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“T read everything from the pen of Josiah Allen’s Wife just assoon as I can getit.
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THE
VOICE OF LABOR
;
4
CONTAINING
Special Contributions by Leading Workingmen throughout the
United States, with Opinions of Statesmen and Legis-
lators upon the Great Issues of the Day.
PLAIN TALK BY MEN OF INTELLECT
LABORS RIGHTS, WRONGS, REMEDIES
AND PROSPECTS.
_ HISTORY OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR, THEIR
AIMS, USEFULNESS, ETC.
_ The Political Future of the Workingman.
THE QUESTIONS OF LAND, LABOR, CAPITAL, TRANSPORTA-
TION, REFORM, PROGRESS AND SOCIAL CONDITION
OF THE WORKINGMAN THOROUGHLY
INVESTIGATED.
_MISTORY OF. THE FARMERS’ ALLIANCE.
REVISED AND ENLARGED.
By 8S. M. JELLEY. »
RIVE Keb
[LLusTRATED with Finn Portraits anp ENGRAVINGS. |
He ov & CO.
PHILADELPHIA. CHICAGO. KANSAS CITY,
SAN FRANCISCO.
1891.
Entered according to Actof Congress, in the year 1888, by
H. J. SMITH & CO. 3
In the Office cf the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
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PUBLISHERS’ PREFACE.
Cop. ohn
gr has been said that the literature of an age is
but the reflex of the times, and Tor Vorck,or LAsor
is not an exception. The labor movement has been
a great theme for both the people and the press
during the last few years, and in consequence there
has risen a demand for literature upon the subject.
The workingman of to-day seeks to understand
the economics which govern his financial condition,
yet beyond the speeches of the men at the head of
his organizations, the labor press and a few so-call-
ed labor books, the sources of knowledge in this
direction tending to his benefit, are comparatively
limited.
In order to present the various phases of the
great problem, as viewed by reformers, we have
secured from those prominently identified with the
labor movement, from statesmen, editors, writers
and workingmen, much of the material made use
of by the author.
A candid exposition of facts concerning the wel-
fare of the wealth-producing classes, and of the
methods by which they can remedy the wrongs that
prevent them from bettering their condition, cannot
prove to be other than a valuable source of benefit
373740
and instruction.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE, —
The readers who will best appreciate the contents |
of this book are those who are not biased by false
ideas, and those who have given social science and
the labor question some thought. [or an exhaust-
ive work upon each phase of the question the pages
of a score of volumes would be required, therefore, « |
I have dealt only with the greater causes and reme-
dies of the problem.
The request of the publishers for the opinions of
those interested in the labor movement met with
response of such a heterogeneous character, in
which so many diverse views were expressed, that
to determine on the best selection seemed well-nigh
a hopeless task.
Careful consideration; however, with the broad
principle of justice to all as a guide, enabled me to
choose such matter as will be approved by all un-
prejudiced minds. My aim has been to avoid the Xe
2 : i y o
propaganda of anarchists and communists, and to No
Prove ea:
AUTHOR’S PREFACE, ; 1]
present only the economics of trustworthy authors
and those who have the elevation and improvement
of the workingman sincerely at heart.
In the preparation of the following pages I am
especially indebted to many contributors, among
whom are:
Hon. Jesse Harprr, Danville, Ill.
Atrrep Taytor, Ed. Sznriner, Birmingham, Ala.
W. D. Vincent, Clay Center, Kan.
Pror. J. W. Gaur, Monmouth, Il.
J. R. Soverrien, Atlantic, Ia.
How. Witu1am Baker, Newark, O.
Joun Davis, Junction City, Kan.
Henry Scuaipt, Ed. Lonaconine Review, Md.
Cot. D. 8. Curtiss, Washington, D. C.
AusBert Owen, Boston, Mass., Author of InrEaRaL
Co-OPERATION.
J. J. Woopatt, Hartselle, Ala.
Hon. A. J. Streeter, New Windsor, Ill.
R. F. Rowerr, Orrington, Me.
Hon. Joun Serrz, Tiffin, O.
S. M. Barpwiy, Washington, D. C.
Hon. O. W. Barnarp, Manteno, Ill.
N. M. Lovin, Muskogee, Ind.
C. T. Parser, Douglasville, Ga.
G. W. Picitipro, Geneseo, II],
‘Dr. H J. Parxer, Clayton, Hl.
O. J. Surroy, Akron, O;
W. H. Ross, Creston, Ia,
ill AUTHOR’S PREFACE,
G. R. Wrirrams, Milan, Mich.
W.W. Jonzs, Camargo, Ill.
W. H. Davinson, Calera, Ala.
Cuaries Sears, Williamsburg, Kan.
Rh. C. McBratu, Bradsfordsville, Ky.
D. W. Smirn, Lewiston, Me.
N. B. Sracx, Birmingham, Ala.
JAMES Mircneti, Ed. Forr Wayne Dispatcn, Ind.
A. A. Beaton, Rockland, Me.
Davip Ross, Oglesby, IIL.
Hon. J. W. Breipentuat, Chetopa, Kan.
Hon. Henry Smirx, Milwaukee, Wis.
F, P. Sargeant, Terre Haute, Ind.
G. W. Jonnson, Ed. Apvancr, Fond du Lac, Wis.
And a number of others, whose valuable material
has been unavailable because of limited space.
S. M. J.
ay —
_—
(—
T. V. POWDERLY.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.—A GLANCE AT THE PAST. *
THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE WORKINGMAN IN ENG-
LISH HISTORY—-HIS POSITION-—PHYSICAL CONDITION
7 —THE ‘‘BLACK DEATH”’—-THE PEASANTS’ WAR IN
_ 1881—rnHE sTRUGGLES OF SERFDOM—THE WORKING-
Pas MAN IN AMERICAN COLONIES—-THE SPIRIT OF LIBER-
“
.
TY—PROGRESS OF LABOR AFTER THE REVOLUTIONARY
WAR—YEARS OF PEACE AND PLENTY—THE GREAT
REBELLION—-THE DEVELOPMENT OF MANUFACTURING
—TABLE OF WAGES FROM 1752 To 1886—rHE UP-
RISING OF THE FARMERS—-THE GRANGE—RAPID IN-
CREASE OF THE POWER OF CAPITAL—THE EVENTS OF
1886—LABOR A POWERFUL SOCIAL FACTOR......15
CHAPTER II.—LAND AND TAXES.
LAND MONOPOLY THE BANE OF THE WORLD—ITS EFFECT
. a)
IN THE PAST—EGYPT’S DOWNFALL—-GOLDEN BABYLON
CRUSHED BY LAND-OWNERS—THEY RUIN THE ROMAN
EMPIRE—IMPROPER MANAGEMENT OF OUR PUBLIC DO-
MAIN—VAST TRACTS OF VALUABLE LAND GIVEN TO
*
CORPORATIONS—-TWENTY MILLIONS OF ACRES HELD BY
‘CHAPTER UI.—THE GREAT QUESTION OF.
CONTENTS.
FOREIGNERS—POWDERLY ON BONANZA FARMS—HENRY
GEORGE’S THEORIES—HIS BOOK, ‘‘PROGRESS AND POY-
ERTY’—HIS POSITION DEFINED—-THE UTOPIAN IDEA
-OF CONFISCATION—-PROF. W. T. HARRIS ON GEOR-
GEISM—-GROUND RENT—STATISTICS—CAPITAL’S GRIP
AT THE THROAT OF LAND PROPERTY—TAX THE RICH
AS WELL AS THE POOR—-HOW JUST ASSESSMENTS MAY
BY MADE 2 cS gs. SUTRA Seb
MONEY AND LABOR.
THE PROBLEM WHICH ALL NATIONS ARE _ CONSID-
w
a
CHAPTER IV.
ERING——-WEALTH RIGHTFULLY BELONGS TO THE PRO-~
DUCER—ECONOMISTS AND THE PRECIOUS METALS—
CHARACTERISTICS OF MONEY——-MONETARY STANDARDS
OF DIFFERENT NATIONS——-THE GOLD STANDARD—THE
SILVER STANDARD—THE DOUBLE STANDARD—HIS-
TORY OF BANKING—RISE OF THE NATIONAL BANKS
—OPINIONS OF STATESMEN-—LABOR AND CAPITAL—
THE WAGE FUND PRINCIPLE—-PROFITS AND WAGES—
THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR—INFLATION OF CURRENCY
—HON. ALFRED TAYLOR’S REMARKS—DANIEL WEB-
STER ON LABOR——-MONEY THE GREAT HUMAN BLESS-__
ING——VOLUME OF MONEY—LINCOLN’S IDEAS—-HORACE
GREELY—-BURKE—THE NEW ISSUES OF TO-DAY. ..45
o
GOVERNMENT LOANS TO
THE PEOPLE.
MAN SHALL EARN HIS BREAD BY THE SWEAT OF HIS
BROW—INTEREST AND USURY—THE MOSAIC LAW—
THE POWER OF INTEREST—ILLUSTRATIONS—LOANS TO
*
Ne
>
eee
CONTENTS, ill
THE PEOPLE A FEASIBLE PROJECT—THE GOVERNMENT
Pd LOANS TO THE BANKERS—LOANS TO THE PEOPLE AT A
LOW RATE WOULD BE A -BLESSING—-HOW THE FARM-
ERS WOULD SECURE PROSPERITY—MILLIONAIRES AND
PAUPERS ARE INCREASING——-REGULATION OF THE VOL-
UME OF MONEY—GARFIELD’S THEORY—TOTAL NA-
TIONAL DEBT—HYPOCRITICAL POLITICIANS—USURY
NOTHING MORE THAN ROBBERY. .............-04
CHAPTER V.—THE NATIONAL BANKING
SYSTEM.
THE MONETARY CHANGE DEMANDED BY WORKINGMEN—
AIM OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR—SOULLESS CORPOR-
ATIONS HAVE NO PITY—ATTITUDE OF BANKING COR-
PORATIONS—‘‘ SPECIE BASIS ”’—‘* INTRINSIC VALUE”
_—_‘‘ HONEST MONEY ”—-MONEY IN ANCIENT AGES—
IRON, BRASS, TIN, CLOTH, LEATHER AND WOODEN
MONEY—GREAT FINANCIERS ON METALIC MONEY—
HOW THE NATIONAL BANKS ABSORB THE NATION’S
- WEALTH—-DEBT THEIR FOUNDATION——HOW THE BANK-
ERS SECURE DOUBLE INTEREST—ENORMOUS SUMS OF
MONEY WITHDRAWN FROM JUST TAXATION—THE IM-
MENSE EARNINGS OF THE INDIANAPOLIS NATIONAL
BANK—WHAT WORKINGMEN SHOULD HAVE.......86
CHAPTER VI—TRANSPORTATION.
GOVERNMENT PREROGATIVES DANGEROUS IN THE HANDS
OFr CORPORATIONS—NO ONE CLASS INDEPENDENT—
CORPORATIONS NOT ENTITLED TO DISCRIMINATION—-
THE COUNTRY SUFFERING FROM RAILROAD EXTOR-
iv CONTENTS.
TIONS—-WHAT THE BALLOT SHOULD ACCOMPLISH—
THE TELEGRAPHS — TELEPHONES—RAILROADS—THE
_/GOVERNMENT’S SUCCESS WITH THE POSTAL SYSTEM—
"THE POWER OF SYNDICATES AND CORPORATIONS—
THEIR IMMENSE WEALTH—DANIEL WEBSTER’S GREAT
WARNINGS iioccn te Oh rks) fos ane ae ee
CHAPTER VIL“ OVERPRODUCTION.”
THERE CAN BE NO OVERPRODUCTION WHEN MONEY IS
PLENTY—SCARCITY OF MONEY PRODUCES STRIKES AND
RIOTS—WHY MONEY IS WITHDRAWN FROM CIRCULA-
TION—-LINCOLN’S WARNING IN 1861—OVERPRODUCT-
ION DOES NOT STARVE CHILDREN—INTEREST ON BONDS
A GREAT VAMPIRE TO THE NATION—BONDS TAXED IN >
ENGLAND AND FRANCE—GEN. WEAVER ON TAXATION
—THE INTER-STATE COMMERCE LAW—-REPORT OF THE
SILVER COMMISSIONERS —- PLAIN FACTS —- SHOWING
MADE BY UNITED STATES TREASURER IN 1887 OF THE
NATION'S MONEY——-IDLE CAPITAL MAKES IDLE MA-
CHINERY AND THE WORKINGMAN SUFFERS......115
CHAPTER VUI.—HARD TIMES.
THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR AT RICHMOND—A COMMITTEE
ON HARD TIMES—-THEIR REPORT-—THE INTRICACIES
OF DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH—-AN ANALYSIS OF THE
SUBJECT—SENATOR SHERMAN’S IDEAS IN 1869—JouN
A. LOGAN’S THEORY—THE UNITED STATES TREASURER
IN-1820—JOHN STUART MILL, THE GREAT ENGLISH
ECONOMIST — SIR ARCHIBALD WILSON — SECRETARY
M’CULLOCH — BOUTWELL — THE BURNING oF $100,-
CONTENTS. Vi
000,000—PETER COOPER ON INDUSTRIAL DEPRESSION
—THE FLUCTUATION OF FINANCES THE CAUSE OF HARD
TIMES—— A STEADY STANDARD A FIRM FOUNDA-
(STOO erg RE Ste oad Se ott Rarer sana any aired
CHAPTER IX.—HARD TIMES—Continvep.
THE DIFFERENT CLASSES OF SOCIETY—-MONEY EARNERS
AND MONEY USERS — THE PREDATORY STRATUM —
LAWS FOR THE CONTRACTION OF MONEY VOLUME—
7 YEARS OF SHRINKAGE IN THE UNITED STATES—THE
PRACTICAL QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY, LAND, LABOR, Fi-
NANCE AND TRANSPORTATION — THE DECISION OF
JUDGE GRESHAM IN THE WABASH, RAILROAD CASE—
THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR AN ORDER OF PEACE AND
BDUOAIIO NG 2) Gets ai, Sue ea oo ate a eae L448
CHAPTER X.—WAGKES.
WAGES A SUBJECT OF VAST IMPORTANCE—GREAT NA-
TIONS ARE NOW DEALING WITH IT—THE ECONOMICS
OF WAGES — INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS INCESSANTLY
CHANGE—A TABLE OF STATISTICS—THE PROGRESS OF
WAGES—ECONOMY DOESNOT DEMAND LOW WAGES—
WHAT HIGH WAGES WILL DO—HON. WILLIAM WALSH
ON WAGES — INCREASE OF CAPITAL DEMANDS IN-
CREASE OF LABOR—TO PROTECT LABOR A SACRED DU-
TY——DR. PARKER ON REGULATION OF WAGES——CO-OP-
ERATION THE ULTIMATUM OF PRODUCTIVE INDUS-
PRY Ce a OS hee Se ee eat Oe OL
vi CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XI.—ORIGIN AND PROGRESS
OF TRADES UNIONS.
THE DISCLOSURE OF HISTORY—-ANTIQUITY OF COMBINA-
TIONS BY WORKINGMEN——THE OLD GUILDS OF EUROPE
—THE FIRST AUTHENTIC ORGANIZATIONS—THE POW-
ER OF ORGANIZATIONS SIX HUNDRED YEARS AGO—
THE CRUELTIES PRACTICED IN ENGLAND——THE SECRET ~_
OF THEIR STRENGTH—UNIONS HAVE ELEVATED WAGES ~__
ie —WORKINGMEN CANNOT BE TOO WELL PAID—UNION
te -MEN THE BEST WORKMEN—LITERATURE FOR LABOR— _
S UNIONS ARE EDUCATING WORKINGMEN—THEIR GREAT
FUTURE ek a oe se ee 8 eae ae
CHAPTER XIT.—AMERICAN LABOR UNIONS
THE FIRST AMERICAN TRADE UNION — JOURNEYMEN
SHIPWRIGHTS-—NEW YORK TYPOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
_—FIRST LABOR PARTY—FRANKLIN SOCIETY OF PRINT-
ERS—NATIONAL TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION—THE INTER-
NATIONAL—-HAT FINISHERS—IRON MOULDERS—ME-
CHANICAL ENGINEERS OF AMERICA—-BROTHERHOOD LO-
COMOTIVE ENGINEERS—LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN—CIGAR
MAKERS—BRICKLAYERS AND STONEMASONS—PATRONS
OF HUSBANDRY—GRANGE—RAILWAY CONDUCTORS—
BOOT AND SHOEMAKERS — GERMAN-AMERICAN TYPO-
GRAPHICAL—-HORSE-SHOERS—IRON AND STEEL HEAT-
ERS — GRANITE CUTTERS—— LAKE SEAMEN — BOILER
MAKERS —-CARPENTERS AND JOINERS—-HAT MAKERS
—— MINERS AND MINE LABORERS — BAKERS—SWITCH-
MEN — TAILORS—TELEGRAPH MEN — FURNITURE—
COOPERS—ETO.—ETO.. 2... cece ce we ce ee ce ee LOA
CONTENTS. Vil
CHAPTER XIII._—THE KNIGHTS OF
LABOR.
THE CAUSE OF THEIR ORGANIZATION—THE GREAT POW-
ER OF THE ORDER—URIAH STEVENS, THE FOUNDER
—EARLY HISTORY—STRUGGLES——ATTACKED BY PUL-
PIT AND PRESS —ITS GROWTH — CHARACTER OF ITS
MEMBERS— WHO THEY ARE— PRESENT NUMBER—A
SEMI-SECRET ORDER — THEIR PREAMBLE AND PLAT-
FORM OF PRINCIPLES — MANNER OF JOINING — WHO
ARE ELIGIBLE —— LAWS AND REGULATIONS OF THE
KNIGHTS—LOCAL, DISTRICT AND GENERAL ASSEMBLIES
—~PASS-WORDS, SIGNS AND GRIPS——WOMEN AS MEM-
BERS—INTERESTING INFORMATION —— BIOGRAPHY OF
MR. POWDERLY—THE OFFICERS-—THE EXECUTIVE COM~
MITTEE——A DESCRIPTION OF THE MANAGEMENT. .195
CHAPTER XIV.—STRIKES AND LOCK-
OUTS.
A CAUSE OF RECENT STRIKES —- WHY WORKINGMEN
STRIKE—STATISTICS OF STRIKES IN 1880—succkEssEs
AND FAILURES—COMPLETE REVIEW OF THEIR EFFECT
—AMOUNT OF LOSS INCURRED — AGGREGATE LOSSES
IN APRIL AND MAY, 1886 — PUn™IC SYMPATHY FOR
STRIKERS—POWDERLY ON STRIKES—-GREAT THOUGHTS
—THE POWER OF WEALTH GIVING WAY TO JUSTICE
AND RIGHT —- A NEW POWER DAWNING UPON THE
WORLD—A BRIGHT FUTURE AT HAND—IDEAS FOR
_/ WORKINGMEN TO THINK AND ACT UPON. .......210
Vill CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XV.—EIGHT HOURS.
EFFECT OF THE EIGHT HOUR AGITATION—-NUMBER OF
MEN IN THE MOVEMENT IN 1886 — THE BENEFITS —_
CLAIMED—LABOR NOT A COMMODITY—A BIRDS-EYE
VIEW OF THE WORKING WORLD — THE AGENTS OF
CORPORATIONS-—EXACTIONS ARE FETTERS—APPEALS
AND MUTTERED DISCONTENT—A GREAT PLEA—THIRST
»¥FOR KNOWLEDGE SHOULD BE GRATIFIED—ROBERT G.
INGERSOLL’S ELOQUENT WORDS ON THE SUBJECT—
_HOURS OF LABOR SHOULD BE SHORTENED.......228
CHAPTER XVI.—ARBITRATION.
ARBITRATION NOT AN EXPERIMENT—THE JUSTINIAN LAW
——-ENGLISH AND ROMAN LAW—JUDICIAL BOARDS OF
ARBITRATION—PRESIDENT CLEVELAND’S MESSAGE ON
THE QUESTION — RICHARD GRIFFITHS, G. W. F., ON
ARBITRATION—-GEORGE RODGERS —- FRENCH COURTS
OF ARBITRATION —- HOW THE GREAT BRICKLAYERS’
STRIKE IN CHICAGO WAS SETTLED——JUDGE TULEY’S
DECISION—ARBITRATION JUST FOR EMPLOYER AND
WORKINGMEN—THE SCALES OF JUSTICE A TRUE BAL-
ANGE ro ht See Ne ite tne ore ee Oe a
; CHAPTER XVII.—CO-OPERATION.
| ALL GREAT ENTERPRISES DEPEND ON CO-OPERATION—
A COMMON OBJECT IS A COMMON ADVANTAGE—OR-
GANIZATION AND CO-OPERATION A GREAT POWER—
CONTENTS. 1x
_e WAGE SYSTEM OPPOSED TO CO-OPERATION—CO-OPER-
ATION A SUCCESS—LECLAIRE’S GREAT ORGANIZATION
—RAILROAD CQ-OPERATION IN FRANCE—INDUSTRIAL
PARTNERSHIP IN ENGLAND—-ALFRED TAYLOR ON THE
SUBJECT—D. 8. CURTISS—-DEVELOPMENT AND EXTENT
OF CO-OPERATION IN THE UNITED STATES—COMPLETE
REVIEW OF WHAT HAS BEEN DONE......:.....203
CHAPTER XVIII.—HOME THE PALLADIUM
OF SOCIETY.
MAN WITHOUT A HOME AN OUTCAST—THE STATE IS BUT
THE INDIVIDUAL, THE INDIVIDUAL A MINIATURE STATE
—HOME THE BULWARK OF VIRTUE—CICERO’S MAXIM
+—DEFECTS OF OUR SOCIAL SYSTEM—THE BURDEN OF
INDIRECT TAXATION—HANDWRITING ON THE WALL—
CO-OPERATION A BLESSING FOR THE PEOPLE—SUCCESS
OF CORPORATIONS — ‘*‘ SWEET HOME” CAN BE MADE
A REALITY-——WISDOM FOR THE HOMELESS......274
CHAPTER XIX.—PRISON LABOR.
A GREAT QUESTION—-HOW CONVICTS ARE EMPLOYED—
OCCUPATIONS IN VARIOUS PRISONS —- WORKING FOR
THE STATE — THE CONTRACT SYSTEM — THE LEASE
PLAN—E. C. WINES ON THE CONTRACT SYSTEM—ITS
EFFECT—ABUSES—-SHOULD BE ABOLISHED —-LEASES
AND FAULTS THEREOF—57,500 CONVICT WORKMEN
_ PITTED AGAINST HONEST LABOR — DR. SEAMAN’S
VIEWS —- DEMANDS OF THE PUBLIC — CARROLL D.
WRIGHT'S REPORT—PRISON LABOR MUST NOT CON-
__ FLICT WITH INTERESTS OF THE WORKINGMAN. . . 290
2
x CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XX.--LIQUOR AND THE WORK-
INGMAN.
THE ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF MONEY EXPENDED FOR LI-
QUOR—-MR. POWDERLY ARRAIGNS THE DRUNKARD—
HIS POWERFUL SPEECH AT LYNN, MASS.-—HOW LIQUOR
PRODUCES POVERTY—FIFTEEN MILLION PEOPLE SPEND
SEVEN HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS ANNUALLY FOR
LIQUOR—LIQUOR COSTS THE PEOPLE THREE TIMES AS
MUCH AS CLOTHING—INTEMPERANCE A CURSE TO THE
WORKINGMAN SS a5 aia otnss-eicewunlone bata a aioe otan pesos cea
CHAPTER XXI.—THE FARMER AND HIS
INTERESTS.
