VERSUS THE PEOPLE. Our best American manhood is coming to despise the soiled plume of modern success. It is coming to be not content to have while its brothers have not. It is coming to see that it is just as cruel, just as immoral, to knock a man down with one's intellect as to knock him down with one's fist. A new manhood is coming to birth that is too noble to live in idleness while little children anywhere are turning the wheels of the world. The so-called successful persons have got the world's civili- zation into a tangle resembling a deadlock and have neither the intelligence nor philosophic insight with which to solve the prob- lems confronting them. The shoe manufacturing industry of this country with the help of the present modern machinery can now make in six months all the shoes the ''market" under the present system can absorb. Six months' work per year at a wage determined by one hungry man bidding against other hungry men will not keep the shoemakers and their families in comfort. What's to be done? Are the shoemakers to go barefoot be- cause they've produced too many shoes? Are the mill hands to go naked because they've produced too much clothing? Are the bakers to go hungry because they've produced too much bread? Here are men able and willing to work, who cannot earn enough money to buy back the things which their own hands have produced! What has modern capitalism to say to this? Nothing! What is its responsibility? Everything! It has congress, the state legislatures, the courts. Its political servants whine for the votes of the workingmen; but the work- ers are not represented. The workers scarcely know there is a 133 The People's Hour. law until it lays its heavy hand upon them when they attempt by collective bargaining to better their condition. But the workers are learning at the rate of about 100,0(X) votes per year that they can build their own political party, and finance it, and control it. The day is coming when the workers will be well enough organized to say to the minority class which owns the instruments of production and distribution : ''Gentlemen, we now ask you to operate industry so that things will be produced for use instead of for profit; so that where there is enough to spare for all, no one need go starved and naked. If you cannot find a way to abolish involuntary poverty; if with every facility for making a sane and reasonable world you show your incapacity to do it; then, as we outnumber you 20 to 1, and have the ballot, and can make laws with that ballot, we will condemn and take over your plants and operate them for the public good." That, gentlemen, is Socialism. Is it anything to be afraid of? No, not by men; only by those creatures so poor in spirit that they hope to carry off^, sooner or later, from under the pres- ent system what never could belong to them rightfully and which, they think, could not accrue to them under conditions of equality of opportunity. If Socialism will not mend these fearful conditions, then what will? We offer you our plan. You do not like it? Then what is your plan? For a plan must be devised and devised quickly. Those men who hope from fortune and favor more than from industry and desert must find a subtler method of extracting their living from the producing classes than by the private ownership of the material resources of life. They must not only find this subtler method, but they must justify it before men who have as keen brains as they have. Do not believe that the Socialist movement is only the economic revolt of the working class. It is the mightiest moral revolt the world has ever seen. It is the world-wide cry of out- raged humanity; and men and women from every walk of life are coming to see that the working class, in refusing longer to countenance an outworn and conscienceless economic system, are to be the saviors of mankind. The most profound writers and thinkers of the world today are Socialists. The whole trend of economic development is 134 The People's Hour. toward Socialism. Can unimaginative and shallow-witted per- sons whose idea of progress and prosperity is the accumulation of other people's property — can such as these cope with a move- ment based upon the physical strength of the working class shot through with the light of the keenest intelligence of the race? — Franklin H. W entworth in debate before the Economic Club at SpringHeldj Mass. THE BASIS OF THE STRUGGLE. If we of America seem plunged into a period of unrest and battle and strife, when we should all so much rather be at peace, enjoying fellowship with the many finely attuned na- tures now arrayed in some opposing camp, we may comfort ourselves with the thought that ours is the common lot, and that no people enjoys peace except at the expense of racial destruc- tion. Kever until the evils growing out of social maladjust- ments are cured can the nation be quiet and content. Not even in complete surrender of the strugglers for the weak to the might of the strong is there peace; for the people that have once caught the vision of a society redeemed, while they may fall to the depths devoted to lost and decadent peoples, can never feel the content of the slave, even, who is coming up through servitude from savagery. The children of Israel serving in Egypt surely had a subconscious pride which the outcasts and vassals bowing to Vespasian never could have possessed. The decadent people are always miserable, even after they have defi- nitely accepted degradation as their all in all. And here is the basis of the struggle in