GAPITAL DRIFTING AW/.Y FROM AGRICULTURE —- THE
LABOR QUESTION LINKED WITH THE FARMER — HON.
“ W. F. SADLER BEFORE THE GRANGE — AN ABLE DIs-
COURSE — A STARTLING ARRAY OF FACTS AND FIG-
URES—THE AVARICE OF CAPITAL—MR. JOHN NORRIS
ON RAILROAD MONOPOLY —- CHARLES SEARS’ MEAS-
URES—A BALEFUL WARNING—MR. CHARLES SEARS’
EXPOSITION OF TRUTHS — PUBLIO CARRIERS AND
MONEY. LOANERS ARE ABSORBING CAPITAL—A PEACE-
FUL MODE OF ADJUSTMENT—-MEASURES AND REME-
DIES—UNITED EFFORT BY REFORM PARTIES NEC-
ESSARY 10 SUCCESS—-LABOR ASCENDING THE THRONE ~
OB POLITION (3.0 Nae ae asi eae Ree ae aceon
|
CONTENTS. Xl
CHAPTER XXII.—FOREIGNERS AND FOR-
EIGNERS.
THE IMMIGRATION OF TO-DAY A GREAT EVIL—500,000
IMMIGRANTS IN 1887—oOFFICIAL FIGURES—OVER
8,000,000 ALIENS IN THIS COUNTRY—A FLOOD OF
PAUPERS AND CRIMINALS TAINTING THE NATION—
H. H. BOYESEN ON UNRESTRICTED IMMIGRATION—THE
{ EVIL OF ANARCHY AND COMMUNISM ONE OF THE
| CURSES OF THE FOULSTREAM—SUMMARY LEGISLATION
A JUST DEMAND OF WORKINGMEN — AMERICAN LA-
BOR MENACED BY FOREIGN IMMIGRATION —— HOSTILE
' SENTIMENT THROUGHOUT THE LAND—A QUESTION OF
TRE DA Ve oh eh rene eG A hee ek he ae eee
| CHAPTER XXIII.—THOUGHTS OF TO-DAY.
HON. JOHN SEITZ—-LABOR ENTITLED TO FIRST CONSID-
ERATION—OPINIONS OF R. F. ROWELL—HON. GEORGE
L. WELLINGTON—HON. JESSE HARPER — HON. 0. W.
BARNARD —H. E. BALDWIN——HON. ALF. TAYLOR—N.
M. LOVIN— C. B. FENTON-—O. T. PARKER—REV. DR.
THOMAS — G. W. PHILLIPPO — 0. J. SUTTON—W. H.
ROBB—J. D. HARDY—W. W. JONES-—-COM. MINERS
AND MINE LABORERS-—W. H. DAVIDSON—R. ©. MO-
BEATH—D. W. SMITH—N. B. STACK—-HON. WILLIAM
BAKER—JAMES MITCHELL—HON. A. J. STREETER—
THE notorious HAZARD CIRCULAR~— a. a.
BR TON Sy as ee oes Vee Be Ea OOe
CHAPTER XXIV.—SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
VIEWS OF DAVID ROSS—THE MAGNITUDE OF THE LABOR
PROBLEM—OUT OF AGITATION COME MANY BENEFITS ._
Xil CONTENTS.
——EDUCATION IS REQUIRED FOR ADVANCEMENT—THE
MASSES ARE THINKING——REFORM PARTIES——. UNION
LABOR PARTY IN THE VAN—ORGANIZATION THE ...
WATCHWORD —HON. J. W. BREIDENTHAL——BRIGHT
PROSPECTS WEST, NORTH, SOUTH AND EAST—-LABOR
IN POLITICS——-WITH ORGANIZATION AND COMMON PUR-
POSE SUCCESS IS CERTAIN—-A PLATFORM BROAD
ENOUGH FOR ALL IS NEEDED——HON. HENRY SMITH—
FUTURE OF THE WORKINGMAN—CONCLUSION....358
CHAPTER XXV.— THE FARMERS’ AL-
LIANCE.
EARLY STRUGGLES OF THE FARMERS’ ALLIANCE — ITS
RULES —— ITS PROGRESS —- ADVANTAGES OF CO-OPER-
ATION —— THE TEXAS CHARTER — THE NATIONAL AL-
LIANCE — PREAMBLE — EDUCATION FUNDAMENTAL”.
TO GOOD GOVERNMENT — BUSINESS MATTERS —- POL-
ITICAL MATTERS —- GENERAL REMARKS -— WOMEN OF
THE-ALLIANOMG 2 8 op ce Ss Sule, See ete
ALLUSIRATIONS.
T. V. PowpeErty, - a ‘
Ricuarp GRIFFITHS, - 2
FREDERICK TURNER, - :
Cuaries H. Lircuman, -
Hon. W. D. Vincent, - :
Hon. Henry Smirn, - 2
J. R. Sovernien, - :
Hon. WititiAm Baker, -
A Miner’s Corracs, - :
Happy Toiters, ‘ z
Coan Unprer Dirrerent AspPrcrts,
Honest Tom Maxzs a SprEcu,
Urian SrEePHENS, = .
Brerween Strike ann Famuiy,
Locomotive Works, : “
BRICKLAYING, : :
Kyire, Fork anp Spoon Workers,
A Happy Hom, - -
FRONTISPIECE.
37
X1V ILLUSTRATIONS.
Mipnient Firres—Buast Furnaces,
Hay Maxine mn tHE Otprn Times,
Bottte Bowers, - -
Hon. Joun Seitz, - -
BrsseEMER STEEL Manuractory, -
Minine in Cotorano, - 2
THE
VOICE OF LABOR.
CHAPTER I.
A GLANCE AT THE PAST.
THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE WORKINGMAN IN ENG-
LISH HISTORY——HIS POSITION-—PHYSICAL CONDITION
—THE ‘‘BLACK DEATH”’—THE PEASANTS’ WAR IN
1381—THE STRUGGLES OF SERFDOM—THE WORKING-
MAN IN AMERICAN COLONIES—THE SPIRIT OF LIBER-
TY——PROGRESS OF LABOR AFTER THE REVOLUTIONARY
WAR—YEARS OF PEACE AND PLENTY—-THE GREAT
REBELLION—-THE DEVELOPMENT OF MANUFACTURING
—TABLE OF WAGES FROM 1752 To 1886—THE UpP-
RISING OF THE FARMERS—THE GRANGE—RAPID IN-
CREASE OF THE POWER OF CAPITAL—THB HVENTS OF
1886—-LABOR A POWERFUL SOCIAL FACTOR. |
Tue workingman first appears in English history
in the character of a serf, or slave. He owned
neither land, cattle, nor goods, but was wholly de-
pendent upon his lord, who furnished him with shel-
ter, food and clothing, and in return was entitled to
his services and was responsible for his conduct.
16 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
He belonged to the estate, and if the land changed
ownership, he followed it and served under the new
lord. He had no civil rights,neither for or against any
one, save through the lord of the manor. His
physical condition was one of comparative ease and
plenty, as he was well fed and housed. When not
working for his lord he was at liberty to cultivate —
his garden, gather fuel from. the manor forest and
devote his time to his family.
This condition was not absolute, for he might ac-
cumulate alittle money, purchase a piece of land and
thus free himself. If he was able to masteratrade,
as a mechanic he received higher pay than a serf,
but in other respects he stood on the same footing.
In towns and cities he had no civil rights until he
acquired property and entered the guild of his craft.
He then could set up on his own account and em-
ploy journeymen and hold apprentices. By custom
and law he was held to be a man of an inferior
caste, and the unfortunate stigma has followed him
down through the centuries.
Atthis time the capitalist, or lord, was not actuated
_ by hostile feelings, nor did he in any way seek to
oppress him, but as the serf was virtually his prop-—
erty he protected him for the sole purpose of avoid-
ing his loss. Wages was a pretext for a quarrel at
any time, just as it is to-day.
In 1349 aterrible plague swept over Europe from
the orient, and in England its devastation was hor-
rible. -The ‘‘ Black Death” marked the era of free-
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 17
dom for the serf. Nearly one-half of the entire pop-
ulation was swept away, and labor assumed the phase
of being the most important element in the king-
dom. Laborers demanded quadruple pay and dic-
tated their own terms. The historic ‘Statute of
Laborers” was passed, and then began the antago-
nism between capital and labor.
In 1881 the Peasants’ war broke out and the in-
surgents captured the city of London. They de-
manded of the king: ‘‘We will that you make us
free, our heirs and our lands, and that we be no
more bond, nor so reputed.” The king promised
them freedom, but when parliament met it sternly
__tefused to fulfillthe promise. In an unanimous vote
they declared ‘they would rather perish altogether
in one day.” ‘The strife continued and coercive
laws were constantly passed. The laborer was for-
bidden to leave his place or travel without a pass-
port, and in 1391 parliament was petitioned to for-
bid. the children of the base-born to attend the
schools. The land-owners finally gave up the at-
tempt to employ serf labor, and rented small farms
to tenants for a fixed rent to be paid inmoney. At
the end of fifty years serfdom was a thing of the
past, and the wiuces which had been passed for the
regulation of wages became obsolete.
The wages of workmen soon became more than
enough for acomfortable support, and his day of work
was eight hours. With the close of the reign of Henry
VIII, after a period of about one hundred and fifty
18 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
years, legislation again oppressed him, and for two
hundred and fifty years he struggled against laws
which tended only to the interests of the rich. An
extravagant royalty swallowed millions of money,
and the prosperous workman became a beggar with
a starving family. In 1601 the English Poor Law,
was passed, but it failed to accomplish a benevolent
end.
Meanwhile the discovery of America had electri-
fied the old world, and settlements were made here.
During one hundred and twenty-five years follow-
ing the discovery of America in 1492, the territory
of the Atlantic states and the West Indies were in-
fested by adventurers. Their purposes were the
gathering of the precious metals, trading with the
natives for furs, and the locating of fishing banks
from which food might be obtained for Europe. The
Basques, from France, and other Celtic nations, vis-
ited the banks of Newfoundland to fish, several hun-
dred years before the time of Columbus.
In 1607, Jamestown, Virginia, was occupied by
the English, and developed into a permanent settle-
ment in 1610. Colony after colony secured foot-
holds on the Hudson, along the coast of New Eng-
land, and in what are now the Atlantic states. Re-
ligious and political oppression in Europe stimulated
the tide of emigration, and the new world began to
live. Up to this time actual industrial settlements
had not materialized. The classof people who first
came to America were those who sought gold, or —
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 19
conquest, and the majority of them were banished
/ criminals. Later during the seventeenth century,
people of a different stamp were driven to seek a
new homeacross the Atlantic, and the colonists gain-
ed a new element of thoughtful and religious cast.
The French and Indian war came and passed,
leaving the Virginian colonists aware of the weak-
ness of English troops in the peculiar warfare inci-
dent to the border, and the feeling was prevalent
that the colonial Assembly was composed of strong
_. and fearless men. The colonists although loyal,
desired to conduct their affairs in their own way.
Conscious of their strength they felt their own im-
portance and were quick to resent any acts of inter-
ference on the part of the mother country. Parlia-
ment sought to maintain a standing army, to en-
force certain navigation laws and to tax the colo-
nists to contribute to the financial burdens of the
empire. The execution of these laws in the way of
the stamp act, and other revenue laws, led to the un-
ion of the scattered colonies, resistance to England,
to war and to the successful upholding of the
Declaration of Independence. In: this country
the white workman has never been subjected to
the hardships and deprivations which disgrace the
pages of England’s history, but has always been po-
litically the peer-of any one. Land was free to all
and it rested upon himself whether he occupied and
made use of it for his support. He quickly learned
to rely upon his own efforts and grew self-reliant and
20) THE VOICE OF LABOR.
independent with the exercise of his natural rights.
Unhampered by the fetters of conscienceless legis-
lation, and with the pride and knowledge which is
inseparable from full citizenship, the workingman de-
veloped the germ of American independence, and
the spirit which prompted the determination to throw |
off the English yoke was given birth.
The colonial era laid out the plan of the Ameri-
can land system, which began with royal claims, and
ended with speculation and actual conquest. The
chief feature of the land polity seemed to be, that
each man strove to get as much land as he could,
and if he chose to retain his possessions, his family
should inherit it. Tenure was based upon privilege ~
and human rights were a secondary consideration,
yet the spirit of liberty was strong, and the system
did not take on the Old World form of primogeni-
ture. In England the feudal land-owners struggled
with the chattel-holders, and their differences were
carried to the colonies. It was from these materi- *
als that American tenure was molded.
Had no aristocracy existed in England slavery —
would not have been introduced in America. Indi-
gent dependents of aristocracy sought riches, and
being unwilling to work themselves, and unable to
employ free labor, they took the negro. Labor was
wofully scarce, and as the expense of securing it
from England was great, the natural consequence
was the cheaper course of importation of slaves.
Slavery, however, did not materially interfere with
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 91
/ free labor in other than the cotton, cane and tobacco
Penni
districts, and never secured noticeable foothold north
of the Ohio river.
After the close of the Revolutionary war still a \
better class of people came from Europe who brought
with them the pioneer spirit which has always mark-
ed American enterprise. Statistics show that the
wages of the workingman began an upward tendency
and his welfare made decided progress. The dis-
counted Continental money was replaced bya valu-
- able circulating medium, and financial confidence
was resumed. As late_as 1780 labor was not organ-
ized, nor at that time was organization demanded.
The undeveloped resources of the vast area of till-
able land, at no great distance from the seaboard,
continually drew the surplus population from the
growing cities and towns, and high wages was the
natural result. The farm constituted an admirable
regulator from a wages point of view. The tide of
immigration steadily flowed on toward the great
western prairies, the valleys west of the Alleghanies
became thickly settled, and the workingman pros-
pered everywhere.
Amid this era of peace two irreconcilable theories
of government clashed, and the great war of the
rebellion began. While the fierce contest was in
progress, hundreds of thousands of men were taken
away from the factories, the farms, and from all
kinds of business. The armies drained the country
of its labor, and the inevitable sequence was that
92, THE VOICE OF LABOR.
wages fluctuated with each succeeding day. At the
_ close of the war labor prospered. In 1866 over six
hundred millions worth of public lands were sold,
and a large part of our population was engaged in
preparing for substantial prosperity. A protective
tariff gave an immense impetus to manufacturing
industries, and in the eastern states their develop-
ment was remarkable. The eastern states not hay-
ing the fertility of soil found in the west, capital in-
stinctively gravitated toward profitable manufactur-
ing, and soon found mechanical industry, backed by
tariff, to be the most reliable and satisfactory of in-
vestments. Farm life in New England gave way to
life in the factory, and we now see our Atlantic sea-
board transformed from an agricultural into that of
a manufacturing region. This method of centralizing
capital has in a great measure taken labor from the
farm to the workshop, and a constant premium has
been offered to the mechanic. To this fact may be
attributed the prodigious growth of cities during the
past twenty-five years, and it is especially noticea-
ble in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston.
Everywhere it may be seen that the planting of a
factory, or mill, is followed by the erection of a
cluster of houses which grows into a\ ‘ce, then
a town is formed, and the town finally becomes a
city.
High pay to workingmen surely follows the
_ growth of cities. Since 1752 the mechanic’s pay
"has increased from thirty-three cents per day tc one
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 93
dollar and forty-five’ cents per day, but the farm
worker has always been paid at a lower rate. An
- . examination of the following table will give the
reader a good idea of the fluctuation of the prices
paid during the last one hundred and thirty-four
years:
Farmwork Mechanical Farmwork Mechanical
Year. Wages. Wages. Year. Wages. Wages.
LTO 2s Sb aoe Be. O8 1845....$1.00 $1.25
TOO FS 5 88 48 TEO0 ste 41 067821750
NICE Ste amines: .35d ROE ket 1.33
IBIAS OWS oT Sa ts .o4 SOs hd DS toe 1BO
dria Was ae ge 46 Si rs LUO seb: BD
EQ UU aoe 40 1 iS beg civ eee ee kee
dy oh WM Etc oes () .61 USOC eee y OUre Tk 2)
SES ea tO Sern 1) LORS ee OD 180)
peewee 4 yo A TOO ESSO5 Soo 0G. 145
Re otiaconer as hey. vob OO)
The foregoing tabulated statement unerringly ~
shows the effect of the investment of capital upon
the rate of wages paid in cities, and lays open’ the
secret of their constant increase in population.
There are now thirty-six cities in the United States
with inhabitants numbering over fifty thousand.
One great result of the civil war was to bring free
labor to its present condition and rate of wages,
by doing away with the antagonism incident upon
cheap slave labor. It was first thought the South
was hopelessly involved in ruin, but the contrary
has proved true, and that region is securing larger
94. THE VOICE OF LABOR.
returns to-day for the amount of capital invested
than it did under the control of wasteful and brutal
overseers. The period following the war was one
of excessive inflation. The greenback dollar reach-
ed its lowest value in 1864, at which time a gold
dollar could be sold for $2.85 in paper, but it grad-
ually ascended in value, and in 1879 it reached pa-,
and since has been worth a dollar in gold, throug”
the resumption of specie payment.
In.1866 the Granger movement began, 221 ©
for its object the financial benefit of the farm-2. 7”.
combatted the monopolies of railroads and co."4:..~
tions, and so popular was this agitation that in
1875 the order had nearly 800,000 members. The
rapid increase of the power of capital in America
is without parallel in any other country in the
world, and the manner in which gigantic syndicates
and railroad corporations have pursued their objects
has been watched with much solicitude by the farm-
ers, workingmen, and others, whose interests have
been prejudiced. The fact that an enormous amount
of money, gained by dishonest financiering, has
been invested in transportation industries, and as —
the earnings of this vast amount of capital finally
come upon the workingman and farmer to pay,
they have become dissatisfied. Watered stock and
jobbing pools have created a burden under which
the bone and sinew of the nation are restive, and
they have combined against it, as was evinced by
the events of 1886, in the great southwestern strike
-
THE VOICE OF LABUK. 25
on the Gould system of railroads. The Knights of
Labor have been rapidly perfecting their organiza-
tion throughout the United States, and as the order
is seeking redress of grievances by means of legis-
lation, the outlook is that they will act as a power-
ful factor in shaping the industrial welfare of the
country during the next few years.
3
26 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
CHAPTER II.
LAND AND TAXKS.
LAND MONOPOLY THE BANE OF THE WORLD—ITS EFFEC}
IN THE PAST—EGYPT’S DOWNFALL—-GOLDEN BABYLON
CRUSHED BY LAND-OWNERS—THEY RUIN THE ROMAN
EMPIRE—IMPROPER MANAGEMENT OF OUR PUBLIC DO-
MAIN—VAST TRACTS OF VALUABLE LAND GIVEN TO
CORPORATIONS—-TWENTY MILLIONS OF ACRES HELD BY
FOREIGNERS—POWDERLY ON BONANZA FARMS—-HENRY
GEORGE’S THEORIES—HIS BOOK, ‘‘PROGRESS AND POY-
ERTY”—-HIS POSITION DEFINED—THE UTOPIAN IDEA
OF CONFISCATION—PROF. W. T. HARRIS ON GEOR-
GEISM—GROUND RENT—STATISTICS—CAPITAL’S GRIP
AT THE THROAT OF LAND PROPERTY—TAX THE RICH
AS WELL AS THE POOR—HOW JUST ASSESSMENTS MAY
BE MADE.
Tue right to the soil is as much an inalienable
right as that of working for bread. Depriving a
man of either, is a violation of both moral and sec-
ular laws. Land monopoly is shown by history to
be the bane of the world. Great nations have risen,
ruled and fallen, and in each instance the lesson has
been taught, that when such burdens have been laid
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 27
upon the masses, and were deprived from earn-
ing bread from the soil, their doom was sealed.
Back in the dim distance of time we see Egypt
the proudest and most powerful nation on the globe.
She excelled in mighty undertakings, and to-day we
marvel at the ruins of her vast structures which have
withstood the crumbling touches of scores of cen-
turies. :
The great pyramid of Gizeh is the grandest mon-
ument of human history, the mightiest building on
earth and the oldest—in structure a miracle, in ex-
tent almost incomprehensible. Forty centuries have
looked upon its glittering sides, and the tooth of
time during all these rolling centuries has not been
able to eat away the grandeur of the pile.
An oppressive land monopoly rule worked the
fall of Egypt. One per cent of the people owned
all the land, and ninety-nine per cent of the people
owned none—were tenants, serfs and slaves. Then
Egypt died, and her death-dirge rings yet in the ear
of the world.
The golden glory of Babylon, with its city the
most magnificent man ever built, was cursed with a
class land monopoly which was its death warrant.
Two per cent of the people owned all the land, and
ninety-six per cent of the masses owned none, and
were tenants, slaves and serfs.
In a speech recently delivered by Hon. Jesse
Harper, he said:
‘‘The founding, growth and glory of the Roman
98 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
empire has been the wonder of the world. Begotten
in myth, fed upon the ferocity of the wolf, led by
intellect of man, she grew to be at last the palladium
of law and the legionry war. Her ‘Twelve Tables’
underlie the codes of all civilization to-day. Her
military prowess has been the admiration of man-
kind. Her works in every department of human
thought and action are unsurpassed. Acqueduct,
temple, forum, each stand unparalleled. Theater,
hippodrome, drama—in these she leads all.
‘‘Rome has been termed ‘The Eternal City.” From
that center has gone forth blandishments, political
chicanery, ecclesiastical Jesuitism, and they for ages
upon ages have ruled the world.
‘‘Rome in her highest glory, was simple in habit
and austere inmanner. There was but a slight dis-
tinction between the people. ‘Citizen’ was the name
of man. Equality of fortune, generous distribution
of land was the law of common consent, and the
legal enactments of the state also.
~ ‘So rich in achievement was she at one time, that
eighty-five per cent of the people had title in land.
Then the legions were heroes beyond conquering;
then Rome was founded on a rock. She but follow-
ed the course of the great empires which had pre-
ceded her. In the incipiency of them all justice
ruled and mercy reigned more largely than at any
other period of their life. But as the nations before
her turned from those true principles of equity and
justice, in the day of their degeneracy, so did Rome
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 29
She traveled the same road to the same death, to
certain destruction. In what way?
‘Her volume of money at the commencement of
this era was about $1,800,000,000, made up of brass,
copper, and other metals. This was doomed to de-
struction. She determined to shrink the volume and
make the lesser volume of a finer metal. So she
shrunk the volume to $200,000,000.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 45
CHAPTER III.
THE GREAT QUESTION OF MONEY AND
LABOK.
THE PROBLEM WHICH ALL NATIONS ARE CONSID-
ERING—WEALTH RIGHTFULLY BELONGS TO THE PRO-
DUCER—-ECONOMISTS AND THE PRECIOUS METALS—
CHARACTERISTICS OF MONEY——-MONETARY STANDARDS
OF DIFFERENT NATIONS—-THE GOLD STANDARD—THE
SILVER STANDARD—THE DOUBLE STANDARD—HIS-
TORY OF BANKING—RISE OF THE NATIONAL BANKS
—OPINIONS OF STATESMEN-—LABOR AND CAPITAL—
THE WAGE FUND PRINCIPLE—PROFITS AND WAGES—
THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR—INFLATION OF CURRENCY
—HON. ALFRED TAYLOR'S REMARKS—DANIEL WEB-
STER ON LABOR—MONEY THE GREAT HUMAN BLESS-
ING——-VOLUME OF MONEY—LINCOLN’S IDEAS—HORACE
GREELY——-BURKE—THE NEW ISSUES OF TO-DAY.
The greatest question in political economy is that
of money and its distribution. Itis now the prob-
lem which occupies the attention of the statesmen of
England, France, and Germany, and it is destined
to be the great question in this country.
Political economy designates the laws which goy-
46 | THE VOICE OF LABOR.
ern the accumulation of money, but its distribution
depends largly upon legislation and custom. Wealth
created by the workingman in these times has a de-
cided tendency to accumulate in the coffers of in-
dividuals and corporations, where it is often used
for the oppression of the laborer. Naturally wealth
belongs to the person who produces it, to the work-
ingman, but he is obliged to give up the greater
portion of it to the non-producer, or capitalist.
The primary idea of capital is, that it is obtained
by giving a service whose market value is equal to
the capital. But what service has the man who has
accumulated a hundred million dollars in his own
lifetime performed which can be compared in value
to the wealth which he has gained? There is no
comparison between the service and the pay of such
men, and this is becoming more and more clear
to the laboring millions. The man, woman or child,
who earns a livelihood by manual labor gets too lit-
tle, and the smart man who wins a fortune by dex-
terity gets toomuch. The wealth of the world is too
unevenly distributed, and the laborer is finding it out.
What if he should make a new distribution in some
future day as the common people of France did in
1793 ? |
At present there is little fear of any such thing in
this country, because of the vast domain of unoccupied
free land which the laborer can have by settling it.
But the lands will by-and-by be occupied, and at a
not very distant day, and then problems will arise
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 47
in this country more difficult to solve than have
ever yet arisen in Europe; for when the European
hive becomes too crowded, the surplus laborers can
come to America where all may secure a farm; but
when there is no more land to grant, then will come
the pinch.
.. There are certain characteristics upon which the
majority of political economists agree, as being es-
sential to substances used for money. These char-
acteristics are attributed to the precious metals—
gold and silver.
They have intrinsic value, besides their use as
money. When either of these metals are demone- .
tized their value diminishes.
Good authorities hold that being simple sub-
stances, and easily transportable, that they are uni-
versally of the same value. This is denied, how-
ever, by eminent writers, and it is obvious that
money must vary with the scale of usual prices.
They have great value in small bulk.
These metals are indestructible, and they wear but
little with constant use.
They are of universal use, and are capable of be-
ing stamped as to mark their value.
It is not known where coinage began, but it is
fairly decided that it was in Asia, about 880 B. C.
Although the precious metals have been most em-
ployed for money, many other substances have been
used, viz. paper, iron, leather, wheat, tobacco,
wood, shells, beads, skins, bark, ete.
48 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
The monetary standard has always been subject
to change, and is an open question. Some countries
have fixed upon gold, some upon silver, and others
upon both.
Years ago Germany adopted silver, and has re-
cently changed to gold. The single standard of
silver is the rule with Russia and Austria, though
they have no specie payment. Nearly all of Asia
uses silver asa standard, as do a few nations on the
American continent—in all about one-third of the
population of the world.
The Latin Monetary Union—France, Italy, Bel-
gium, Switzerland and Spain—adhere to the double
standard, though the coinage of silver has been re-
stricted, and for a time enjoined. About thirty
years ago Holland adopted silver, but now has a gold
standard.
England was the first nation to try the experi-
ment of the gold standard, sixty-nine years ago, and
it now exists in Australia, South Africa, Egypt,
Turkey, Portugal, and in the Scandinavian king-
doms. The United States adopted gold in 1873,
but returned to the double standard in 1878. In all
these countries silver is made a legal tender for a
small amount, and is used as a subsidiary coin.
As early as about two hundred and sixty years
before the Christian era, a banker of Sicyon, a city
of Peloponnesus, is mentioned by Plutarch in his
life of Aratus. His business appears to have con-
sisted in exchanging one species of money for an-
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 49
other. The money-changers of Judea, who were
driven out of the temple by Christ, were most prob-
ably of the description mentioned by St. Matthew
in the parable of the talents—that is, such as made
a trade of receiving money in deposit, and paying
interest for it. St. Luke, in his relation of the
same parable, expressly alludes to a banking estab-
lishment.
From Judea the institution of*banks was brought
into Europe; and the Lombard Jews are said to
have kept benches, or banks, in the market
places of Italy for the exchange of money and bills.
The Bank of Venice, which was the first foundation
upon an enlarged scale that we are acquainted with,
was established about the year 1171, under the ap-
pellation of the Chamber of Loans (la Camera degl’
Imprestiti), and the contributors to a forced loan,
that had been raised to meet the exigencies of a Ve-
netian war with the emperors of the East and West,
were made creditors of the Chamber, from which
they were to receive an annual interest of four per
cent.
At what period the knowledge of banking was
introduced into England is unknown, though it may
reasonably be conjectured to have been within a,
short time after the conquest. There can be little
doubt of its having been first .practiced here by the
Italian merchants, all of whom, who were engaged
in money transactions, were distinguished, both in
France and in England, by the name of Lombards,
50 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
or of Tuscans. These merchants being dispersed
throughout Europe, ‘‘+became (says Anderson) very
convenient agents for the popes, who employed
them to receive and remit the large revenues they
drew from every state which acknowleged their ec-
clesiastical supremacy. Hence, and from their be-
ing employed to lend the money thus gathered upon
interest, they are called by Matthew Paris ‘the
Pope’s merchants.” We learn from the same his-
torian that some of the English nobles availed them-
selves of the same agency, and ‘‘sowed their mon-
ey to make it multiply.”
Henry III, in his twenty-ninth year, forbade his
subjects to borrow money from any foreign mer-
chants. This was on account of the great exactions
which they are said to have committed. In the four-
teenth century the business of banking was carried
on by the drapers, at Barcelona, in Spain; as it was
in after ages by the goldsmiths of London. Bank-
ing began in Italy, by Lombard Jews, in the year
808; that of Genoa, 1345; of Amsterdam, 1609; of
Rotterdam, 1635; of England, 1694; of Hamburg,
1710; in the East Indies, 1787; in America, 1781,
at Philadelphia. Bankers, on their first establish-
ment, allowed to those who entrusted their money
in their hands a moderate interest for the same.
Thereby their business was very considerably in
creased.
The first bank in America was established by Mr.
R. Morris, the Superintendent of Finance, and ade!
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 51
egate to the Continental congress. In May of that
year congress gave its sanction to the plan of a na-
tional bank, and the Bank of North America hada
legal existence. The hostility to national banks be-
gan with their organization, and in 1829 President
Jackson condemned the renewal of their charters in
his first annual message to congress. In 1833 Pres-
ident Jackson removed the government deposits
from the United States Bank, and placed them in
state banks, which were called ‘‘State Deposit Banks.”
A large number of local banks were then organized
with the result of effecting an enormous amount of
speculation and overtrading, and ‘‘ wild cat” bank-
ing became rampant throughout the western states.
In. 1836 the surplus money belonging to the
United States treasury was distributed to the state
banks, and to check speculation in public lands the
President prohibited the receipt of anything but sil-
ver and gold in payment for land sold by the gov-
ernment. A year later the panic of 1837 paralyzed the
nation. The funding of greenbacks into six per cent
gold bonds was revoked in 1863, which rendered them
irredeemable, and credit became so expanded under
excessive issues of paper money, that the abuse of
credit became general. The great paper bubble burst
in 1873, and a general panic was the result.
The vexed question of the proper adjustment of
financial matters is the source of several theories,
and their discussion has always been foremost in
legislative halls.
UNIVERSITY OF
ILLINOIS LIBRARY
AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
52 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
Our leading statesmen have frequently changed
their opinions of the financial policy of the land. In
1791 James Madison opposed the first United States
bank, and in 1816, when president, recommended
the second United States bank. The same course
was pursued by Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.
Thomas Jefferson acted likewise. General Jackson
and Mr. Van Buren favored state deposit banks in
1833, and four years later changed their minds.
The business world has been centuries in learning
that wealth is not money, but consists of the abund-
ance of those things which command money. Money
is only the instrument of exchange for the articles
comprising wealth. Some nations have been so
carried away with the opposite notion, that it be-
came the object of legislation to prevent exportation
of the precious metals, as such was thought to di-
minish the wealth of the country.
The rich and the poor are two classes which are
antagonistic, notwithstanding all that has been said
and written about their mutual dependence. The
history of man does not present a picture like that
of the present, nor has the combination of circum-
stances seen to-day ever existed in the past. The
invention of printing, telegraph, steam engine; the
use of labor-saving machinery; the great increase of
monopolies and the intellectual development of the
masses have created a new era. The people are be-
ginning to think and are beginning an attempt to
better their condition,
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 53
It is often said that capital and labor are depend-
* ent upon each other, but it is also true that labor
can secure many of the advantages held by capital,
by combination or co-operation. Labor is undoubt-
edly the true source of capital. Under the present
system the power of capital to accumulate exceeds
the power of labor to produce. This fault lies in un-
just legislation.
The riotous events and the exciting strikes of late
years have elicited much thought and attention. In
brief, it is a new phase of our history as a nation.
It is a lesson which will bear good fruit. America
with its millions of acres of yet uncultivated land,
hundreds of inexhaustible, mines yet unworked, is '
' far from being cramped in resources, but unjust
laws continually cast the pall of hard times upon
the productive classes.
In the beginning of the present century about
seven-eights of our population were farmers, while
the last census shows a balance against agricultural
pursuits. New trades and employments have sprung
up, and the divisions of labor have multiplied. Out
of this new order of things trades unions have come
into life, and the natural differences between
capital and labor have been brought out in intensi-
fied contrasts. Labor has hitherto been entirely ig-
norant of the economic laws which govern the con-
ditions in which it exists, but to-day education is en-
abling it to comprehend them better. It is not to be
54 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
denied that money is the great and only true basis
of our social condition
The grievance of labor does not lie on a sociai
plane. Labor seeks to be treated humanely, irre-
spective of wages, and not like a machine ora
brute. The fate of the workingman’s wages is plac-
ed between two causes—that which reduces the com-
petition of labor, and that which produces capital.
The wage-fund principle teaches that the wages
labor will receive, at any time or in-any trade, is
simply a question of division; capital may be call-
ed the dividend, the number of workingmen the di-
visor, and the quotient that amount which each
workingman receives as wages. There are buttwo
ways of increasing the latter—either increase the
dividend or decrease the divisor. In each case
wages increase.
Labor is interested in high profits as much as
capital, for capital employs labor. How to in-
crease capital has been a problem which all modern
peoples have industriously attempted to solve. When
labor and capital demand each other equally, happi-
ness, peace and plenty result.
‘There have arisen various theories and conflicts be-
tween them in regard to commerce, free trade, pro-
tection, agriculture and manufactures, and partisans
are urging their policies with zeal and all the ardor
of positive conviction, and they say.the prosperity
of the country les in the adoption of their theories.
Many of these have arisen from local causes, and
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 55
are doomed to defeat through lack of national im-
portance.
In the use and misuse of profits lies a great pow-
er in the industrial world. Labor has a well ground-
ed complaint in the abuse of capital, yet it is im-
possible to direct how wealth shall be spent by its
owner. The investment of capital in productive
industry advances the interests of the workingman,
and profits inure to both capital and labor.
The workingman is not entirely without blame
in the matter of ill-spent money. The amount of mon-
ey spent for tobacco and liquor exceeds that expend-
ed for any other two articles, and in this he is wrong
for he injures no one so much as himself.
Labor is grieved and angryat the injustice with
which it feels that capital oppresses it, and in de-
fense, it has organized the greatest labor order the
world has ever known. In truth, there should be no
antagonizm between capital and labor, for labor pro-
duces capital. If there were no capital there could
be no industrial labor.. One is helpless without the - e
other. Should labor cease for forty-eight hours capi-
tal would take flightand want would stalk the earth.
Labor needs the guidance of honest leaders rather
than the violence of scheming demagogues.
_ It is probable the present conflict between labor
and capital originates in a misunderstanding: capi-
tal does not comprehend labor, and labor does not
understand capital.
_ Hon. Alfred Taylor says: It is the qa of every
56 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
healthy person to be self-sustaining and contribute
some good by his energy, either mental or physical,
for the blessing he enjoys in his life. Everything
that adds to the happiness of life is the result of some-
body’s mental or physical exertion, and to enjoy it
without an equivalent is to bea drone and asponger
of another’s toil. The scriptures inform us thatin six
days God made the heavens and the earth, and all
things therein. Not only setting an example of an
industrial life, but dignifying its mission. Those that
plow the soil, sow the seed and raise the food and
weave the cloths, and build the shelter and create a
nation’s wealth, should be rich and enjoy life instead
of struggling for existence, as they now do beneath
mortgaged homes and burdensome taxes and blight-
ed lives. The larger the fortunes of the few, the
greater the hardships of the many.. A class of men
who will neither work, fight nor pay taxes; who
have inspired class laws in order to extort fabulous
private fortunes, and thereby they have excited envy,
jealousy and discontent on the one hand, and sel-
fishness, aggression, tyranny and crime on the other.
Sculptured palaces are the immediate parents of the
distressed hovel. Must religion build extravagant
churches, tradeits costly warehouses, wealth its long
streets of sculptured mansions, and luxury flaunt its
voluptuous trappings in the face of the industrial
poor, debasing manhood, forcing them into vice and
crime? President Lincoln said in his second message:
‘‘Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Cap-
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 5
ital is only the fruit of labor and could never have
existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the
superior and deserves much higher consideration.”
Webster said in his speech in 1837: ‘+The inter-
est of this great country, the principal cause of all
prosperity, is labor, labor, labor. The government
was made to protect this industry; to give it both en-
couragement and security, to that very end, with
this precise object in view, power was given to Con-
gress over the currency and over the money system
of the country.”
Let us swear to make labor profitable and respect-
able, whether it be hand work or brain work. —_La-
bor and capital are joint partners in the production
of wealth. Capital is to labor what the skillful hand
is to the useful tool. Interest and_ profit deter-
mines what each shall have. Then there would be
no antagonism, unless one extorted from the other
and brought on the conflict»
The claims of labor can. be no more forcibly
shown than wealth in a state of nature. Trees in
the forest, rock in the quarry, iron in the mountain,
bricks in the clay, or glass from sand on the sea
shore. In their primitive condition they are almost
worthless. Built into a mansion they furnish most
of the comforts and luxury of life, whose value is
increased a thousand fold and ought to receive the —
first attention of its legislator.
Men in affluent circumstances having no occasion
‘for temptation claim superior nature, honesty, which
58 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
keeps them from crime, when, in fact, it is only for-
tunate circumstances in life. Upon scanty allow-
ance, coupled with hard work, they would be fre-
quently ugly and criminal. A prominent divine once
told his congregation of merchants, bankers and
speculators that he was on too high a plane to be
affected by a temptation to steal. He was then get-
ting $20,000 per annum for his talk.
Money is an instrument susceptible of being the
greatest blessing human ingenuity ever invented.
Money to commerce is what blood is to the system;
money to commerce is what water is to navigation,
or freight cars to railroad traffic. To shrink their
quantity clogs the channels of trade. All the polit-
ical economists from Richards to Mill, admit that ex-
pansion of money is life, that contraction is death,
and that the amount of money in circulation controls
and fixes values and prices of all commodities, includ-
ing land and labor. We have but two kindsof dollars
in this country, one of gold, the otherof silver. All
others are a promise to pay a dollar, or be redeemed
in coin. Any circulating medium whether of coin, or
paper, that is not a full legal tender for public or
private debts, is a fraud and a cheat. ‘The control
over the volume of money is mainly in the hands
of the national banks, together with the right and
profit of issue. A usurped sovereign power they
will never surrender, because of its profit, until com-
pelled to do so by law.
The volume of money in the United States as
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 59
shown by congressional speeches, is from $12 to $13
per capita. Subtract what is on deposit and held
for redemption purposes, and there will not be left
more than$9.70 per capitaavailable for actual busi-
ness. Great Britain, thirty times smaller in area,
and only about two-thirds our population, has $23.70
per capita. France with her 200,000 square miles
of territory, has $43 per capita and her people com-
paratively out of debt. Such are the facts, as un-
welcome as they may be.
Those countries are densely populated as compar-
ed with ours, and the facilities of exchange far more
convenient than in a country as expansive as this,
and because of its wide distribution, payments of
debts cannot proceed with the same rapidity.
The bank of England was established in 1794,
and is 93 years old. It was originated by a Lon-
don merchant by the name of Patterson, and was
first chartered for eleven years. It has suspended
- specie payment eleven times, one of which lasted
twenty-six years, each time tearing down the col-
umns of British commerce and spreading financial
distress, not only in England, but frequently in oth-
er nations. With all its boasted pride of gold re-
demption, its bank notes have been 41 per cent be-
low par. Its mode of resumption has been invaria-
bly over the road of contraction, the path of gloom
and despair, where nothing flourishes but poverty
and crime.
Abraham Lincoln expressed to an intimate friend
60 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
a short time before he was assassinated, that he very
much doubted whether there was moral virtue and
patriotism enough among the controlling classes to
perpetuate our institutions.
Mr. Greely upon his death bed said.‘‘TheTribune
and country are gone, and I am going.”’
The permanence of the government can only be
secured by such property qualification as will pre-
vent those who have no interest in the country from
voting and controlling its affairs, shouts Hugh Mc-
Cullough, ex-secretary of the treasury, the prime
criminal of modern times. Government authority
never shows its weakness and demoralized condition
so much as when it resorts to physical and brute
force to carry its ends.
Cesar said: ‘‘The ides of March have come.”
When they had passed he was lifeless at the foot of
Pompey’s statue. Bloated wealth can never com-
“ prehend the suffering of the poor. Mary Antoinette,
when told that the fisherwomen were revolting be-
cause they had no bread, replied in her confused ig-
norance with the insult, ‘“‘Why don’t they eat cake ?”
. When Paris was ina wild tumult the king played
locksmith to avoid the danger, and wrote in his di-
ary, ‘‘ Nothing in particular happened to-day.” Yet
they had moved the foundation of his monarchy.
Charles I, with contempt for the people, said :
‘‘ France needs mowing,” and asked, ‘‘ What can
these round-heads do?” and he told them to go and
eat grass. In one week from that time they were
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 61
carrying his head on a pole. Rousseau wrote a book’ ,
pleading for honesty and purity in the French gov-
ernment, which was treated with contempt by the |
aristocratic class. Carlisle says the second edition
of that book ‘‘was bound in the skins of the sneer-
ing aristocracy.”
The gold standard, the swindling bond system,
the demonetizing of silver, the funding and refund.
ing of national debts, the changing of inflated paper
debts to a gold standard, is not the work of states-
men; it is the work of cunning, crafty tricksters,
who betray their exalted trust, and barter away the
most sacred principles of a confiding people. | They
are traitors to the republican form of government, '
and clamor for the gold standard to pile up collossal
fortunes, notwithstanding it is the prop of a mon-
archy, and leads to a centralized government of
force, resting on a standing army.
_ Nothing can be permanent based on a sham. Our
banking system is based on debt, while debt and in-
terest mean bankruptcy and the transfer of labor
and property, without an equivalent.
To illustrate, I cite the following as only one of
hundreds that took place in the years 1863 and
1864: $10,000,000 of United States bonds were sold
in New York in 1863 when gold was $2.57 in green-
backs, which cost the bondholder in gold about $3,-
900,000; during the last fifteen years the interest
amounted in gold, when the bonds were called and
~ paid, to $9,900,000; and the principal, $10,000,000,
P
&
62 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
making a total of $19,900,000; subtract purchase
money, $3,900,000, and this leaves a net profit of
$16,000,000, 3
King Philip said he had ‘no faith in the patriot-
ism of any class of men who would be made to do
wrong for a jackass load of gold.” ‘To first impov-
erish and then enslave, has been the history of the
downfall of all republics. Do not imagine for a
moment that our languishing industries and low
price of agricultural commodities, is the lack of wis-
dom in legislation. Far from it. It is the work of
a well-organized conspiracy, well known and long
practiced in Europe, and forced upon this country
by long-headed foreign tricksters. We have already
paid the cost of the war in interest, the principal of
which is over double in amount to-day, considering
the price of labor and its commodities, as compar-
ed with what it was at the close of the war. A
statesman has said that were it not for the the ener-
gy and enterprise of the people and fertility of the
soil, American society would pine away beneath
the blighting influence of marasmus. If national
debt brought about by inflated paper currency was
ever settled upon a gold basis, history fails to re-
cord the fact,
Burke says: ‘It is to the life and property of the
citizens, and not to the demand of the creditor of the
state, that the original faith of society is pledged.
The claim of the citizen is prior in time, paramount
in title and supreme in equity.’ The bondholder
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 63
demonstrates why should a United States bond be
guaranteed against all loss by storm, pestilence,
war, and famine, exempt from taxation, principal
and interest payable in gold and for ever afterward
a lien upon everybody’s property.” Before the
shrinkage in values took place, the long-headed men
sold their property, invested it in bonds, moved into
the towns and cities of the country and commenced
clipping coupons, occasionally giving one to a gold-
basis editor, who shouts the delusion that a national
debt is a national blessing, the financial questions
are settled, and gold and greenbacks are par.
Political parties have their birth, growth and
maturity by first serving the people with fidelity on
the vital questions of the day. When they have ac-
complished their mission and become rich and pow-
erful, they boast of by-gone issues and fight battles
over where they have once won a victory, and use
their historic fame by appealing to the people for a
new lease of power to acquire private fortunes by
discriminating laws. No love or hate of old party
issues, no pride or prejudice born of old conflicts
should control your vote. New issues are upon us,
and new ideas and new votes must pave the way for
- industrial emancipation, and then comes the tan-
gible reality.”
64 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
CHAPTER IV.
GOVERNMENT LOANS TO THE PEOPLE.!
MAN SHALL EARN HIS BREAD BY THE SWEAT OF HIS
- BROW—INTEREST AND USURY—THE MOSAIC LAW—
THE POWER OF INTEREST—ILLUSTRATIONS—LOANS TO
THE PEOPLE A FEASIBLE PROJECT—THE GOVERNMENT
LOANS TO THE BANKERS—-LOANS TO THE PEOPLE AT A
-LOW RATE WOULD BE A BLESSING—-HOW THE FARM-
ERS WOULD SECURE PROSPERITY—MILLIONAIRES AND
PAUPERS ARE INCREASING—-REGULATION OF THE VOL-
UME OF MONEY—GARFIELD’S THEORY—TOTAL NA-
TIONAL DEBT—-HYPOCRITICAL POLITICIANS—USURY
NOTHING MORE THAN ROBBERY. ~
‘(Ir is a decree of heaven that every man shall
earn his bread by the sweat of his brow,” and no
man will deny that it is just and proper. Further-
more, it will not be disputed that every man has a
right to the product of his own labor. Under the
present order of things men do not get the benefit of
that which they produce, neither is it the practice
for all men to earn the bread they eat. The rule
1 By Hon.W. D. Vincent, L, A., 3797, K. of L.
FREDERICK TURNER,
General Treasurer, K. of &,
oe
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 67
now is, and has been, that the man who earns the
most gets the least, and he who earns the least gets
the most.