America : There are those, high in power and strong in intellect, many of them, who do not believe that the evils we suffer come from social malad- justments. They think the poor man, or the criminal, or the ig- norant, or the weak, the architect of his own fortune. They can thread the slum or inspect the tenement with a sincere belief that these people are so situated by reason of inevitable evils, or of their own fault or failure, and not because of misdirected so- cial forces which are capable of correction by an aroused de- mocracy. They regard the industrial situation in America as, on the whole, about what it should be. They look upon the huge 135 The People's Hour. accumulations of capital and huger accumulations of power which we call the trusts, as agencies of men who rule because, on the whole they are best fitted for the rulership. They may not be religious men, but they fervently believe that the obscure and indigent should follow the text of the ritual which bids us to be content in that sphere to which Providence has called us, and they regard as a Divine recognition of an immutable condition the passage which said of Judea of old, "The poor ye have always with you." Such men and such statesmen do not exactly believe that whatever is, is right, but they believe fully in the game as it is played, in the huge percentage that gives to the "house," the sys- tem of chances that divides the wealth of the nation into two piles, one of which is the spoil of the very few who get it in im- mense lots, and the other the pittances of the very many who get it in pitifully small portions. They believe that the game should be played "on the square" but that any other game than this prince-making, pauper-creating game of monopoly and exploita- tion is possible they do not for a moment believe. And like all members of the gambling fraternity, they are apt to be fine, hearty, open-hearted, companionable good fellows. It is a pity that we cannot be friends with them. It is certainly our loss. But there are some of us who cannot be friends with them. There is another plane of thought into which some have entered. It holds up a vision of a society redeemed by true democracy. It believes in a time when monopoly shall be no more, and labor and capital, no longer at war, shall cooperate to the wiping out of involuntary and undeserved poverty in an era of industrial equality and social peace. Believers in this may not be very religious, either, but they thrill to the divine democracy of the Golden Rule and the Sermon on the Mount. They believe in the changing of the rules of the game. They seek to eliminate the percentage that goes to the nonproductive "house" and to make production a sure thing for all, open to all hands on equal terms, wherein wealth shall go to the producers in proportions fixed by their individual contributions to production. In short, these have the vision of a society redeemed by the institutional appli- cation of the principles of Jesus, of Jefferson, of Lincoln. So believing, they cannot lay down their arms, no matter who takes 136 The People's Hour. the field against them. The other side may be overwhelming in numbers and position, but to the man filled with this ideal, this makes no difference. "As for me and my house" says he, "we will serve the Lord." — Senator La Follette, in La Follette's, July 31, 1909. Equality of political rights leads inevitably to the demand for equality of conditions, that is to say, the apportionment of well- being according to work accomplished. Universal sufifrage de- mands as its complement universal well-being; for it is a para- dox that the people should be at once wretched and sovereign. A.S Aristotle and Montesquieu so continually insist, democratic institutions presuppose equality of conditions, for otherwise the poor elector will use his vote to pass laws for the increase of his share of the good things of life at the expense of the privileged classes. — Laveleye. If the spark of religious and civil liberty be kindled, it will burn. Human agency cannot extinguish it. Like the earth's central fire, it may be smothered for a time, the ocean may over- whelm it, mountains may press it down, but its inherent and un- conquerable force will heave both the ocean and the land, and at some time or other, in some place or other, the volcano will break out and flame up to heaven. — Daniel Webster, at dedica- tion of Bunker Hill Monument. Democracy is greater than any nation ; it may be balked, delayed, defeated ; but it is unconquerable. The very life of the modern world is in it, and though today only the children should understand its secret it would certainly prevail. — Charles Fergu- son. Two things fill my spirit with ever fresh and increasing wonder and awe, the oftener and the more steadfastly my thoughts occupy themselves therewith — the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. . . . The first begins from the place which I occupy in the world of space, and extends the connection in which I stand, to invisible space beyond the eye of man, with worlds on worlds, systems on systems, to their periodical movements in endless time, their beginning and con- tinuance. The second begins with my unseen self, my person- ality, and places me in a world which has true eternity, but which is perceptible only to the understanding, and with which I am conscious of being, not as in the former case, in accidental, but in universal and indispensable connection. — Kant. 137 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111 SEP 301909