A careful study of the subject of interest will
convince any reasonable mind that it has been one
of the leading causes in brmging about this state of
affairs. Usury or interest upon money (which is
one and the same thing), has been condemned by the
better class of thinking men in allages of the world
—God himself condemns it. ‘‘Thou shalt not lend
thy brother money uponusury.” It was strictly pro-
hibited by the Mosaic law; and for many years after
Christ established the new order of things, any per- ,
son in the church who was known to pursue or de-
fend the practice of usury was subject to expulsion.
It was prohibited because it was wrong. If it
was wrong then it is wrong now. From no process
of reasoning can we conclude that it is any nearer
right now, than it was when Christ drove the money
changers out of the temple.
Every state in the union has enacted laws against
the taking of interest above a certain per centage.
True, these laws are not enforced, but the fact that
they remain on the statute books is proof that the
law-makers themselves: know that high rates of in-
terest are bad for the people. It is impossible for
anyone who has the welfare of his country at heart
to uphold a system that will enable men to exact
_high rates of interest. On the other hand, it is
equally unjust to oppose any reform that would
68 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
lower the rate of interest. As before stated, the ex-
isting usury laws are not enforced, and under the
present system it is absolutely impossible to enforce
them.
The only way to form a proper idea of the power
of interest to absorb is to make our estimates for
long periods of time. Laws should be made, not
only in the interest of all the people and on the
principle of ‘‘the greatest good to the greatest num-
ber,” but they should be made for the people of
~ the next generation, as well as those who are now
living. e
We have no right to enact laws that will be de-
trimental to our children, or to oppose any measure
that will be beneficial to them. We have no right
to uphold customs which, even though they may
not materially affect us, will eventually make paup-
ers of a majority of our people. Three hundred
years is a very short time ir. the history of a nation,
yet if this government should give its note to-day
for one dollar due three hundred years from date, at
10 per cent compound interest, the debt at maturity
would be four times greater than the present assess-
ed valuation of all the property in the United
States.
The farmer mortgages his place to-day for $1,000
at 12 per cent compounded annually, and leaves
the debt for his grandson to pay one hundred years
after date. At the end of the time the young man
finds a debt of $84,675,000 on his hands. Ifthe
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 69
three generations have done well and worked hard,
the farm is worth $50,000. If sold, it will pay less
than one mill on the dollar.
One dollar put out at interest—2 per cent per
month compounded annually—if allowed to run one
hundred years would amount to the enormous sum
of $2,551,797,404. In silver -dollars this would
weigh 89,612 tons.
Two young men, James and John, start out in
life at the age of twenty-one, with $1,000 each.
James invests his money ina farm. At the endof
twenty-five years, if he has no bad luck—if drouth
and grasshoppers have not visited him too often,
and if he has been able to stem the tide of periodi-
cal panics, he is worth $40,000. He has accumula-
ted this by hard work and the strictest economy, to-
gether with the increase in the value of his farm.
John settles in town and establishes a ‘loan
agency.” He is very shrewd, and manages to keep
half his capital loaned out all the time at 2 per cent
per month, compounded every three months. At the
end of twenty-five years he is worth $170,000. He
has performed no labor except to drive a good bar-
gain when he could. James, the farmer, has worked
hard through heat and cold, from early morn till
late at night. He has been trying to keep up with
his friend John, and has not taken the time to read
_ good books and study finance. He has neglected
_the art of ‘addition, multiplication and silence.”
But he has produced something. He has helped
70 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
develop the country, and has added something to
the world’s wealth. Yet he is worth $130,000 less
than John the money loaner, who has done nothing
and added not one dollar to the resources of his
country.
Now we claim that this order of things should be
reversed. If any one has the advantage, it should
be the man who chooses to labor and build up the
country, and not the man who decides to do nothing
but accumulate the products of other men’s labor. One
of the greatest means for the accomplishment of this
end is, for the government to loan money, in limited
quantities, at a low rate of interest—the rate to be de-
termined after proper deliberation. I am awareofthe
prejudice that exists against new ideas, and the pro-
position for the government to loan money to poor
people, is a new idea. The proposition has never
been. thought of, or agitated by the people to any
extent. This will be one of the arguments used by
our opponents. They will tell us that it is an ex-
periment. ;
I answer that government control of the postal
system was once a new thing, and an experiment.
Is that any reason why it should not be
adopted? It is an admitted fact that the people de-
rive more benefits from the postal service, as admin-
istered by the government, than from any other
service of a public nature, as compared to the cost.
And it will not be denied that if this system were
operated by private individuals and corporations, it
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 71
would be made a means of oppression and extortion,
equal to that which is now carried on by railroad,
telegraph, standard oj1 and moneyed monopolies.
Every function that is now performed by the govern-
ment, was once performed by individuals, and that
unfortunate state of affairs would exist to-day, but
for experiments and new ideas. Government itself
‘ was anew idea. Republican form of government
is an experiment to-day, and yet I dare say the
people do not wish it to be abandoned. The
threshing machine, the printing press, the rail-
road, the telegraph and the telephone are among
the fruitful effects of experiments and new ideas.
This is an age of progression, and none but the anti-
quated ‘‘fogy” will adhere to old opinions because
they are old, or oppose new ones because they are
new.
Our government has been in the loan business
for almost a quarter of a century. For twenty-three
years it has loaned out to national bankers over
$300,000,000 at one per cent a year. Instead of
loaning it out to poor men who needed it most, it
has been loaning to a wealthy class who have need-
ed it least. During all this time while all these rich
men have been borrowing at one per cent they have
been loaning the same money to their poor neigh-
bors at from 12 to 24 per cent. This is a fact so
well known and an injustice so glaring, that no ar-
gument is necessary to demonstrate its truth or evil
effects. The system under which this outrage is
%
72 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
permitted is so contemptibly wicked, that I dare say
that its defense will not be undertaken.
It is a self-evident fact that if the banker gets
money of the government at one per cent, the farm-
er ought to get it at the same rate, if he can furnish
as good security. No one can possibly deny this,
unless he takes the position that our government
should be run in the interest of the rich at the ex- _
pense of the poor. On the contrary, I claim that
the government should loan only to the poor. The
rich man can take care of himself. But, if he can-
not, if he finds this life too great a burden because
of his riches, let him follow the Bible injunction, and
give what he has to the poor. |
What harm can possibly arise from government
loans? Suppose the people get the money at three
per cent interest. One per cent to go the county,
in which the loan is made; one per cent to the state,
and one per cent to the national government. In
this way the people as awhole, would get back every
dollar of interest paid by individuals. These sev-
eral governments—county, state and national—
would be benefited to the extent of every dollar of
interest paid. Whatever benefits the government,
under a just system of laws, benefits the people.
The men who are now loaning money from 12to
48,and a few as high as 60 per cent, would be com-
pelled to come down to 3 per cent, or go out
of business. The consequence would be _ that
most of them would quit the business, and
THE VOICE OF LABOR. te
take up some other calling. This of itself
would be a blessing. There are to-day thous-
ands of men who are making their living, ora
greater part of it, by loaning money. Many of them
do nothing else, and they are rapidly accumulating
wealth. These men are positively not doing one
thing toward developing the country. They are
not adding’ one dollar of wealth to it. They do not
even earn the salt that goes in the bread they eat,
They consume as much as the producer, or more,
but they pay for it with money that has been wrung
from the producer by an unjust system. These
men are living on the products of other men’s toil.
And yet we cannot blame these men. They are not
responsible for the system,and without a change we
could hardly get along without them. They are
not, as a rule, more selfish than other men. They
are virtually nothing but public paupers, but if the
people have no more judgment than to support
them, by keeping up the system, they should find
fault with no one but themselves. We are apt to
choose a calling which we think will bring us in the
greatest returns.
Every man in one sense of the word, is free to
choose for himself with this exception. No man
can go into the money-loaning business, if he has
no money. The man who is now loaning money
might have chosen to be a farmer, and the farmers
might have decided to loan money, but this does
not correct the evil. Itis no proof that men should
74. THE VOICE OF LABOR.
come into possession of that which they do not earn.
If by some means men were compelled to change
conditions—if those who are now poor should
become rich, and those who are now rich should be-
come poor, the fact would remain that one class of
society would be getting the benefit. of the hard _
earnings of another class. The injustice and hard-
ships would be just as great.
That we all have equal chances is the lan-
guage of the professional gambler. This he
offers as consolation to his poor victim, and the
deluded wretch will go off and repeat it. And
while we often find the men who are suffering most
from the curse of usury defending it, yet the
fact remains that it is a curse. John Brown was
the best friend the African slaves ever had, and yet
they were among the first to resist him when he
sought to free them. Verily, ignorance and preju-
dice cover more sins than charity.
We expect to hear from the opponents of this
measure a great deal of talk about ‘‘an army of paid
clerks”—that the people do not need a guardian.
In the absence of argument they will offer for your
consideration a long list of high sounding words and
phrases. Ridicule will doubtless be resorted to,
as that is one of the means used in fighting every
just measure. When a lawyer has a weak case he
invariably resorts to ridicule or abuse, and sometimes
both. If they are consistent they will tell you that
it is not the government’s business to look after the
THE VOICE OF LABOR. mays
people—that ‘we are not our brothers keeper.” For-
getting that this language was used first by a mur-
derer who was trying to conceal his crime.
Who can estimate the benefit our country would
- derive in one hundred years time from this vast army
of men, if they were compelled to engage in some
useful occupation? If they could get but 3 per cent
for their money,they would prefer to invest in some
factory or other enterprise, for the employment of
labor. This would increase the demand and price
for labor. Their money would soon be in circula.
tion in the hands of the people, without their having
to pay one cent of interest. One or two men would
be able to do the work of these men, and in ashort
time the postmasters at the different county seats
would be able to do it in addition to their other du-
ties.
People would become so prosperous that few would
want to borrow, even at 3 per cent. The farmer who
is now paying these high rates of interest can lift
the mortgage on his place with 3 per cent money, and
gradually get out of debt. If it is expected that he
will ever get out of debt, by paying the present rate
of interest, it must be admitted that he can get out
sooner at a lower rate. It must also be admitted,
that the less interest money he is compelled to pay,
the more prosperous he is. His increased prosper-
ity enables him to pay—compels him to pay—an in-
creased price for labor. In this way the poor man
76 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
who has no property to put up as security, derives a
benefit from government loans.
The men whonow own their farms will be able to
keep them. They will not be compelled to sell them
to keep the sheriff from making a sale. How many
of the men who owned farms fifteen years ago own
them now? I venture to say not more than one in
twenty. What has become of the other nineteen?
Most of them were compelled to sell out. OldShy-
lock had a death grip on them. They have gone fur-
ther west where land is cheaper.
In a few years from now, many more of our far-
mers will have to travel the same road. In factthey
are traveling that road to-day. We are told that this
is a benefit to our country. That wealthier men are
taking the places of the poor ones,who are moving
away. This is true, but it only proves that poor men
are being crowded tothe wall for the benefit of those
with greater capital. But this isnot a matter of such
serious consequence so long as there is plenty of va-
eant lands. But «‘Uncle Sam” will not always be
rich enough to give usall a farm.
_ When the government land is all occupied, which
can only be a few years at the longest, and
these poor wretches are no longer able to find cheap
lands, what will be the result? They will become
tenants, subject in time to eviction and all the at-
tendant evils of a British landlord system. But we
are told the American people will never submit to
it. They would have been compelled to submit to it,
THE VOICE OF LABOR. EE
ere this had it not been for our boundless resources,
and unlimited area of public land.
Our country has prospered. Indeed it has. Our
resources and natural advantages are greater than
those of any other nation on earth. America is still
the best country in the world and, as good patriot-
ic citizens, we should strive to keep it so. We have
prospered in spite of bad laws and wicked systems,
but not because of them. We even prospered in
spite of African slavery, but that prosperity was not
due to slavery. Neither is our present prosperity
due to the usury system. While our material wealth
has increased at a wonderful rate, it has been, and
is being now, concentrated in a few men’s hands.
Millionaires and paupers are also increasing. There
must naturally follow hundreds of paupers for every
millionaire.
“There are two things,” says Socrates, ‘+ which
the magistrates of Athens will be careful to keep
out of our city—opulence and poverty. Opulence
because it engenders effeminacy; poverty because
it produces baseness; both because they lead to re-
volution.” .
It has well been said that these two evils go hand
in hand. One cannot exist without the other. They
are the two extremes of one evil.
Another consideration of government loans will
be the regulation of the volume of money. As
the law now stands, the bankers can expand or con-
tract the volume of money to almost any extent. It
78 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
was only a few years ago—1878—that they gave us
an illustration of their power, withdrawing $19,000,-
000 from circulation in a few weeks’ time,almost
producing a panic, and compelling the president of
the United States to veto a law of congress.
About that time, the bank journals of the east op-
enly boasted that the banks, by concerted action,
could in a short time defeat any measure of con-
gress that was detrimental to theirinterests. We all
know the effect of contraction and expansion of the
volume of money. The price of every day’s labor,
and every bushel of grain, is regulated by it. By
this means the bankers have it in their power to
make low prices or high prices, and they never fail
to use this power in their own interests. Ina speech
in congress, Garfield said, ‘‘ Whoever controls the
volume of our currency isabsolute master of the in-
dustries and commerce of the country.”
With government loans, under proper regulations,
this power would be taken out of the hands of the
bankers and placed in the hands of the people.
It may be said that if it is wrong for individuals
to loan money, it is wrong for the government. But
this is not true. The government may properly—
and must necessarily—do many things which would
be improper for individuals to do. The government
makes money, but if the individual undertakes it,
although he may use the same material and make a
perfect imitation, he is sentenced to state’s prison.
AN,
LITCHM
CHARLES H,
of L
General Seeretary, K
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 81
Then again, the people as a whole, get every dollar
of money derived from government loans.
Under the present system a favored class get it.
In the one case the people get the benefit; in the
other, a few rich speculators derive all the benefits at
the expense of the poorest class in the community.
We have only to choose between these two classes.
Which shall be rewarded, the poor laborer or the
wealthy idler?
It is often said that men have the same right to
receive pay for the use of money, that they have to
receive pay for the use of a horse. Again there is a
difference. Money isnot onlya public necessity but it
is amedium of exchange, an implement of trade and,
in one sense, a measure of values. It is the only le.
gal tender for the payment of debts. To be in debt
is to be a slave, and he who controls the one thing
that can legally cancel a debt is the master. And
as Mr. Garfield has said, is absolute dictator over our
industries and commerce.
We have already seen how the wealthy
the way, one of the most ‘‘dangerous classes” —may
control it by means of usury. One dollar, or even
one cent, placed at the lowest possible rate of inter-
est, if allowed to run long enough, will absorb every
dollar in the world. This fact of itself, is proof that
usury should be prohibited. It is possible with the
aid of a few other wicked customs and laws, for a
few men to own every dollar in the United States.
and by
89 THE VOICR OF LABOR.
These means have been used to a greater extent than
war, to bring about the conquest of nations.
It is estimated that the total amount of indebted-
ness, both public and private, in the United States,
is about twenty billion dollars. Every dollar of this
is drawing interest, and every dollar of this interest —
is paid by labor. There comes a time every few
years when the interest falling due on this enormous
debt, amounts to more than every dollar in circula-
tion. The result is a financial crisis—a panic.
Sometimes it is temporarily postponed, but it is just
as sure to come, as effect follows cause.
The men who control the currency-—the one thing
with which this interest can be paid—will not let it
out. They draw it in as fast as possible to hoard it
up. The law gives them this power and they use it.
They make money by it, and that is what this class
of.men live for. It is their sole object in life—the
summit of their ambition.
They demand the pound of flesh and get it, but
they laugh in their sleeves to think that their poor
victims have not the manhood, patriotism—not even
the good sense, to resist it. Men are thrown out of
employment. Prices go down. Money is hard to
get. Men are compelled to part with their property
for less than it is worth—even less than it cost. Paup-
ers, tramps and criminals increase. Law-suits and
other calamities which naturally follow in the wake
of hard times, come in their order.
Hypocritical politicians, claiming to be statesmen,
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 83
have educated the people to believe that a panic once
in eight or ten years, ‘is a necessary consequence of
good government. Sensible people absolutely enter-
tain this foolish notion. Some of them believe this
from the same reason that they hold on to many
other absurd opinions regarding finance—because
their fathers before them believed it. The thought
never enters their minds, that they are the result of
the manipulations of selfish and designing men.
There is another difference between the hire of a
horse, and the hire of money. The horse must be fed
and attended. This is not necessary with money. —
The horse will wear out; money will not. The horse
will grow old; money will not. Money is just as
valuable as it was before. The horse is not. The
argument which applies to one, does not apply to the
other.
Our opponents will tell you that if all the wealth
of the world was divided equally among men, it
would not be long before a few men would again
have it all. This is an ‘‘old song,” and some men
have repeated it so often they really believe there is
argument in it. We admit that this would be the
result, if the cause is not removed. The same cause
will invariably produce the same effect. Abolish
usury, and other wicked systems, and the result will
be different. This is what every just man should
_ try to do—remove the cause.
We admit that some men will grow rizh faster
‘than others under a perfect system of laws. The
84 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
man who is more industrious than his indolent neigh-
bor ought to receive more pay; but let us bear in
mind that there is a difference between the industri-
ous man and a miser. The man who hoards his
wealth, and whose whole object in life is the accu-
mulation of wealth, is a ten times greater curse to
society than the indolent man.
There is another class of men who will always
grow rich faster than their neighbors—the sharp un-
principled men. Because nature has given them
the advantage of their fellows is no reason why the
laws should step in and give them still greater ad-
vantages. These are the strong men. They need
no special legislation in their behalf. The object of.
law is supposed to be the protection of the weak
against the oppressions of the strong. Blackstone
defines law as ‘‘a rule of action, etc., commanding
that which is right and prohibiting that which is
wrong.” Any law for the effectual abolition of
usury will be a means of enforcing this principle.
But it is not asked that there shall be a division
of property. We would not have one dollar of Shy-
lock’s ill-gotten gains taken from him. We only ask
that he be restrained from further robbery. Com-
munism in any form is bad, but that particular form
which takes from all and gives to all, is certainly no
worse than that which takes from the many and
gives to the few.
There is but one just rule to govern in this mat-
ter, and that is this: That every person should re-
THE VOICE OF LABOR. $5
ceive and enjoy the full value of the product of his
own industry. This is impossible under the present
system, as has been demonstrated. If it be true that
every man has a right to the product of his own la-
bor, it is equally certain that no other man has a
right toit. Itisan undisputed fact that men do get
more, and they get it by the practice of usury. If
there is any way except through government loans
to cut off this practice, it has been beyond the wis-
dom and intelligence of man to discover it.
86 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
CHAPTER V.
THE NATIONAL BANKING SYSTEM.;
THE MONETARY CHANGE DEMANDED BY WORKINGMEN—
AIM OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR—SOULLESS CORPORA-
TIONS HAVE NO PITY—ATTITUDE OF BANKING COR-
PORATIONS—‘‘ SPECIE BASIS ”—‘‘ INTRINSIC VALUE”
—‘‘HONEST MONEY ’’—MONEY IN ANCIENT AGES—
IRON, BRASS, TIN, CLOTH, LEATHER AND WOODEN
MONEY—-GREAT FINANCIERS ON METALIC MONEY—
HOW THE NATIONAL BANKS ABSORB THE NATION’S
WEALTH—DEBT THEIR FOUNDATION—HOW THE BANKE-
ERS SECURE DOUBLE INTEREST—ENORMOUS SUMS OF
MONEY WITHDRAWN FROM JUST TAXATION—THE IM-
MENSE EARNINGS OF THE INDIANAPOLIS NATIONAL
_BANK—WHAT WORKINGMEN SHOULD HAVE.
‘Tur Knights of Labor demand at the hands of
congress a change of the present monetary system,
whereby money shall issue directly to the people,
and that all of the national money shall be legal
tender for all debts. No other clause in their plat-
form is so far-reaching in its influence, or one that
1 By J. W. Gaul. S. W.F., L. A,, 2691, K. of L.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 87
more nearly touches the vital interests of the people.
Of one thing we may rest assured, that so long
as the financial legislation of the country is left to
be controlled by a class whose interests lie in the
direction of increasing and perpetuating the indebt-
edness of the country, as may best suit their own
purposes, so long as that class retains the control,
they will continue to wield it for their own aggran-
dizement, utterly regardless of the periodically re-
turning panics that sweep over the land like cy- |
clones, leaving ruin and desolation in their track,
and just so long will the toiling millions of our
brothers be deprived of the full, just fruits of their
’ labor, and remain the veriest dependents, the ‘‘hew-
ers of wood and drawers of water” for soulless cor-
porations that have no heart and no pity.
The necessities of the people are their opportuni-
ties. The greater their extremities, the more inflex-
ible are they in their demands. Those who control
the money of a country contro] all else that it
contains, and recognition of that fact, on their part,
is sufficient explanation of the stubborn fight they
make to retain it. To-day we are confronted with
just such a spectacle. .
In this boasted ‘land of the free,’ a moneyed ob-
ligarchy, composed of some 2,400 national banks,
boldly and openly assume it as their right to dictate
as to the volume of our currency, the nature of the.
material that shall compose it, and the source from
‘which it shall be issued. They deny the right and
88 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
power of the people to supply themselves through
the agency of the government: deny that the law
can create money, except its material be gold, or
such other metal as their unscrupulous greed may
determine. As one means of perpetuating their
power they strive to surround the whole subject with
mystery by the use of terms invented to blind and
mislead, thus making fraud and rascality less easily
understood. They have succeeded to a most la-
menrtable extent in deceiving the producing millions,
whilst they themselves are not. deceived.
‘«‘Specie basis,” ‘Intrinsic value,” and ‘« Honest
money” have been dinned into ourears unremitting-
ly, and industry lies prostrate, millions starve, ruin
stalks through the land, crime increases, strikes and
riots prevail and blood is shed—all this while ‘‘great
financiers” and ‘‘ wise statesmen” quibble about a
few grains more or less of gold or silver to the dol- -
lar.
Let us turn to the pages of history and see if,
from the practice and experience of the past, we
cannot learn some lessons that will serve to expose
the falsity of the ideas they have so assiduous-
ly instilled into the public mind. Centuries before
Christ, money was found to be necessary. The Jews
used many forms, substances or materials for money.
For a long time they held it by weight, considering
the stamp of no value. They did not seem to have
‘ any confidence in any form of government they
could adopt, or in its durability, nor did- they
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 89
have confidence in themselves sufficient to take each
others notes or obligations without collaterals.
They demanded property for property, taking noth-
ing on credit except accompanied with a bond which
would hold the debtor in slavery, even to death, for
the benefit of the creditors. Services were paid for
in female children, in cattle, sheep or asses.
For a long time cattle were held as ready money
by the ancient Romans and Grecians, and were de-
clared a legal tender for the payment of debts. In
Rome seven hundred years before Christ, by edict
of Pompilius, the legal tender money was made of
two materials, wood and leather. The leather was
the most valuable, while small pieces of wood, re-
sembling button moulds, constituted the small
change.
Pompilius refused to place his stamp, by which
money was created, upon gold and silver, consider-
ing them too expensive to be used for such a pur-
pose. He established a treasury department and
gave his chief officer of finance the right to fix the
stamp of the emperor upon pieces of white leather,
and burn it upon circular pieces of the hardest vari-
ety of wood that could be obtainec. Both kinds
were legal tender for all debts. It was given by
the king to all who served him, or furnished proper-
ty. The man receiving it could pay it to the man
he was indebted to, and by law it settled the debt.
Thus it passed from hand to hand, until it came,
through the tax collector, back into the treasury,
90 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
when it was again paid out, and after due time again
taken in. This was the money of Pompilius during
his reign.
Had he been as wise as our modern financiers,
and as anxious for the interests of the people, when
the wooden and leather money had reached the
treasury, he would have refused to re-issue it, but
would have ‘contracted the circulation” by de-
stroying it, and have given to the holders interest
bearing non-taxable bonds. He was not far-seeing
enough to appreciate the blessing he would have
conferred upon the people and their posterity, by
plunging them into debt. He was woefully blind
to the great truth—‘+ A national debt is a national
blessing.”
Had the kingdom of Pompilius been a republic,
intended to endure forever, with no break in the
law or power, with the people electing the presi-
dents and the successors to administer the one di-
rect, non-elastic law, there would have been no de-
mand for othermoney, because property of all kinds
could be accumulated with money made of wood
and leather, as well as upon money made of gold
or silver.
The national banks deny the power of this sover-
eign government of the people to create money of
paper. They persistently refuse to recognize the
greenback as absolute money, but name it as a
debt to be paid in gold. They insist that money
must have ‘intrinsic value” in its material, and that
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 91
‘intrinsic value” makes it money, and not the
stamp, decree, edict, or, if you please, the ‘ fiat”
of the law. What made the wood and leather ef
tome, money—‘‘ intrinsic value?” No, it was the
edict, the “fiat” of Pompilius, as expressed and cer-
tified by the stamp of the royal seal, affixed thereon
by his decree.
Woe would have been to the traitor who had dared
to deny it. With it the commerce of Rome was
carried on, her armies were equipped and maintain-
ed, her public buildings were erected, her internal
improvements achieved; with it her children were
educated, and all her citizens fed, housed and cloth-
ed. With money of wood and leather, Rome pros-
pered, and pursued steadily her onward march to
imperial greatness.
The first sixty millions of treasury notes issued
by the government of this country, were legal ten-
der at their face value, for all debts without an ex-
ception, and never for one hour, from the date of
issue to the present time have they been less valua-
ble than gold, but actually commanded a premium
over gold on account of their greater convenience.
The bankers recognize that fact,.and acknowledged
them to be money, in the fullest sense of the term,
by the very haste they made to obtain possession of,
and hold them, and the frantic clamor they raised
to prevent further issue of the same kind. Like
Demetrius, the silversmith, they perceived their
-eraft was in danger.
99 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
The Carthagenians, for several generations used
leather money, until there was such an abundance
of gold and silver among the people that they did
not know what to do with it, and so used it under
the stamp of government as money. How was‘it
that their ‘‘*cheap” leather money did not drive
all the gold and silver away? That is what our ‘fi-
nanciers,” with owl-like gravity, say would be the
effect of our issuing ‘‘ cheap” paper money.
In 1158, Frederick Barbarossa, during his con-
test with Milan, carried on war and afterwards the
industries of peace, with leather legal tender money.
During this period gold was demonetized; was sim-
ply property. King Johnof France, in 1360, issu-
ed an immense quantity of leather money. William
I, of Sicily, during periods of time between 1154
and 1156 compelled the Sicilians to surrender their
gold and silver and receive in exchange leather
money, which was not redeemable in gold or silver,
but possessed of full legal tender power. This broke
up the gold ring of that country and gave the peo-
ple a respite from usurers, so they became prosper-
‘ous. The continued issue of them would have an-
nihilated the gold ring here, and have forever eman-
cipated labor from its burdensome and infamous
exactions.
Spain and Italy used leather money as late as
1574. China, in the thirteenth century, used the
middle bark of the mulberry tree stamped with a
mark representing the signature of the sovereign
HON. W. D. VINCENT.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 95
who issued it. It was death to counterfeit or refuse
it. In 1574 the Hollanders used pasteboard. In
1635 the colonists of Massachusetts used wampum,
as full legal tender, and musket balls as small change
at a farthing each, and legal tender in sums under
one shilling. Slaves, land, iron, bronze, brass, tin,
pieces of cloth, and numerous other things have
been used as money, at various times and places.
- All served as, and were, money just as long as the
law declared they should be legal tender for all
debts.
The republic of Venice for over four hundred
years issued paper as its sole currency. It passed
the world over, and commanded a premium of twen-
ty-eight per cent over the money of any other coun-
try, never for one moment depreciating. Venice
received it, as she issued it, for all dues. History
through all the centuries past, brands as false the
wilful statements and juggling sophistries used in -
behalf of ‘intrinsic value’ money, and conclusively
proves that money is an absolute creation of the
law, and ‘‘fiat” alone is the power that confers full
debt paying quality. ’
Charles Moran, a distinguished French writer on
political economy, says: ‘‘ Metalic money whilst
acting as coin is identical with paper money in
respect to being destitute of intrinsic value. Ccin,
so long as it circulates for the purpose of buying
and selling, for the time loses its intrinsie value. As
commodities, gold and silver are capital, bret as
96 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
money they are mere representatives of value.” Of
paper money, he says: ‘‘The simplest and most
perfect form of currency is that which represents
transferable debt—paper money with no intrinsic
value. It is only when states have reached a high
state of civilization that they adopt this perfect sort
of money.”
Such men as Baron Rothschild, Fanchette, Isaac
Buchanan, A. H. Gaston, Franklin, Jefferson, Wil-
liam H. Harrison, Daniel Webster, and Buckles’
History of English Commerce, might be quoted as ~
to the effects of contraction, the unsuitability of a
metalic currency, the power of the government to
issue paper currency, etc.
In speaking against the proposition to establish a
United States national bank, Henry Clay said: «I
conceive the establishment of this bank as danger-
ous to the welfare and safety of this republic.”
‘Specie basis,” is another bugbear flaunted be-
fore us. Let us see what it amounts to. Bonamy
Price, the English economist, says that the business
of England is done with ninety-seven per cent bank
checks, drafts, bills of exchange and notes; two and
one-half per cent with paper currency, and fifty cents
gold to every one hundred dollars of the aggregate
business transactions. The same holds good in this
country, yet our bankers speak of ‘specie basis,”
and affect a horror of inflation of cheap paper in
face of those facts. | |
The interest of money loaners and banking syn-
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 97
dicates is to have money scarce; to have it of mate-
rial the most costly possible: and if by any means
it is likely to become otherwise, they will immedi-
ately exert every effort to have it substituted with
another kind. A strenuous effort is being made to
suspend coinage of silver, in short, to drive it out
of our monetary system. The mono-metalists insist
that its presence there is dangerous to the business
interests of the country, and that a wise regard for
the preservation of those interests, and of course the
prosperity of labor, demands that it be practically
-demonetized. Hundreds of thousands of poor
dupes swallow the bait, and believe in the sincerity
of their motives.
Baron Rothschild understands finance quite as
well as our financiers, and says: ‘*The suppression
(demonetization) of silver would amount to a veri-
table destruction of values without any compensa-
tion.” M. Wolowski, a European financier, says: @
“If by a stroke of the pen, they suppress one of
their metals (gold or silver) in the monetary service,
they double the demand for the other metal, to the
ruin of all debtors.” The truth of these statements
is self-evident. President Harrison, in his inaugu-
ral speech, made the following remark: ‘If there
be one measure better calculated than another to
produce that state of things where the rich are daily
_ getting richer, and the poor are daily getting poorer,
it is a metalic currency.”
‘What is this national banking system? Its foun-
98 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
dation is the interest bearing, bonded indebtedness
of the people, and upon the perpetuation of that
debt its existence depends. The full legal tender
power was taken from the treasury notes; they are
not received for custom dues, or interest on the pub-
lic debt, and they must be paid in gold. A law was
passed to authorize the issuing of bonds, bearing in-
terest, into which we can convert, or by which we
can redeem the greenbacks.
The foundation was now laid for a perpetual debt,
to be saddled upon industry and serve as a basis for
the banking system. Congress authorized the es-
tablishment of a national system of banking upon
the basis ot depositing the bonds with the United
States treasurer, as security for our circulation: the
bonds thus deposited to continue drawing interest,
and to be exempt from all taxation. Let us turn our attention for a moment, to one of
the avenues of public distribution from which the
government has served private ownership. Refer-
ence is made to the postal service. During all the,
time the government has operated the mail routes,
we never hear of postoffices combining to harangue
the people ’in political contests, except the mere
clamor for office. We never hear of a postoffice
lobby in Washington. We never hear of the post-
offices charging more for a ‘short haul” than fora
‘long haul.” We never hear of the postoftices wa-
tering stocks. We never hear of them discriminat-
ing against localities. We never hear of them send-
ing abroad for the paupers of the old world to take
the place of free labor. We never hear of them
spending millions of dollars per year, to subsidize
the press and deceive the people.
And nowcomes the question: Is the transmission
of human intelligence upon paper, any more the
duty of government than the transmission of life
and property @ | »
Is human thought more sacred when inscribed up-
on paper,than when upon the electric wires it flash.
es across the continent in the twinkling of an
eye.
€
110 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
During all the timethe government has operated
the postal service you never heard of the em-
ployes of that department going on a strike. On
the other hand yor never heard the people com-
plain of excessive rates or extortionate charges in
the transmission of the mails. But how different
is the feeling and the situation,when applied to the
railroads, the telegraphs and the telephones, every-
thing is confusion and dissatisfaction. While the
employes are striking for increased wages, the peo-
ple are threatening confiscation, or a return to the
old stage coach system, as a possible refuge from
the grasp of monopoly.
Nowhere is there a single instance where the gov
ernment has succeeded in controlling a public in-
stitution in the interests of the people while it em-
braced private ownership.
This government started out in life on the basis
that a white man could have ownership in the flesh
and blood of a black man, and all that was necessa-
ry was to control it by law, but that evil corrupted
législation, and defied the will of the people, until it
costs millions of lives and _ billions of treasury to
subdue it.
In 1791 our gevernment started a bank with $10,-
000,000 capital. Four-fifths of it was private prop-
erty, and it nearly choked the life out of the gov-
ernment. It had to be abolished to save our free
institutions.
In 1816 our law makers were induced to try the
THE VOICE OF LABOR. seat
experiment-again, and another bank was establish-
ed with $35,000,000 capital, four-fifths of which
was private property, but it darkened American
freedom and became so oppressive that in 1832,
Jackson had to put his foot on the neck of the mon-
ster and crush the life out of it. Then that func-
tion of the government was turned over to state
banks, and they nearly bankrupted the nation.
The national banks of to-day have become so
haughty and powerful, that they can grasp the arm
of the president of the United States, as they did a
few years ago, and compel him to veto a bill which
was passed in the interest of the people. But what
has all this to do with the operation of the railroads,
or the telegraph and telephones. It shows the weak-
ness of the law and the power of corporations, and
the dangers which threaten the liberties of the peo-
ple,when private interests are combined with public
institutions. Our government has gone further than
the mere attempt to control a railroad. A few years
ago our government formed the acquaintance of a
railroad magnate and his company, and the govern-
ment gave them a strip of land forty miles wide,
extending from the Missouri river to the Pacific
coast, then the government loaned them $16,000 on
every mile of road they built. Then the govern-
ment released the lands and bonds from taxation.
Yet, with all this publie charity, that railroad has
‘become a robber of the people and an oppressor of
the poor. Not only that, but they nearly annihilat-
ey THE VOICE OF LABOR.
ed the government’s claim, by slipping a first mort-
gage under it, and for years they have refused to pay
even the interest on the loan the government, gave
them, and to-day more than $50,000,000 of interest
remains unpaid.
Their last great act of charity that came under my
personal notice, was when the leading officers crossed
this country in their gold mounted cars, and drank
their fine wines and whisky under the dazzling ban-
ners which bore the motto of ‘‘Victory.” Under
the present administration, we have a railroad law
that the angels in Heaven cannot tell what it means,
and we have five railroad lawyers to execute that
law.
Give us statesmen who have the honor, and the
will, to spurn the flattery of these corporations, and
can damn their devilish treachery without flinch-
ing. |
For many years past it has been the custom of
the people to donate large sums to aid in the con-
struction of railroads. In many localities the people
have taxed themselves poor for this very purpose.
Millions upon millions of dollars have gone into the
pockets of railroad companies from this source. But
no sooner did the railroad companies receive these
donations, than they rated them with their own cap-
ital stock, and as soon as the roads were in running
order the people were forced to pay dividends on
their own donations. It is not just that a man who
donates $100 to aid in the construction of a railroad
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 113
to-day, shall be assessed to pay a dividend on that
same $100 to-morrow, and when he is dead and gone,
his children to be assessed on their father’s charity.
But what is worse, the railroads no sooner get the $100
you donate them, than they water it 100 per cent, and
assess you to pay a dividend on $200,when you only
donated $100. '
It is, therefore, clear to every investigating mind
that there are scores of evils growing out of the
present mode of operating the public agencies of
distribution, which cannot be remedied except the
people take them in their own hands.
_ The best results the people can hope for, under
any attempt to control by lawthe agencies of trans-
portation without government ownership, is that
they will be put on the same commercial basis with
mining, manufacturing, agriculture and other indus-
tries. Put the telegraphs, telephones and railroads
under such restrictions only, and the same tenden-
ciestowards centralization from which we suffer to-
day will still continue. And why? Simply because
these agencies are public institutions—they are of
such a character that sixty millions of people are
by force of circumstances compelled to patronize
them, and they are owned and controlled by the few.
Thus we have every element of concentration. Give
aman the exclusive ownership of the postal system,
and place it on the same remunerative basis
with other industries, and in less than titty years he
will own nine-tenths of the wealth of the nation,
114 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
and nine-tenths of the people will be his servants
and he will be their master. Private gain must
not be the motive for operating a public institution.
For so surely as it is, will Daniel Webster’s great
warning be realized, ‘‘ Liberty cannot long endure
in any country where the tendency of legislation is
to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few.”
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 115
CHAPTER VII.
“OVERPRODUCTION.”
THERE CAN BE NO OVERPRODUCTION WHEN MONEY IS
PLENTY—SCARCITY OF MONEY PRODUCES STRIKES AND
RIOTS—-WHY MONEY IS WITHDRAWN .FROM CIRCULA-
TON—LINCOLN’S WARNING IN 1861—ovVERPRODUCT-
ION DOES NOT STARVE CHILDREN—INTEREST ON BONDS
A GREAT VAMPIRE TO THE NATION—BONDS TAXED IN
ENGLAND AND FRANCE—GEN. WEAVER ON TAXATION
—THE INTER-STATE COMMERCE LAW—REPORT OF THE
SILVER COMMISSIONERS — PLAIN FACTS — SHOWING
MADE BY UNITED STATES TREASURER IN 1887 OF THE
NATIONS MONEY—IDLE CAPITAL MAKES IDLE MA-
CHINERY AND THE WORKINGMAN SUFFERS.
Tue cry that ‘overproduction produces: these
hard times,” is a farce. There would be no over-
production of cereals, clothing or any other com-
modity, if we had a sufficient amount of money in
circulation. If men are on the verge of starvation
—half-paid and large families to keep, how can
1 By Hon. William Baker
re gd EME OW abe OY, Mn ace ee a beers pa a se SP BN IY So eA a ac
116 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
they get the money to buy a sufficient amount of
clothing? If clothing, cereals and produce are’
not bought for the want of money among the labor-
ing class, then overproduction must follow.
With wages hardly enough to support families
and nothing to buy clothing, manufactures must
stop, or if they run on half-time and at reduced
wages, then dissatisfaction is followed by strikes
and riots. If laborers get good wages they are gen-
erous with the distribution of their money. Instead
of mending up old garments they get new. There
never was ‘‘overproduction” with plenty of money
in circulation. Not more than one-third of the mon-
ey in the country is in’ circulation. Over five hun-
dred million dollars are locked up in the United States
treasury, the rest is in the banks, and in the vaults
of insurance companies, to loan at usurious rates.
When money is scarce, interest increases—when
plenty, it decreases. As long as men can loan their
money at frofn 6 to 10 per cent, they will hoard
their money to loan.
If a law was passed, allowing only four per
cent interest, money would leave its hiding
places. It would invest in realty, manufac-
tures and other channels of trade, wages would
go up, and the busy hum of industry would
be heard throughout the republic. Nothing pays
as well as money at a high rate of interest.
The capitalists know this, and do all they can to
cramp the money market so as to create a higher
THE VOICE OF LABOR. BLY.
rate of interest. If farmers borrow money at over
five per cent it will eat them up, as farming as a
rule will not pay over three per cent. Muchis said
about paying the national debt. The debt cannot
be paid under the present national banking sys-
tem.
Let the government cease to issue any more bonds
to the banks, issue none but legal tender money.
Call in the National Banks’ money as soon. as their
charters lapse, reduce by law the rate of interest to
four per cent, keep the circulation up to fifty dol-
lars per capita. Do this, and panics will be un-
known—strikes a thing of the past, and prosperity
and contentment will cease only with the Republic.
Venice had one hundred dollars per capita, and
for six hundred years down to the time that
Napoleon crossed her Lagoon, and destroyed a
republic which had kept the civilized world at bay
for thirteen hundred years, she never had a failure.
England with her irredeemable currency and a large
~ per capita circulation, during her Napoleonic war
of eighteen years, enjoyed a prosperity she never
had before or since. Failures were unknown, the
hum of industries was heard throughout the day,
and the midnight sky was brightened by the glow of
hot furnaces. ‘Each day a link is forged in the
change which makes labor subservient to cap-
ital.” |
Abraham Lincoln in 1861 warned the people to
watch, lest capital be put above labor. He said:
118 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
‘‘T bid the laboring people beware of surrendering
a power which they already possess, and which sur-
rendered will surely be used to close the doors of
advancement to such as they, and fix new disabilities
and burdens upon them until all liberty is lost.”
We must be on our guard. We hear the muffled
sounds of discontent. We had better heed the warn-
ing voice of Lincoln, and not stand like abject slaves
and tremble before the marble face of power.
The laboring class are battling for their rights.
‘Tt is billions of money against millions of men.”
The people must settle their difficulties through the
ballot, not by the bayonet, and their strikes by arbi-
tration, not by riots. Unity of action is indispensa-
ble to success. Let not cunning Catilines mislead
you. Select those whom you can trust to defend
your cause. Rare scholastic attainments and brilli-
ancy of mind are not required. Good judgment, and
a clear perception of right and wrong, is a better
equipment for a public officer than eloquence or
polished manners. No nation can prosper with our
limited circulation, cornered as it is by demagogues,
to raise the interest, cramp the people, and to sell
their homes.
We want no more such scenes as red flags in the
sheriff’s hands, as pitiless for humanity as the black
flags of the pirates. We want no more to see chil-
dren driven from their homes, with bony hands ex-
tended heavenward, with sunken eyes, pallid
cheeks, but gnawed by the pangs of hunger, piteous-
Sa Og ee
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 119
ly exclaiming, ‘“‘We’ve got no home! Oh, God,
we've got no home!” We want, with the keys of
Justice, to unlock the coffers of the nation, by pay-
ing the bonds now almost due, that times may ease
and happy homes and comfort once more reign.
We must either have an income tax, so as to com-
pel the untaxed bondholders to help the poor liquid-
ate the enormous taxes, or pass a law not to allow
over four per cent. The capital which seeks hiding
places for the purpose of contracting the currency,
so as to increase the rate of interest, would then
pass into the channel of trade. If those in power
will not do that, then recall the bonds. We have
paid them over and over again.
Ina speech in 1870, delivered by Hon. Daniel
Voorhees, he said: ‘‘I think it safe to say, that up to
the present time the bondholders have realized in
bonds and interest, not less than $4,000,000, 000.
There is nothing parallel to it in the history of. con-
stitutional government. In what government, or land,
governed by written law, willthe explorer of other
countries find such a wholesale plunder of the people.
Where else, than in this land.of professed equality,
_has wealth ever committed a crime against industry
and liberty, of such huge proportions as towers up
in our midst, and darkens the homes of our people
with its cruel and unjust demands? The funding of
the bonds though the interest be lessened, will not
relieve labor of its oppressive taxation. The mort-
gage of the bondholder on all their homes and farms
-
120 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
will still continue. Their children, and their chil-
-dren’s children will be subject to the same undimin-
ished burdens. Interest, interest, with its frightful
accumulation will compel the tax payer to pay it
over and over again, and yet it will never be can-
celled. The principle of funding, established an in-
exhaustible mine of gold forthe bondholders, and
an eternity of hopeless toil for the people. On the
chancery side of the court, there is always relief to be
found against an extortionate transaction. This is
a well known principle between individuals. It will
hold good also in behalf of a whole people. They
_ have been imposed upon, and defrauded in the cre-
ation of the debt, and they may justly and without
breach of contract appeal to the greater equity of
the case. Do we live in the days of the Medes and
Persians, when it was an offense punishable with
death to repeal a law once enacted?”
In this land of boasted freedom, the moneyed pow-
er imposes laws upon the working class more unjust,
than those of France or England. Heath says: ‘¢In
both England and France, the government obliga-
tions are taxed pro rata with all other investments,
and have to bear their proportions of the public bur-
dens, while in America they are exempt from all
taxation, thus throwing their entire burden upon
those who reap no profit from them.” Is it not a
disgrace that such a law is not repealed? Is it any
wonder that the people are gppressed? Statistics
show that our mortgages aggregate $800,000,000,
SSS
so
SSS
SS
ee.
SSS
>
SSO
J. R. SOVEREIGN,
THE VOICE OF LABOR. eS
that the average interest is 8 per cent, which
per annum amounts to over six hundred million dol-
lars. :
General Weaver says ‘‘that we are in debt twenty
billions of dollars, out of say, six billions of dollars
of wealth, that the lowest average tax is 64 per cent,
and that on twenty billions of dollars,itis one billion
three hundred thousands of dollars of simple interest,
say nothing of compound interest, that the people
are paying on national, state, corporate, municipal
and private indebtedness, that the annual net in-
crease of wealth of this nation is scarcely 8 per cent,
but call it three, and that on sixteen billions of dol-
lars is one billion, eight hundred thousand dollars,
and you pay in usury alone, simple interest, one
billion, three hundred thousand dollars of it to
money loaners, then add interest, then extortionate
charges of railroads, then add the enormous rentals
paid by the laboring poor, and you find you haven’t
a farthing left to add to the wealth of this country
as a whole.”
There is another power weneed to fear besides the
banks and bonds, a power that by the stroke of the
pen can increase or decrease the price on every
thing we eat or wear. It is the railroads with their
power of wealth. To hushthe general cry on such
abuse which railroads have imposed, congress passed
an inter-state commerce law that would have raked
the brains of Coke, Blackstone, Kent, Grotius, Vat-
tel oreven Mucius Sceevola, the greatest lawyer
124 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
then in Rome, whose pupil was the great Cicero, who
once did wield the palm of eloquence, to decipher
it. Thelawsays: ‘Shall not chargemore fora short
haul than along haul under substantially similar
circumstances and conditions over the same line run-
ning in the same direction.” If a poor man is in-
jured, what chance has he in the upper courts, he must
then perchance to five commissioners appeal,who in
a Trojan horse perchance will sit, with paid retainers
to favor my lords, the kings of railroad fame.
In 1874 the United States senate committee on_
transportation routes said: In the matter of tax-
ation there are four men representing the four great —
trunk lines between Chicago and New York, who ex-
ercise power which the congress of the United States
would not venture to exert. An additional charge
of 5 per cent per bushel on the transportation of
cereals, would have been equivalent to a tax of forty-
five millions of dollars on the crop of 1873; thatthe
day is not far distant, if it has not already arrived,
when it will be the duty of the statesmen to inquire
whether there is less danger in leaving the proper
and industrial interests of the people thus wholly
atthe mercy of a few men who recognize no respon-
sibility but to their stockholders, and no principle
of action, but personal and corporate aggrandize-
ment, than in adding somewhat to the power and
“patronage of a government directly responsible to
the people and entirely under their control.”
General Weaver says, ‘‘That Iowa and in Illinois
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 125
farmers are yearly losing money that the enormous
rates of transportation has made them poor, and that
the railroads make out of every dollar of their gross
earnings, thirty-six cents out of every dollar, which
represents actual profit.” Whereis there a farmer
who makes annually over four per cent? The na-
tional banks themselves are dangerous. They hold
the purse that means the sword. They tell the gov-
ernment that if they dare to make laws against their
rights, they will make such a combination that panics
will ensue. No more right have they to thus hold
the purse and sword, than brigadier generals the
right to make war or peace. Besides that, these
railroad kings have 1,800,000 employes under their
command, six times more than Napoleon had,when
he disposed of crowns and kingdoms, and made all
Europe tremble. Forty times more than Alexander,
or Oxsar, or Pompey commanded. This shows the
wealth which they possess.
People, and those who ought to know better, re-
peatedly exclaim, ‘‘Oh! there is as much money in
the country as ever.” Ifthey would take the trouble
to examine Secretary Bristow’s statement under the
head of Destruction Account, they would be shocked
at the amount of money destroyed. General Logan
in 1874, said in congress, that the circulating medium
had been diminished $1,018,167,784. To show the
terrible effect the contraction of the currency has
had, take the report.of the silver commission of the
second session of the 44th congress, which commis-
126 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
sion consisted of Messrs. John P. Jones, Lewis V.
Bogy and Geo. M. 8. Boutwell, of the senate; Ran-
dall L. Gibson, Geo. Williard and Richard Bland, of
the house of representatives; Hon. W. Groesbeck,
of Ohio; Prof. Francis Bowen, of Massachusetts;
and Geo. M. Weston, of Maine. They said:
‘©The loss which this country sustains by the
‘‘shrinking of money is awful. The depression in pro-
‘ductive industries will become more deathly, and
‘the number of idle laborers will indefinitely in-
‘crease. The loss which this country sustains by
‘the enforced idleness of three millions of persons,
‘who although idle, must still, in some scanty way,
‘be supplied with food, clothing, and shelter, is in
‘“agoregate, very great. If it be estimated at one
‘dollar a day, for each laborer it would amount in
“two years to a sum sufficient to discharge the na-
‘tional debt. It would pay the interest at 5 per
“cent perannum on eighteen thousand millions of
‘dollars. It would be a sum more than sufficient to
‘supply anew each year, the circulating medium of
‘the country. Itwould amount in four years toa
‘‘oreater sum than the world’s entire gold produc-
‘tion, in the last fifty prolific years. It would ag-
““oregate in ten years far greater than the value of
‘the world’s entire product of both gold and sil-
“ver, for the last hundred years. It would amount
‘dn four years, to a sum more than sufficient to du-
‘plicate, and stock every mile of railroad now in
‘the United States. No more fatal blow, therefore.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 127
‘could be directed against the economical machinery
‘cof civilized life, than one against labor, and _ that
‘blow can most effectually be delivered through a
‘policy that strikes down prices. If all debts in
“this country had been doubled by an act of legisla-
‘ture, it would have been a far less calamity tothe
‘debtor and to the country than the increase of their
‘real burden already caused by a contraction in the
‘volume of money. Indeed this country could bet-
‘ter afford,in an economical view to support one mil-
‘Jion of soldiers in the field, than to support its
‘present army of three millions, that fallen prices
‘shave conscripted into the ranks of non-producers.
‘Without money, civilization could not havea be-
‘coinning with a diminished supply, it must languish
' sand unless relieved finally perish. It is a volume
‘cof money keeping even pace with advancing pop-
‘ulation and commerce, and in the resulting steadi-
‘ness of prices, that the wholesome nutriment of a
‘chealthy vitality isfound. The highest moral, intel-
‘‘lectual, and material development of nations is
‘promoted by the use of money unchanging in its
‘tvalue.” : :
One can see from the above report what money
does and the power it has. In 1865 we paid the
government in taxes three hundred and thirty-two
million dollars. Last year three hundred and thir-
ty-six million. What means these figures? We
are told the debt is being quickly paid and four-
128 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
teen million dollars more of taxes than in 1865. .
We have over five hundred million dollars in our
national vaults, and manufactures stopped, and mon-
ey scarce, and working men crying for bread.
Still it flows in, three hundred and thirty thous-
and dollars a day, ten million dollars in one month,
and in one year, at least, one hundred and twenty
million dollars more than used for expenditures
and appropriations. Without stand the grinning >
Shylocks, like the one at Rialto, demanding his
pound of flesh, amid this cry of hunger and of woe.
Look in the vaults with a prophetic eye and see
what they contain.
The Iowa Tribune says, ‘‘On the 18th of July,
1887, the statement of the United States treasury
showed gold, silver, United States nutes and other
funds in the treasury, as follows:
Gold coin and bullion.............$178, 719,037
Silver dollars and bullion.......... 215,716,600
Trade dollars redeemed............ | 7,025,852
Fractional ‘silver: coin i-%, 2.4... 20,0080 ae
United States notes............... 28,618,449
National bank notes*o. 35 ae a 203,993
National bank notes in process of re-
demphony oe ux aout 2 O0R. Ode
Deposits with national Mae depos-
ItOTLOS se SO) oe ser eet eae Oat os
—
Potalte: Oe VA Gly Loe, oon
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 129
CERTIFICATES OUTSTANDING:
Gold ae cesar ae oe ie ww, 90s C04, OOT.
DELVOR: ctortiys ene es erat en ot L423, 278,781
Currency 3... = Di ea hie sel Mae's. cow Vee 8,750, 000
Total...........$248, 792,848
Balance available cash........$328,959,632
‘¢That sum enables the Secretary to redeem at
once the $250,000,000 of four and one-half bonds
now outstanding, and $50,000,000 of the fours. The
four and halfs have four years to run, and the an-
nual interest is $11,250,000, to redeem them would
save the people $45,000,000. The interest on $50,-
000,000 fours is $2,000,000 a year, and they run
twenty years, so the saving on them would be $40- :
000,000. These two items foot up $85,000,000, which
Secretary Fairchild can save the people of the coun-
try, besides relieving the pressure in money mat-
ters, by putting $300,000,000 out of the vaults of
the treasury into circulation. The law authorizes
this act.”
Any one can readily see what this country would
save by the redemption of the bonds. It would not
only lessen taxes, increase trade, but make times
good. Idle capital is like idle machinery. When idle,
neither produce anything. | We not only lose the
interest of the money in the vaults, but what it
would produce if put into circulation, besides mak-
130 THE VOICE OF LABOR. 5
ing homes once more bright and happy, seeing every
arm once more employed, and all the avenues of
trade exulting with the shouts and peans of victor-
ious labor.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. A31t
CHAPTER VIII.
HARD TIMES.
THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR AT RICHMOND—A COMMITTEE
ON HARD TIMES—THEIR REPORT-—THE INTRICACIES
OF DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH—-AN ANALYSIS OF THE
SUBJECT—SENATOR SHERMAN’S IDEAS IN 1869—sounNn
_ A. LOGAN’S THRORY—THE UNITED STATES TREASURER
In 1820—JOHN STUART MILL, THE GREAT ENGLISH
ECONOMIST — SIR ARCHIBALD WILSON — SECRETARY
M’CULLOCH — BOUTWELL — THE BURNING OF $100,-
000,000—PETER COOPER ON INDUSTRIAL DEPRESSION
—THE FLUCTUATION OF FINANCES THE CAUSE OF HARD
TIMES—-A STEADY STANDARD A FIRM FOUNDATION.
At the general assembly of the Knights of Labor
held at Richmond, Va., October, 1886, a commit-
tee was appointed to investigate and report upon
the question of hard times. The committee was
composed of able men, chosen from five states, viz.:
John Davis, Kansas; Richard F. Trevelick, Mich.;
J. R. Sovereign, Iowa; John H. Conner, La.; and
James Collins, Pa.; and their report contains inter-
esting matter upon the financial and industrial de-
132 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
pression which the workingmen find is laid heavily
upon them. The report is a succinct commentary
on the general situation, and may be justly termed
a chapter of practical political economy. They re-
ported as follows:
In examining our subject, we discover that the
more civilized nations of the earth, including the
people of the United States, find themselves face to
face withthe problem of their existence and contin-
ued progress.
The problem of savagery is plain and simple. It
comprehends physical force and personal prowess
only. It means ‘‘to the vicious belong the spoils,”
and death or slavery, to the vanquished. The prob-
lem of civilization is more complex, yet the state-
ment of itis short. The great Victor Hugo, of
France, has stated the problem of civilization in
these words: ‘‘The creation of wealth and the dis-
tribution of wealth.”
The people of the United States, acted @ and
other civilized nations, create wealth magnificently,
but they distribute it oadly. So perfect and so rapid is
the creation of wealth in recent times, that the first
half of the problem of civilization may be considered
solved. ‘The last half of the problem is still before
us, as much unsolved as in the crudest conditions of
savagery. Among the more civilized nations, in-
cluding the people of the United States, we find
whole classes of the creators of wealth suffering ina
state of the most abject poverty and want, while
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 133
other classes that are not creators of wealth at all
have accumulated such enormous amounts of the
earnings of labor, that their presence in society has
‘become absolutely dangerous to the liberties of the
people. |
What, then, are the intricacies and difficulties
connected with the distribution of created wealth in
civilized society? Let us analyze the subject. The
distribution of created wealth consists of two parts:
The change of place of commodities, and the change
of title to commodities. What are the agents and
implements in the performance of these functions
and transactions? For the change of place of com-
modities we use wagons, boats and cars; for sim-
plicity, let us say, we use wheels. For the change
of title,we use dollars.
Now suppose that in the transportation of com-
modities from producer to consumer, there are
wheels enough in existence and in motion; the trans-
portation goes on smoothly andnormally. In the
midst of this felicitous and prosperous condition of
things, let some tinseen power withdraw or suppress
one-half, or one-fourth of the wheels. The result is
disastrous in the extreme. Producers cannot deliver
their commodities, and suffer in consequence; con-
sumers cannot receive the commodities, that they
desire, nor the necessities that must sustain their
lives. Society is afflicted with congestion and paraly-
sis in all its parts; and, if the unseen interference con-
tinues, confusion and suffering must continue.
134 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
What is the remedy? Plainly this: Restore the
wheels and, for the future, add wheels as the exi-
gencies of transportation shall require.
On the matter of the change of title to the com-
modities, suppose that a requisite number of dollars
are in existence and floating, and that the buying and
selling of commodities is proceeding normally and
smoothly—that the requisite change of title to com-
modities is practicable, in accordance with the neces-
sities of society. Now suppose that some unseen
power shall withdraw one-half, or one-fourth of the
dollars, what is the result. The same as that seen
when part of the wheels were withdrawn. There
can be no general change of title to commodities,
except upon the most disadvantageousterms. There
must be a general over-loading of the remaining
dollars which is recognized as a general reduction,
or fallof prices. Falling prices means general de-
pression of trade and industry; and loss and distress
among all classes engaged in changing title to com’
modities are the inevitable results. As titles to articles
cannot be safely exchanged, change of title must
cease, or proceed under very adverse circumstances,
and so imperfectly that society must suffer the most
severe distress.
So insidious and so deceptive are the processes
and results of the withdrawal of the money of so.
ciety, that your committee beg leave to introduce
authorities on this important part of the subject.
First, we refer to the language of the United States.
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monetary report of 1877, respecting the depression
of industry then existing, as follows:
The true and only cause of the stagnation in in-
dustry and commerce now everywhere felt, is the
fact now everywhere existing of falling prices
caused by ashrinking volume of money. This is the
great cause. All others are collateral, cumulative,
or really the effect of that cause.
Speaking of the progressive contraction of the
currency then going on, Senator John Sherman, in
1869, said: |
The contraction of the currency is a far more dis-
tressing thing than senators suppose. Our own and
other nations have gone through that process be-
fore. It is not possible to take that voyage without
the sorest distress; to every person except a capital-
ist out of debt, a salaried officer, or an annuitant,
it is a period of loss, danger, lassitude of trade, fall
of wages, suspension of enterprise, bankruptcy and
disaster. To attempt this, is to impose upon our
people, by arresting them in the midst of their law-
ful business, and applying a new standard of value to
their property, without any reduction of their debts
or giving them any opportunity to compound with
their creditors, or to distribute their losses, and
would be an act of folly without an example of evil
in modern times.
Speaking of the long continued and disastrous
depression existing in 1874, Senator John A.
Logan said: ‘It is a money famine and nothing
else.”
In his great speech of March 17, 1874, Senator
10
1388 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
Logan quoted approvingly from Hon. Isaac Bu-
chanan, of Ontario, Canada, as follows:
It is seen that the question of money, and the ques-
tion of labor, are one and the same question, the so-
lution of one being the solution of the other; plenti-
ful, and therefore cheap money, being a convertible
term for plentiful and well paid employment.
Wm. H. Crawford, secretary of the United States
treasury, in 1820, said: ‘+All intelligent writers on
currency agree that when it is decreasing in amount,
poverty and misery must prevail.”
John Stuart Mill, a great English economist,
states:
Ifthe whole money in circulation was doubled,
prices would double. Ifit was increased one-fourth,
prices would increase one-fourth.
Ricardo, of England, says:
That commodities would rise and fall in price in
proportion to the diminution of money, I assume as
a fact that is incontrovertible; that such would be the
case, the most celebrated writers are agreed.
Your committee have been absolutely over.
whelmed and embarrassed by the volume of testi-
mony accessible, showing that, as tersely stated by
President Grant, “Prices keep pace with the volume
of money;” and, with this mass of available material,
we have selected only the best known American and
English authors.
We call special attention to the following addition-
THE VOICE. OF LABOR. 139
al testimony from the report of the United States
monetary commission, 1877:
Primarily, then, prices must have been entirely
controlled by the volume of money unaffected by
credit. There can never occur a universal fall in
prices, and a general withdrawal of credits, without
apreceding decrease in the volume of money. As
the volume of money shrinks prices fall. When
money is decreasing in volume prices have no_bot-
tom except a receding one, and they are inexorably
ruled by the volume of money. In the whole _his-
tory of the world, every great and general fall in
prices, have been preceded by a decrease in the vol-
ume of money. At the Christian era the metalic
money of the Roman empire amounted to $1,800,-
000,000. At the end of the fifteenth century it had
shrunk to $200,000,000. During this period a most
extraordinary and baleful change took place in the
condition of the world. Population dwindled, and
commerce, arts, wealth and freedom all disap-
peared. The people were reduced by poverty
to the most degraded condition of serfdom
and misery. The disintegration of society was al-
most complete. The conditions of life was so hard
that individual selfishness was the only instinct con-
sistent with self-preservation. All public spirit, all
generous emotions, all noble aspirations of men
shriveled and disappeared as the volume of money
shrunk and prices fell. That the Dark Ages were
caused by decreasing money and falling prices, and
that the recovery therefrom, and the comparative
prosperity which followed the discovery of America
were due to the increasing supply of the precious
metals, and rising prices will not seem surprising, or
unreasonable, when the noble functions of money
140 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
are considered. Money is the great instrument of
association, the very fibre of social organization, the
vitalizing force of industry, and as essential to its
existence as oxygen is to animal life. Without
money civilization could not have had a beginning
—with a diminishing supply it must languish, and,
unless relieved, finally perish.
Sir Archibald Allison, the great English historian,
corroborates the foregoing testimony to he fullest
extent, and says: |
The two great events in the history of mankind
have been brought about by a successive contraction
and expansion of the circulating medium of society.
The fall of the Roman empire, so long ascribed in
ignorance to slavery, to heathenism and to moral
corruption, was, in reality, brought about by a de-
cline in the silver aad gold mines of Spain and
Greece. And as if Providence intended to reveal
in the clearest manner possible the influence of this
mighty agent in human affairs, the restoration’ of
mankind from the ruin this cause had produced was
owing to the directly opposite set of agencies being
put in operation. Columbus led the way in the
career of renovation; when he spread his sails to
cross the Atlantic he bore mankind and its fortunes
in his bark. The annual supply of the precious
metals—of money—for the use of the globe was
trebled; before a century had passed the price of
every species of produce was quadrupled. The
weight of debt and taxation insensibly wore off
under the influence of that prodigious increase; in
the renovation of industry society was changed, the
weight of feudalism cast off and the rights of man
established.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 141
No earthly force can withstand the enginery of
the financial autocrats. Thomas H. Benton said:
‘All property is at their mercy.”
In view of the transcendent importance of the
quantity of money afloat, we now proceed to inquire
as to the usual manner and processes of reduc-
ing its volume. Prior to 1861, the usual and very
successful plan for suppressing the currency of the
country was by a run on the banks. This plan not
only destroyed the money ia the pockets of the peo-
ple, but, by:the sudden and complete contraction
of the currency, it almost entirely destroyed the
prices of all property.
After 1865 the old plan of contraction was not
practicable; but, in 1866 a law of congress was pass-
ed for the material reduction of the volume of cur-
rency, and Secretary McCulloch advised that: ‘‘The
process of contracting the government notes should go
on as rapidly as possible without producing a panic.”
The same secretary reported, in December, 1866,
that he had during the year, ‘‘counted and retired
$211,000,000.”
In 1872, Secretary Boutwell reported that he
had cancelled, by burning,” $100,000,000. The
continued contraction of the currency produced
the disastrous depression of 1873, which con-
tinued until the remedial measures of 1878 were
passed. One of these remedial measures forbade
the further retirement of United States notes; the
other provided for the coinage of silver, and the is-
142 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
suing of silver certificates. They added to the mon-
ey facilities of the country and gradually, and par-
tially, relieved the financial and industrial depres-
sion. >
Since 1878 suppression of currency, by burning,
has not been lawful or practicable, hence a third
plan has been adopted; the policy of hoarding, or
locking up, the money of the country in the treasury,
and, by various excuses and devices, the amount of
available assets in the public treasury is unprece-
dented. From 1865 to 1882, a period of eighteen
years, the average available assets in the treasury
was $160,000,000. In 1882 the treasury hoard be-
gan to permanently increase, and has since contin-
ued to do so. The amount now reported monthly
by the United States treasurer has, for several
months, ranged above $550,000, 000.
This material contraction of the currency by lock-
ing up, has afflicted the country with falling prices,
compelling all business men and investors to hoard
in self-defense. Thus we see piled up in the great
money centers unusual amounts of money, belong-
ing to individuals, waiting a change from the
continually receding prices of the products of labor |
and the commodities of commerce. And, as in all
cases of suppression of the money, and consequent
falling prices, we hear on all hands the moans and
cries of distress, and the earthquake rumblings of
threatening ‘revolution and anarchy. Such scenes
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 143
and dangers were witnessed under similar circum-
stances during the years 1873 to 1877.
The great,Peter Cooper stated, that during his
‘long business life, he had witnessed ten disastrous
industrial depressions, always from the same cause;
always and uniformly from a destruction, or suppres-
sion, of the money of the country. And British his-
tory informs us that a law for the suppression of
the currency of that country was passed in 1820.
At that time the country was prosperous and the
British people were employed and contented. Un-
der the influence of the Peel contraction bill, four-
fifths of all land-holders of England, through bank-
ruptcy and forced sales, lost their lands. The people
were without employment, and were suffering every-
where for the commonest necessaries of life. The
suffering country was relieved by five money bills in-
troduced in a single night, by Lord Castlereagh, and
passed under a suspension of the rules as matters
of urgent necessity. Every bill was designed to
increase money facilities. The relief was sudden
and effective. .
Your committee now submit, that the primal and
general cause of financial and industrial depression,
is a suppression of the means of changing titles to
the products of labor, and that this blocking of the
means of distribution should be remedied by a res-
toration of the currency of the country. We agree
in this report, that the general government should
resume its exclusive sovereign right to coin and issue
f
¢
144 THE VOICE OF LABOR. ‘4
the money of the country, and that all money so
issued, whether metal or paper, should be receiva-
ble by the government for all dues, and a legal ten-
der for all debts and taxes. That the money so is-
sued shall be gradually increased to the volume per
capita that existed in 1865, before the law for its
suppression was passed; that it be floated from the
treasury in payment of the interest-bearing debt, and
other liabilities of the government, giving bond
holders their option of coin, or paper, in such pay-
ments.
And we further report, that such volume per cap-
ita should be substantially maintained forever here-
after, by the issue of new coin, or treasury notes, in
accordance with the increase of population; said
money to be circulated through the usual disburse-
ments of the government. To shield from the evils
of falling prices through the hoarding of money, or
other causes, your committee suggest the creation
of a Bureau of Prices. Said Bureau should have a
central head at the seat of the general government,
with branch offices in the principal commercial cit-
ies of the country.
It should be the business of the branch offices, to
observe and note the daily prices in their respective
cities, of all the important products of labor that are
the commodities of commerce. Each branch office
should make a full monthly report to the head office
in Washington, where the average price of each com-
modity, and of the aggregate commodities, must be
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 145
arranged and published monthly. Then if these
monthly reports show an average monthly fall in
the sea level of general prices, the per capita addi-
tions to the currency must be increased. But, if three
consecutive monthly reports show a rise in the gen-
eral sea level of prices, then the per capita additions
to the currency should be smaller.
It is the opinion of your committee that the vol-
ume of the money should be maintained as nearly
as possible unfluctuating, and that the general aver-
age, or sea level or prices, should be maintained as
nearly as possible the same.
In discussing the general and bottom cause of
financial and industrial depression, your committee
does not forget that there are many collateral and
cumulative causes. We recognize the grievances
that continually arise between the money earners
and their employers, but we know that the interests
of both parties are best served by steady prices, and an
unfluctuating money market. We know that strikes
and lockouts occur oftenest, and are most difficult
of management, when the volume of currency is
shrinking and prices are falling. We know that
individuals and syndicates may lock up money, and
bring down prices, as well as the United States
treasurer; but our Bureau of Prices will correct that.
We know that there is still left for discussion the
land, labor and transportation questions, in a hun-
dred varying forms; yet we believe that the asperi-
ties and afflictions on the body of civilized society,
146 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
may be smoothed down and healed with greater ease,
and certainty if the circulating medium of society
isnormal. We believe that our Bureau of Prices,
in its monthly reports, will reveal the fact and local-
ity of corners in the products of industry, and may
lead to the discovery, exposure and punishment of
the criminals. We know that the gold corner of
Black Friday, 1873, became a possible and accom-
plished fact, aftera period of seven years of sup-
pression of money an@ falling prices.
We do not believe that an unfluctuating system
of finance will cure all the evils of land monopoly,
but it is a historic fact that every money panic has
caused thousands of the homes of the people
to pass into the hands of the money lords at
merely nominal prices, through sheriff’s sales and
foreclosures of mortgages. We do not believe that
the adjustment of the money question will heal all
the differences between capital and labor, but it may
be safely stated, that ninety per cent of the strikes
and troubles in this line have occurred during a
period of falling prices. At such times the capitalist
has the advantage in these fights, while, on a steady,
or rising market, the employes usually gain easy
victories. :
We do not, either as a committee or as individ-
uals, claim that all the ills of society can be cured
through the manipulations of finance. We.do be-
lieve that all reforms, and all adjustment of troubles,
may be easily accomplished if we have at all times
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 147
steady, unfluctuating financial ground to stand upon.
In our opinion, he would be avery foolish man who,
designing to build an enduring edifice of masonry,
should select a voleanic region where the earthquakes
beneath his feet would continually change the level
of his foundations. |
We think he would be a very unwise man who,
when navigating the broad ocean, should choose as
his guiding star a fluctuating and moving planet, in-
stead of the polar star of fixed certainty. So, in the
construction of an enduring civilized society, that is
expected to live through the ages, dispensing justice
and protecting the liberties of all its citizens, the
system should be erected on a steady and unfluctu-
ating foundation, and its founders should be guided
by the fixed and unchanging principles of justice.
Such a system cannot be established on the shifting
and treacherous sands of a fluctuating medium of
exchange, but must stand on solid ground, where all
citizens may meet on equal terms for the adjustment
of their grievances, and the enjoyment of citizen-
ship.
148 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
CHAPTER IX.
HARD TIMES—Continvep.
THE DIFFERENT CLASSES OF SOCIETY—MONEY EARNERS
AND MONEY USERS — THE PREDATORY STRATUM —
LAWS FOR THE CONTRACTION OF MONEY VOLUME—
te YEARS OF SHRINKAGE IN THE UNITED STATES—THE
PRACTICAL QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY, LAND, LABOR, FI-
NANCE AND TRANSPORTATION — THE DECISION OF
JUDGE GRESHAM IN THE WABASH RAILROAD CASE—
THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR AN ORDER OF PEACE AND
EDUCATION.
In connection with the report of the committee
on Financial and Industrial depression contained in
the previous chapter, Mr. John Davis, the chairman,
made the following illustrative remarks, which may
be properly considered with the report.
He said, for the convenience of discussion, Civi-
lized . society in the United States may be divided
into four classes: Two useful classes, devoted hon-
estly and earnestly to the creation and distribution
of wealth; and two predatory or vicious classes, ad-
ding to the burdens and misfortunes of society,
A MINER’S COTTAGE.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 151
hindering the creation of wealth, blocking its distri-
bution, and, in a thousand ways, making themselves
a clog and a menace to civilized communities.
The useful classes embrace the men who labor
and earn money on the farms, in the mines and in
the factories. Also the men of business who have
money or borrow it, and employ men in all the de-
partments of industry and commerce. The two use-
ful classes of society embrace all the men and wom-
en engaged in the creation and distribution of
wealth, in all the existing forms of labor and legiti-
mate business. They may be defined as ‘‘The mon-
ey earners” and “The money users.”
One of the predatory classes of society under-
mines, steals and debauches from the bottom, and
the other attacks from the top, endangering the very
existence of free institutions.
The substratum class embraces the indolent and
vicious who decline to labor for a livelihood, living
and dying as parasites and burdens on society. They
are usually without visible means of support, and
spend much of their time in the hands of the police
and peace officers of society. They are the thorough-
ly discouraged wrecks of humanity, destitute of cour-
age or hope; the debauched offal of societary mis-
fortunes. During periods of industrial prosperity
this substratuin of vicious indolence is not large in
America. Its numerical volume is reduced to a
minimum, and ultimately, with continued industri-
al prosperity, it would cease to be of observable
152 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
importance. But during periods of industrial de-
pression, this substratum class grows rapidly in vol-
ume, becoming very burdensome, and sometimes
absolutely dangerous to the peace of large commun-
ities. |
The upper society embraces men who live not
by earning money, nor by legitimately using mon-
ey, but by the usury of money, and by gambling and
speculating on the necessities and misfortunes of
society. Since they thus live and fatten, it is to
their selfish interests that society shall have as many
and as great necessities and misfortunes as possible.
Hence they are devoted, body and soul, to the bus-
iness, not of creating and distributing wealth, but
to creating societary necessities and misfortunes.
They desire high and usurious rates on their loans
to men, to states and to the nation. Money being dear
in proportion to the limited supply, they favor and
procure scarce and dear money througn legislative
action for its contraction and suppression.
The laws for the contraction of money are always
passed in the interests of these usurers and specula-
tors. Scarce money makes borrowing compulsory
and usury high. It reduces the price of all prop-
erty and makes the payment of money obligations
difficult or impossible. Then when foreclosures and
sheriff’s sales occur, the usurers become the owners
of landed estates and the creations of labor at nom-
inal rates. Scarce money and falling prices offer
unusual opportunities to stock gambling and the mo-
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 153
nopoly of the necessities of life, and of everything
that money can purchase.
During five years of shrinking money in England,
four-fifths of freeholders of England lost their homes,
and those independent English farmers became the
tenants of the money vultures of the country. Dur-
ing a period of seven years of shrinking money in
this country, from 1866 to 1873, the people of the
United States passed from a state of abounding
prosperity to a condition of deplorable bankruptcy.
In 1866 they were virtually out of debt; in 1873
the red flag of the auctioneer floated on every street
in all the cities; farmers gave up their homes to the
holders of the mortgages, and invaded the western
wilderness to begin life anew. Men of enterprise
who had been using money in the creation
and distribution of wealth became bankrupt, and
their former employes became idle, discouraged and
vicious, swelling the substratum class to dangerous
proportions, tramping everywhere for a living, as
dangerous marauders on society.
These deplorable conditions of society are periud-
ically produced at the bidding of the usury classes
who are interested in scarce and dear money, and
who prey on the necessities and misfortunes of civi-
lized society. |
What are the remedies? There are two. Oneis
legitimate, safe and effective. The other, illegiti-
mate, unsafe and ineffective. The legitimate and
safe plan is public enlightenment on financial and
a4
154 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
industrial subjects as taught by the Knights of La-
bor, and to be consummated through the ballot box
and wise legislation. The illegitimate and unsafe
course is that taught and practised by the advocates
of violence for legislative evils, and consummated
in the flames of burning cities and the general de-
struction of property and human life. In fact they
are anarchists, through their persistent violations of
the very principles of all just government. They
not only engage in anarchy, in their high sphere,
corrupting the sources of law and justice; but are
logically and certainly the parents and producers
of the less harmful anarchy found in the vicious
substratum of society.
Paid exorbitant rates for building railroads and
telegraphs, in bonds, lands and money, they still
hold them as their own property, and tax the pub-
lic to whom the lines rightfully belong, <‘‘all the
traffic will bear.” The remedies for these evils are
not the tearing up of railroads, the burning of cities,
or the destroying of property. But public enlight- -
enmenton the practical questions of the day—on the
subjects of land, labor, finance and transportation.
Public enlightenment will beget public action. It
will procme the repeal of class laws and the
prompt arrest, trial and punishment of great crim-
inalsas well as smallones. The use of dynamite
in Chicago was the violence of thoughtless anarchy.
The enlightened vote for Henry George in New
York, and the just and patriotic verdict of Judge
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 155
Gresham in the Wabash railroad case, have changed
the tone and course of a thousand newspapers, and
have almost revolutionized the sentiment of the en-
tire country. The decision of Judge Gresham act-
ually wrung from Jay Gould, our great American
anarchist, a real shriek of pain! These results of
enlightened and patriotic action demonstrate and
illustrate the practical superiority of the ballot as
compared with physical violence. The dew and the
sunshine are creators of wealth, while the blind
- cyclones only destroy. Enlightened labor will al-
ways accomplish happy results by the use of peace-
ful, lawful and civilized methods; while the blind,
violent methods of savagery can only end in chaos
from which spring individual and class usurpations
of power and public oppression.
It was the object of the committee at Richmond
to point out the central and main cause of industrial
depression and publicdistress. It is our object now
to point out and classify the principal agencies at
work in civilized communities, for both good and
evil, and to further illustrate the subject.
From what is here stated it will be seen that there
should be no fight between employing capital and
labor—between the money earners and the money
users; yet such fights are common from the fact that
suffering and uninformed men usually strike those
nearest them; or because employing capital finds
itself amid falling prices with no profits on the pro-
ducts of labor; or because employing capital, not
156 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
satisfied with legitimate profits, enters the fleld of
speculation and gambling on the products of labor.
These questions must be solved, understood and
peacefully settled. Herein is the mission of the
order of the Knights of Labor. It is an order of
peace and education.
In all mention of capital we should bear in mind
the important distinction between employing capital
and speculative or gambling capital—between the
class of so-called ‘‘capitalists,” and the capital-
using, wealth-creating business men. And in our
mention of labor and laboring men we must remem-
ber the important distinction between sober and. in-
dustrious wage-earners, and theidle, vicious class of
parasites who avoid labor as much as_ possible.
These distinctions between the useful and the pred-
atory classes will materially aid us in understanding
each other.
Gos THE VOICE OF LABOR. 157
CHAPTER X.
WAGES.
WAGES A SUBJECT.OF VAST IMPORTANCE—GREAT NA-
TIONS ARE NOW DEALING WITH IT—-THE ECONOMICS
OF WAGES — INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS INCESSANTLY
CHANGE——A TABLE OF STATISTICS—-THE PROGRESS OF
WAGES—ECONOMY DOES NOT DEMAND LOW WAGES——
WHAT HIGH WAGES WILL DO—HON. WILLIAM WALSH
ON WAGES — INCREASE OF CAPITAL DEMANDS IN-
CREASE OF LABOR—-TO PROTECT LABOR A SACRED DU-
TY—DR. PARKER ON REGULATION OF WAGES——CO-OP-
ERATION THE ULTIMATUM OF PRODUCTIVE INDUSTRY.
THE question of wages, as one of the phases of
the labor movement, is of vast importance to the
workingman. All who have investigated the sub-
ject are irresistibly driven to the conclusion that in-
dications point to a,.contest in every civilized na-
tion. |
~ We read daily reports of the proceedings of the
English parliament upon her land system and the
struggles of her Irish tenantry; sensational accounts
of Russian nihilism startle the world; Austria and
*
158 THE VOICE OF LABOR. »
Germany are kept in a continual state of fear lest
the death of Bismarck will leave them helpless; and
everywhere there are unmistakable signs that an un-
dercurrent is agitating the masses. This agitation
assumes various phases in different localities. At
one place it is a difficulty between mill-owners and
their operatives; in another it lies between the rich
and the poverty stricken; again, it is between land
holders and peasants, and between privileged classes
and the proletariat. 3
Wages, or the compensation for work performed,
is that proportion of the value of any product to
which each contributor to that product is entitled.
This proportion may be either nominal or real.
Nominal wages is the amount of money paid for 4
certain amount of work done, and real wages refers
to the quantity of the commodities which the money
received for the work willpurchase. The two great
forces which are engaged in the production of the
substances which comprise food, fuel, shelter, or
the materials which may be converted into capital,
are labor and capital. Land is worthless unless
labor and capital render it valuable. It is by the
co-operation of these two forces that an annual pro-
ductis brought’into existence, wherefrom wages
may be obtained.
A careful review of the economic development of |
the United States during the last fifty years, leads
to the conclusion that the workingman has_ secured
results for a given amount of labor which have
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 159
gradually increased. The industrial conditions
have been ina perpetual movement, and this move-
ment has been controlled by artificial encourage-
ment and restrictions. It is, therefore, difficult to
trace the economic progress with exactness, and _al-
most impossible to accurately determine the situa-
tion at any given time.
In the tenth annual report of the Massachusetts
Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1879, will be found
a comparison between the wages of 1860 and those
of 1878. The returns-from 63,515 workingmen
tended to show that the weekly wages were twenty-
four and four-tenths per cent higher in 1878 than
they werein 1860. A comparison made by Mr.
Carlisle shows that between 1850 and 1860 wages
advanced seventeen per cent, in gold, and only four
per cent in purchasing power, but in the next ten
years wages declined ten per cent in purchasing
power. Inthe next decade they fell ten per cent,
but increased eighteen per cent in purchasing power.
By taking the average annual wages in cotton,
woolen and ironindustries in each census year, and
the cost of living, the following comparison table
was obtained:
Year. Currency. Gold. Purchasing power.
1850 . $244.83 $244.83 $244.83
1860 287.00 287.00 255.32
1870 Sige fig o> 3806.55 230.83
1880 277.00 277.00 272.91
Similar estimates from labor statistics of other
160 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
states show a like increase in the rate of wages,
despite the gradual centralization of capital.
It is not the amount of money received for wages
that determines whether labor is cheap or dear, but
the rate is fixed by the amount of valuable product
secured by the money paid. An employer may
pay two dollars for one man’s work, and one dollar
and a half for that of another, but the higher priced
may bethe cheaper. The two dollar man may be able
to do twice the amount of work asthe one who is paid
one dollar and a half. Low wages are often the
cause of poor labor, and it is from this point of view
that capitalists may see that an apparent sacrifice
may result in their ultimate advantage.
Economy does not demand the lowest priced
labor, but the labor which produces the most at the
least expense is always the most profitable. It is —
certainly clear that the employer who engages the
man who is vigorous, intelligent and in best physical
and mental condition, will profit more by high wages
paid, than for low wages paid to a miserable, ignor-
ant and half-starved animal. :
EK. P. Smith, in his Political Economy, says:
‘Looking upon a human laborer, then, as we would
upon a steam engine, we see that the amount of
force which he is capable of creating depends upon
the amount of food supplied to him; a part of it an-
swering the purpose of the coal which gives heat,
another answering to the water which is converted —
into steam and generates motion. A sheet iron
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 161
jacket put around the boiler prevents the waste of
heat in one case, just as a woolen jacket about the
body of the laborer does in the other. But food,
clothing and shelter, are supplied to the human
machine in the shape of wages. To stint them, and
to keep the laborer down to the lowest point that
will induce him to live, without deterring him from
propagation, is precisely the same kind of economy
which would keep the steam engines of a nation at
half their working power to save wood, water
and sheetiron. The rate of wages which such con-
siderations would demand has been attained in very
few regions of the world. Suppose it anywhere to
have been reached: the laborer is only brought up
to the condition of an ox.”
At a Knights of Labor celebration in 1887,
Hon. William Walsh, among other remarks, said:
‘‘Wages arise where one is paid for his labor or
services to another. Profit arises where one puts
his capital at. risk in production of some beneficial
kind, and what has been gained after paying wages,
rent, interest and other expenses, is profit.
‘(Labor is to some extent capital, because it re-
quires a good deal of capital to bring an infant to
manhood and educate him for the occupation he is
to follow. It cannot justly be treated as a mere
commodity. The workman cannot be separated
from humanity, and the rights and duties that en-
viron him as a man and a citizen, and I regard all
who labor with hand or brain as workmen. All
A
162 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
who think, plan, direct, record, invent, who con-
tribute to whatever sustains, enlightens, graces, hu-
man life, are workmen. Every increase of capital —
creates an increased demand for labor of some sort;
for capital will generally seek profitable use. It is
only the weak and ignorant who bury their talent.
Hence we are all interested in the increase of capi-
tal, and desire to give all the safety to its invest-
ment that may be consistent with the welfare of so-
ciety in reference to the great objects for which so-
clety 1s organized.
“We all are interested with wages and profits.
Between these two poles the labor questions chiefly
play. While the rate of movement in population
and in capital, and the fluctuation in the: cost of
necessaries have effect on wages, yet itis recognized
by all economists, and is a truth which the work-
ingmen should stand firmly to, that the standard of
living is one of the chief foundations to establish
good wages upon.
«Tg man’s life cheap as brutes?’ isa vital ques-
tion in this discussion, which Shakespeare puts in
the mouth of one of his characters. Universally
wherever the standard of living has been kept high,
wages have been best maintained. Wages will
never go higher than the point where profits cease.
The capitalist will quit the business ultimately if
profits cease. Fair profits then give the upper limit
of wages. The standard of living is the lower limit.
Keep this standard high and let it become traditional,
THE VOICE OF: LABOR. 165
bred in the sentiments and habits ofthe people, and
wages will never go below it. The capitalist will
withdraw when his profits vanish. The worker must
cease to work and retirefrom the field when the
wages oifered will no longer furnish himself and
his family with means to procure comfort and respect-
ability, and make his home a place of sanctity and
endearment.
‘‘Workers must start from a high point o1 self-val-
uation, and never go below it. In apolitical sense,
the high standard of living is a chief requirement
for the preservation of our republican institutions.
And itis a public duty of the most sacred kind to
protect the workingmen of the country in all means
and all natural and civil rights to secure a high
standard of living. They are American citizens,
and the safe guarding of liberty and public virtue is
entrusted to their charge. The high standing of
living has saved the labor of Switzerland from de-
gradation, though the country is not rich in capital.
The low standard of living has produced the degra-
dation of labor witnessed among the Orientals. The
low standard, if once allowed, will be further re-
duced until man’s life will be cheaper than the
brute’s. In the slave days, aSouthern master asked
his servant to do apiece of work attended with
danger. He said to the master: ‘You had better
let John (the white man) do that.’ The master
asked him why. The colored man said: ‘If I goup
there and fall I’will be killed, and you will lose $1,-
164 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
— 500; but if John falls you will lose nothing.’ The
master saw the point and sent John. The freeman |
must look out for himself, and all are now free.
“The tendency of the fierce competition between
capitalists, the multiplication of machinery, the
ever-flowing tide of emigration, woman labor and
child labor, to reduce wages may be largely resisted
by the elevation which a high standard of living
communicates to the sentiments and expectations of
the wage earners and to wages. If this standard is
lowered the American workmen would in time be
prostrated to the level of the degradation which may
be seen among the toilers of the eastern world.
American citizenship would be debased, and the ar-
rogance of wealth and the insolence of its satelites
and dependents would dominate over us. We would
eve proved ourselvesunworthy of freedom, because
we were unable to preserve that elevation of senti-
ment and dignity of character which are essential
to the permanence of our American freedom.
‘“‘The capitalist fights every thing that resists cheap
production and lessens profits. He regards labor
as a commodity. He sees no law but that of sup-
ply and demand. He forgets that the laborer is a
man, a citizen and Christian, that he raises a fami-
ly, and that families make the state, and that the
state will reflect the elevation or degradation of the
families that compose it. He takes no account of .
the ten commandments, nor of the grandeur and
glory of the state.
HAPPY TOILERS.
ase ‘
2
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 167
“Tf labor submits to a low standard of living,
low wages will prevail, and the workingmen will
find poor, low priced goods and unhealthy tene-
ments prepared to suit their fallen condition. Work-
ingmen should never buy adulterated food or drink,
shoddy or sizing clothes, or occupy filthy tenements.
They should boycott these and stop the production
of them, because they will be produced to meet the
lowered condition of wage earners.
‘There is one method of elevating wages that
capital could not possibly resist, but it will take time
and sacrifice from wage earners to place them-
selves in the condition to apply it.
“The capitalist treats labor asa commodity. He is
governed solely by the law of supply and demand.
He encourages by emigration, long hours, spasmod-
ic activities, and suspension of production, and
other means, a surplus supply of labor. Labor has
no capital ahead. The workingman and his family
must have food and shelter from day to day. He
cannot withdraw his labor from a low market, as
the capitalist can his*productions. Providence has
arranged that crops come in annually to encourage
prudence, foresight and economy among men. The
man that has saved enough to support himself and
family for one year is independent. Produc-
tion cannot stop for one year. And if wage
earners would determine as rapidly as possible to
save and accumulate one year’s living, they would
be absolutely independent of the fluctuations, arti:
168 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
ficial or otherwise, of the excessive supply of labor.
They would be able to withdraw their labor from
the market until the wages come up to the Ameri-
can standard of high living.
‘Tt is one of the few well-established doctrines
of political economy, that increase of wages never
comes off the consumer, and must come out of pro-
fits. Good wages reduce the profits of the capitalist,
but do not inhance the price to the public. The
rule is, that it is the quantity of labor required to pro-
duce an article that increases its price to the con-
sumer, and that the value or cost of the labor cannot
in the workings of economic laws, be transferred to
the consumer. But, even if high wages did not
come out of profits alone, but enhanced the price
of the commodity, the community would suffer in-
finitely more from the moral and political degen-
eracy which must inevitably result, and always and
everywhere has resulted, from low wages and low
standard of living than it would lose by any cheap-
ening commodities effected by lowering wages. Our
institutions are priceless, and must be maintained
and handed down to all the generations that are to
spring from the present. We cannot barter them
away for cheaper goods.
‘¢The wealth of the world would be no compen-
sation to freemen for the degeneracy of their man-
hood and the debasement of the uplifting spirit that
animates our glorious republican institutions. The
constant increase of machinery, steam transit, and
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 169
the whole tendency of the present industrial system
is to release capital, dispense with the quantity ot
labor required in production, increase the surplus
of labor, and lower wages down to the starvation
line, and far below the standard of respectable, dig-
nified and decent living, without which the days of
our freedom anc glory will rapidly pass away, and
the great American Republic will die from the in-
ordinate avarice of the few, and the lack of manly
spirit and public virtue in the many. |
‘¢ Freemen were never charged with a more sa-
cred duty than now commands the American peopie
to unite together and concentrate all the force of
enlightened and patriotic public sentiment and opin-
ion against low wages, and that inevitable degen-
eracy of the spirit of the people and institutions
which have followed low wages always and every-
where.”
In answer to a question as to the manner in
which wages might be regulated, Dr. H. J. Parker
replied as follows:
‘It is all right and proper for workingmen to
form unions and associations for mutual protection
and improvement, but when they attempt to keep
wages up on a par with the general advancement in
other fields, without taking into the account the un-
derlying forces of legislative enactments affecting
money, commerce and labor, they are swimming
against the current and will finally sink.
‘“Workingmen vote for men and parties that Legis.
12
170 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
late for the Shylock money oppression, that permit
high tariffs on articles of general consumption, and the
free importation of labor to take the places of home
laborers, and yet expect by some means to main-
tain a condition of labor superior to that of the
Kuropean wage slave. It will be a failure. They ©
may benefit themselves locally and temporarily, and
in a few instances may protect themselves during
their natural lifetime, but it cannot be a lasting nor
a general protection that in its efforts ignores legis-
lation that alone and inexorably determines the
destiny of a people.
“‘As our country becomes developed we must sink
to the European level, unless we refuse to yield to
the shaping of our institutions in the European
channel. |
‘(With the European money system, tax and land
systems, with the same laws governing the produc-
tion and distribution of wealth, it is only a question
of time as to where we will go. Wages cannot be
regulated arbitrarily. They must go with every-
thing else sooner or later.
‘Co-operation is the ultimatum of productive in-
dustry, the highest point to be attained in manufac-
ture. Labor will have its reward when it gets what
it produces. Then its reward will be regulated by
the demands of consumption and will seek an equil-
ibrium and its proper fields of action, according to
the demands which may press from various quarters.
‘‘Until co-operation is perfected we must regulate
THE VOICE OF LABOR. TA
wages by regulating incomes on capital, supply of
labor, etc. If we have the right to restrict interest
on money, we have the same right to limit incomes
on money invested. Limit incomes of all enter-
prises to a given per cent, and let the balance go to
a fund to be distributed pro rata to employes accord-
ing to skill and time put in, and you have the scien-
tific solution of the labor question, when considered
apart from general legislation. This need not
destroy the spirit of enterprise and will not. It will
give an extra stimulus to the laborer, and make him
contented and emulative. He will try to do some-
thing for himself, because he sees an opportunity
for something in the future.
‘Just how far this kind of legislation may be
necessary, is the question to be solved by an intel-
ligent ballot from time to time.
“We may remember that government itself or
civilization itself is based properly on the premise
of protecting the weak against the strong, the good
against the bad.”
All countries, whether commercial or manufac-
turing, are visibly affected by periods of adversity
and prosperity, and are subject to changes of
varying intensity. Laws regulating the hours of
labor, the collection of revenue and the like, may
alter conditions and situations to some degree, but
there can be no permanent effect. In the long run
wages will be highest in that country or locality
where capital and labor fully co-operate and, at the
ET? THE VOICE OF LABOR.
lowest cost, together make up the greatest amount
of product. As conditions change, labor may be
displaced fora time, and poverty may ensue, but
this poverty is brought about more fromthe destruc-
tion of capital and in rendering land valueless, than
from other causes.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. Nite
CHAPTER XI.
ORIGIN AND PROGRESS CF TRADES
UNIONS.
fHE DISCLOSURE OF HISTORY—-ANTIQUITY OF COMBINA-
TIONS BY WORKINGMEN—THE OLD GUILDS OF EUROPE
—THE FIRST AUTHENTIC ORGANIZATIONS—THE POW-
ER OF ORGANIZATIONS SIX HUNDRED YEARS AGO—
THE CRUELTIES PRACTICED IN ENGLAND—THE SECRET
OF THEIR STRENGTH——-UNIONS HAVE ELEVATED WAGES
—WORKINGMEN CANNOT BE TOO WELL PAID—UNION
LITERATURE FOR LABOR— ™.
a;
See,
mm
MEN THE BEST WORKMEN
UNIONS ARE EDUCATING WORKINGMEN—-THEIR GREAT
4
FUTURE.
Ir is a singular fact that history discloses a sys-
_tematic oppression of labor in all ages, and from
time immemorial there has been a constant resist-
ance on the part of the laborer.
In attempting to trace the origin of combinations
and organizations among workingmen and laborers,
we find their beginning lost in the remote ages.
The first authentic evidences of such organizations,
according to Brentano, are found in the history of
Seed
174 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
_.the northern German tribes of Europe, which were
“called guilds or gilds. Guilds were originally feasts
and gatherings held in celebration of births, marri-
ages and deaths. Other events, such ascoronations,
national assemblies and the like, were the occasion
of similar banquets and deliberative assemblages.
These guilds led to the formation of a kind of
brotherly alliance between those of similar occupa-
tions or modes of life, and eventually the term guild
expressed the idea of a common community or so-
ciety.
The spirit of association naturally found its way
into the ranks of labor, and as early as the eighth
century the organization of guilds had become al-
most an universal custom. |
These guilds assumed a general classification and
_were divided into Religious, Merchant and Craft
a guilds. The religious guild was the prototype of
church denominations, the merchant guild the pre-
decessor of corporations, and the craft guild the arch-
etype of the modern trade union. The craft guild
grew up among the old freemen hundreds of years
ago, and to-day we see trades unions as combinations
of workingmen united in common defense of their
rights as against the oppressive tendencies of great
vapitalists. :
It was in the twelfth century, during the reign o
Henry II, that the first organization, akin to the
present trade union, was formed in England, and
since that time the general tenor of legislation has
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 175
been much against the interests of the workingman,
and proportionately, has been enacted in behalf of
the capitalist. .
The essence of the craft guilds was ‘‘mutual sup-
port, mutual protection, and mutual responsibility.”
Their exclusiveness widened the separation between
the craftsmen and their employers, and served -to
give each different views and interests. In the four- |
teenth century the masons maintained a higher rate /
of wages than was received by other trades, solely ©
on account of their organization, and in 1383 the
authorities of London, alarmed at the power exer-
cised by the unions, forbade all ‘congregations,
covins, and conspiracies of workmen.”
In 1396, a coalition of shoemakers was disbanded
by the authorities. Notwithstanding the legislation
against them, the workingmen continued to com-
bine, but the history of the working classes during
the next three centuries is a tale of suffering and
psadness. They resisted in every way possible, but
were met at every hand with brutal force and infa-
mous laws. While Edward VI was on the throne,
an act was passed to brand a man who refused to © }
work at ‘statute prices,” with the letter ««V ” (vag- | \
abond), and reduce him to slavery for two years.
Nearly all of the attempts of parliament to fix
wages were failures. At the dawn of the eighteenth
century, the combination laws were universally in
operation, and the workingman worked sixteen
hours out of the twenty-four. With the introduction
176 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
of steam power, the domestic system of manufac.
turing declined, and trades unions perfected their
organizations. The workingmen met the combina.
tions of their employers to keep down the price of
labor, with organizations to keep them up. Capital
has heretofore been directed against ignorant and
uneducated men, but the conditions have changed
in the last fifty years.
In speaking of trades unions, Trant says: ‘+They
are built on a rock—a firm, sound, substantial ba-
sis. Theycannot be annihilated. If they are done
away with to-day, they would spring up again to-mor-
row the same as in the celebrated dispute with Messrs.
Platt, of Oldham; when the men were starved
into submission, and were obliged to give up their un-
ion, yet they rejoined as soon as they were at work.”
It is evident that workingmen are everywhere
becoming less and less indifferent to the caprice ~
of their employers. When they demand just laws
their request cannot longer be passed unheeded, be-
cause they are able to show that they are as com-
petent as any other class to judge of their own
needs and requirements.
One of the fundamental elements which go to make
up atrade union, is brotherly sympathy. This admi-
rable sentiment seems to be peculiar to workingmen.
Prof. Rogers writes: ‘‘I confess that I look for-
ward to the international union of. labor partner-
ships as the best prospect the world has of coerc-
ing those hateful instincts of governments, all alike
—_~
™NQ
THE VOICE OF LABOR. Lit
irresponsible and indifferent, by which nations are
perpetually armed against each other, to the infinite
detriment, loss, and demoralization of all.”
, One of the general results of unions has been a
“raise in the payment of wages. Usually, the rela-
tions between workingmen and their employers
imply a pecuniary bargain, and when differences
have arisen, the efficacy of organization has been
shown in the securing of better conditions. A gen-
eral review of the history of trades unions indicates
a gain for them. It is, however, difficult to point
out to what extent a raise in wages is due to the di-
rect action of a union, because the elements of gen-
eral progress and prosperity have much to do with
the amount of product, therefore, with the amount
of wages paid.
Few employers when unasked advance the
amount of wages paid, and the workingman in seek-
ing to better his condition cannot well strike
singly.
If a strike fails, it shows that the men have the
capacity to combine in such a way that the em-
ployer may wel. fear, and despite failure, strikes
are often successes. The loss incident upon a
strike renders future demands for just dues amore
readily adjusted affair than the first difficulty. An
ineffectual strike often proves to be one of general
effect, for non-unionists invariably gain, to some ex-
tent, the advantages of the unionist.
The action of the trades unions in gaining an in-
178 THE VOICE CF LABOR.
crease in the amount of wages paid, does not affect
the purchasing power of their stipends. This stimu-
lates trade in a general way, for the workingman
and his family are ever willing to spend his hard
earned dollars in pecuniary additional comforts for
the household. A general rise in wages through-
out the United States would increase our exports to
an enormous amount, and every department of trade
would feel an impetus. .
There is no doubt in the minds of intelligent and —
candid thinkers, that trades unions are the source
of material profit and a general increase of pro-
ducts, and employers have learned that union men
are, as a rule, better workmen. Every manufactur-
er knows that a good workman, though paid high
wages, is of more value to him than a poor work-
man at less wages.
‘‘Tt seems strange that in this enlightened age,”
Trant writes, ‘there are persons who believe that
men can have more wages than is good for them.
There is no such thing as being too well paid. The
men who think so are, as a rule, those who are
plentifully provided with the blessings of this life,
and who opposed the movement in favor of univer-
sal education, because they objected to working-
men being too well educated, as it would make them
discontented with their ‘station,’ as if there was
such a thing as too much education. . . . All
that is maintained here is that, though some evil
may creep in with a rise of wages, as itseems todo ©
ities
‘4
on
Hl }
(5 ‘ oy
ul:
at
COAL UNDER DIFFERENT ASPECTS.
ct
Peas F me
fa
ate
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 181
with an increase of wealth, yet that good wages are
a great blessing, and ought to be gladly welcomed
by those who even have not yet reached that stage
of morality of endeavoring to love their neighbors
as themselves.”
The great movement which has agitated every
state in America has been the cause of the springing
up of scores of newspapers which are wholly de-
voted to educating the rank and file of the work-
ingmen. Newspapers are now seen in homes which
never before were blessed with them, and public
schools are showing a decided increase because of
their influence. The men, too, show a general de-
sire to improve in their respective trades. The bet-
ter the workman, the sooner he leaves incompetent
associates and becomes a unionist. All union men
are not superior workmen, but very few experts are
non-unionmen. Men outside the unions are gener-
ally inferior workmen employed at greatly reduced
_ rates.
An iron manufacturer, in writing of the influence
of unions on his men, said: “I have had twenty
years of pretty close acquaintanceship with artisans
and laborers of all kinds, and I know many of them
have much sounder views of common-sense political
economy than the middle classes in general hold. I
look upon trade unions as admirable training schools
for the workmen, where they will soon outgrow their
heresies on the subject of capital and labor, where-
as, if they are brow beaten and scolded in a violent
meebo
¢
J Maia gate tO
182 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
manner, they will begin—as some of them, I fear,
have already—to think that masters are to be re-
garded as their natural enemies, and treated accord-
ingly. ; |
‘¢The uneducated workmen are, as a rule, a rath-
er violent set of fellows, it must be admitted; but I
can see that, under the training and leadership of
the foremost men in the unions, these are fast be-
coming a very small minority, as they are very
plainly and forcibly told that the old way of settling
disputes with their employers is about the very
worst that could be adopted. This, coming from
men of their own class, they are daily becoming
more and more ready to listen to with respect, which
would not be the case if it emanated from the em-
ployers’ class, whom they have good grounds for
regarding with distrust and suspicion.
‘I know enough of the unprincipled conduct of
the employers, through their agents in our iron in-
dustry, to understand and excuse much in the con-
duct of the unionists that would be indefensible on
any other grounds than those of extreme injustice
and most heartless provocation—not that the em-
ployers had directly perpetrated such things person-
ally, but they must be held responsible, seeing that
they have seldom or ever taken the trouble to find
out the rights and wrongs of disputed points; but in
ninety-nine out of one hundred cases the underlings
have been left to take their own course and represent
their own case as, of course, decidedly angelic. The
&
4
a i nee in aa
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 183
unions have done immense service in bringing about a
different state of things, and to my certain knowledge,
it has been due to the influence of the leaders of the
unions that the system of arbitration has been
adopted lately in so many industries; and this, bear
in mind, in spite of the dogged resistance of many of
the employers, who do not like the system as I have
heard them say, because it puts a weapon into the
men’s hands to fight with, when a dispute arises
about the rate of wages.”
It cannot be gainsaid that the unions havea great
future before them. The legitimate end of pure un-
ionism is to allay the antagonism between labor and
capital, and to bring the employer and workingman
to a plane of mutual understanding and mutual ben-
efit.
THE VOICE OF LABOR.
CHAPTER XII.
AMERICAN LABOR UNIONS.
THE FIRST AMERICAN TRADE UNION — JOURNEYMEN
SHIPWRIGHTS-—NEW YORK TYPOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
-—FIRST LABOR PARTY—-FRANKLIN SOCIETY OF PRINT-
ERS—-NATIONAL TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION—THE INTER-
NATIONAL——-HAT FINISHERS—-IRON MOULDERS——ME-
CHANICAL ENGINEERS OF AMERICA—BROTHERHOOD LO-
COMOTIVE ENGINEERS—-LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN—CIGAR
MAKERS—BRICKLAYERS AND STONEMASONS——PATRONS
OF HUSBANDRY—GRANGE—RAILWAY CONDUCTORS—
BOOT AND SHOEMAKERS — GERMAN-AMERICAN TYPO-
GRAPHICAL—-HORSE-SHOERS—IRON AND STEEL HEAT-
ERS — GRANITE CUTTERS — LAKE SEAMEN — BOILER
MAKERS — CARPENTERS AND JOINERS—HAT MAKERS
— MINERS AND MINE LABORERS — BAKERS—SWITCH-
MEN —- TAILORS — TELEGRAPH MEN — FURNITURE—
COOPERS—-ETC.—-ETC.
ORGANIZATIONS and combinations of workingmen
have existed in the United States over one hun-
dred years. On the Fourth of July,17 88, there
_“ Wasa grand parade in Philadelphia, and all of the
trades were represented in the procession. Those
“tartan de, ean, bs eres ee see ee int X a0 bat OT AP tL eee a * eo!
MN Re REY eRe ks Mae pc geay Men neh see ey :
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 185
of each trade were appropriately costumed and car-
ried an emblematic flag.
The following crafts were in line: Carpenters,
boat-builders, sail-makers, ship-joiners, rope-makers,
cabinet-makers, brickmakers, painters, clock and
watchmakers, weavers, bricklayers, tailors, carvers,
turners, coopers, plane-makers, blacksmiths, nailers,
-coachmakers; these were followed by hatters, pot-
ters, wheelwrights, tinners, printers, glovers, sad-
dlers, stone-cutters, bakers, silversmiths and jewel-
ers, goldsmiths, coppersmiths, gunsmiths, foundry-
men, tanners, curriers and upholsterers, engravers,
plasterers, brushmakers, brewers, etc., ete.
The first American trade union was th New York
Society of Journeymen Shipwrights, which was in-
corporated April 38,1808. The New York Typo-
graphical Society No. 6, was formed several years
later, of which Horace Greeley was the first presi-
dent. Si gra
The present system of labor unions may be said
7 to have formed in. 1825, and during the admin-
istration of John Quincy Adams. During this pe-
riod the first labor party had birth, and aan its
organs, ‘The Workingman’ s Advocate,” Daily
“Sentinel,” and ® Young America,” promulgated
the following platform:
: 1. The right of man to the soil—‘‘Vote yourself
a farm.”
2. Down with monopolies, especially the United
States Bank.
138 :
186 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
Freedom of public lands.
Homesteads made inalienable.
Abolition of alllaws for the Bee of debts.
A general bankrupt law.
. A lien of the laborer upon his own work for
his wages,
8. Abolition of imprisonment for debt.
y 9. Equal rights for women with men in all re-
spects.
10. Abolition of chattel dene and wages _
slavery. n
11. Land limitation to 150 acres: no person af-
ter the passage of this law to become possessed of
more than that amount of land. But when a land
monopolist died, his heirs were to take each his le-
gal number of acres, and be compelled to sell the
overplus, using the proceeds as they pleased.
12. Mails in the United States to run on the Sab-
bath.
These radical principles were enthusiastically en-
dorsed by the workingmen, and were the basis upon
IS OR
which they founded the ‘‘ Workingmen’s Party,”——..
whose convention in 1830 nominated Mr. Ezekiel
Williams for governor of New York. From 1830
to 1840 the labor movement was more active than
at any time previous to the rebellion. A law which.
had been enacted in Massachusetts against unions
was attacked in 1842, and a complete victory was
won by the Journeymen Boatmakers.
The Franklin Society of Printers, organized at
Cincinnati in 1827, was the earliest of the printers’
"HOUUdS V SHNVN WOL LSHNOH
ts)
]
tay HS
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 189
unions. After a somewhat checkered career, a na-
tional call was made, and the National Typograph-
ical Union was formed in 1852. They became the
International Typographical Union in 1869. They
have over 355 local unions with a membership of
over 18,000.
In 1854, The National Trade Association of Hat
Finishers was organized. The hatters, in their vari-
ous divisions, have about 10,000 members.
The Iron Molders’ Union was formed in 1859: it
now has 300 subordinate unions with a member-
ship of 20,000.
The Machinists and Blacksmiths formed an or-
ganization in 1858. In the following year they re-
ceived the first union charter granted bythe United
States government. They took the name of Mechan-
ical Engineers of the United States of America in
1877. 10,000 members.
Despite serious opposition, the glass-blowers or-
ganized at Philadelphia in 1848. In the various
divisions of their organization they now have about
30,000 members.
The Brotherhood of the Foot-Board was Roreuniped
in 1863. The locomotive engineers have a mem-
bership of over 20,000, and now are known as ‘‘The
Grand International Brotherhood of Locomotive
Engineers.” The locomotive firemen, also, have a
brotherhood, with a membership of 17,000, which
was formed in 1873, and is now known as ‘The
Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen.”
190 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
The first union of the cigar-makers was formed
in 1851, and since have acquired a combined mem’
bership of 30,000.
The bricklayers and stone-masons, organized in
1865, has a register of over 16,000 members, and is
well organized.
In 1866, ‘‘The Patrons of usbandee B other-
wise known as the National Grange, was formed,
and now has over 800,000 members. It is only
rivaled by the Knights of Labor in size.
The railway conductors perfected their organiza-
tion in 1879, and are now called the ‘‘Order of
Railway Conductors.” Membership about 8,000.
The boot and shoe men organized in 1869, but
failed in the general strike of 1873.
The National German-American Typographical
Union began in 1873, and now has a roll of about
1,200 members. |
The union, from which the National Horse-shoers
Union was formed, was organized in 1849. The.
present organization was perfected in 1874, and has
5,784 members.
The ‘‘Sovereigns of Industry” formed in 1874, and
four years later had 180,000 members. The order
failed in 1880, and in 1886 was re-organized. Its
object is co-operation and to shut out the ‘‘middle-
man” in all departments of business.
The iron workers organized two unions in 1878,
called the Associated Brotherhood of Iron and Steel
Heaters, and the Iron and Steel Roll-hands’ Union. _
td mee ae Cis: Poe
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 191
They combined with the Sons of Vulcan in 1876,
and arenow known as the Amalgamated Associa-
tion of Iron and Steel Workers. They number in
all, 60,000. :
The Granite-cutters National Union was formed
in 1877.
In 1878, the organization named the Lake Sea-
men’s Union was organized, and now has a mem-
bership of 8,000.
The Lasters’ Protective Union of New England
was organized in 1879, has fifty-eight branches and
7,860 members.
The members of the International Brotherhood
of Boilermakers, and Iron Shipbuilders and Help-
ers, have a membership of 20,000. These work-
men first organized in 1880.
The Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of
America is the outgrowth of previous organizations,
the first of which was formed in 1854. The pres-
_ ent name was taken in 1881. It has about 42,500
members. There is also an United Order of Car-
penters.
In 1883, the National Hatmakers’ Union was or-
ganized.
The railroad brakemen formed their National
Brotherhood in 1884, and now have 18,000 members.
The National Federation of Miners and Mine La-
borers is a combination of various coal and mining
organizations, and has a roll of 90,000 members.
The present order adopted its name in 1885.
1199 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
In 1886 the Journeymen Bakers’ National Union
was formed, and has a present membership of 25,000.
The Switchmen’s Mutual Aid Association was or-
ganized in 1886. Its membership is 5,000.
The Custom Tailors’ National Union has 18,000
members; the Telegraph Operators and Linemen
have 10,000 members; the House Painters, 10,000;
the Coopers’ Union, 10,000; the Furniture Work-
ers, 10,000; and the Mule Spinners (in the cotton
factories), number 5,000. There are, perhaps, a
score of other organizations whose membership is
less than 5,000.
The most powerful organization of workingmen
extant, isthe Knights of Labor.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 193
CHAPTER XIII.
THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR.
THE CAUSE OF THEIR ORGANIZATION—THE GREAT POW-
ER OF THE ORDER——_URIAH STEVENS, THE FOUNDED
— EARLY HISTORY—STRUGGLES—ATTACKED BY PUL-
PIT AND PRESS — ITS GROWTH — CHARACTER OF ITS
MEMBERS—WHO THEY ARE—- PRESENT NUMBER—A
SEMI-SECRET ORDER — THEIR PREAMBLE AND PLAT-
FORM OF PRINCIPLES — MANNER OF JOINING — WHO
ARE ELIGIBLE —— LAWS AND REGULATIONS OF THE
KNIGHTS
—PASS-WORDS, SIGNS AND GRIPS——-WOMEN AS MEM-
BERS—INTERESTING INFORMATION —— BIOGRAPHY OF
LOCAL, DISTRICT AND GENERAL ASSEMBLIES
MR. POWDERLY—THE OFFICERS—THE EXECUTIVE COM-
MITTEE——A DESCRIPTION OF THE MANAGEMENT.
THe exigencies of the workingmen in the United
States have been the cause of creating the largest
and most powerful organization, wholly devoted to
the interests of labor, that the world has ever
known.
The history of the Knights of Labor, until the last
few years, has not been sufficiently eventful to at-
tract general attention, but the events of 1886
194 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
proved conclusively that organization of the work-—
ingmen throughout the land had been perfected up-
on an unparalleled scale, and that it had grown in-
to the position of being one of the most potent
factors of this decade as a social and industrial force.
The growth of the order has been phenomenal, both
in number and for reaching strength. Its history,
and its influence upon industry, have become matters
for the historian.
The originator of this vast organization was
Uriah Stephens, a tailor by trade, of Philadelphia,
who was born in Cape May County, New Jersey,
in 1821.
In October, 1869, the ‘‘ Garment-Cutters’ Society”
of that city grew discouraged, and its members de-
termined to dissolve their society. Immediately
after the close of their last meeting, Uriah Stephens
consulted with James L. Wright, I. M. Hilser, R.
C. McCauley, William Cook, RK. M. Keen, and
James L. Kennedy, upon the advisability of form-
ing a new union. All of them were clothing cutters.
The plan proposed by Mr. Stephens was discussed
and met with hearty approval.
After several informal meetings, the men above
named, with several others, met at Mr. Stephens’
house on Thanksgiving day, 1869, and the associa-
ation now known as the Knights of Labor was
formed. The chief idea of their organization
was a national union of wage earners of all
classes.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 195
The members were bound to secrecy, and the
existence of their society was unknown _ out-
side of their own number for several years. Like
all great enterprises, the order developed slowly at
first, but it grew in strength and gradually gaineda
foothold in the estimation of workingmen.
The method adopted for calling a meeting was
the marking of five stars upon the front of Inde-
pendence Hall. This singular and mysterious sign
never failed to bring together thousands of the
working class, and it was the cause of much adverse
comment, both from the press and the pulpit. Be-
cause the object and principles of the order were
unknown and miscomprehended, the organization
was bitterly condemned on all sides, and the Catho-
lic church added its denunciation to the general
deluge of adverse criticism.
At this time the order had 80,000 members, but
during the succeeding five years their number ma-
terially decreased, and in 1883 the roll fell to 52,000
members. In 1871 their present name was adopted.
Previous to the publishing of the objects of the
order, its simple plan and general utility every-
where met with favor, and workingmen in all of the
eastern and middle states were rapidly enrolled.
Amid this clamor of defamation the leaders de-
cided to make public their aims and the ultimate
object of the society. In June, 1878, Mr. Stephens,
G. M. W., signed a special call for a meeting, at
which he said they had met ‘to consider the ex-
196 THE VOICE OF LABOR..
pediency of making the name of the order public, |
for the purpose of defending it from the fierce as-
saults and defamation made upon it by press, cler-
‘gy and corporate capital, and to take such further
action as shall effectually meet the grave emer-
gency.”
There is a widespread opinion that the Knights
of Labor are solely recruited from the ranks of la-
borers and mechanics, but this is not the case.
Among their number may be found men and wo-
men of all producing occupations. The growth of
the order has been such that over three hundred new
assemblies have been formed in a single month. The
total number of Knights, in the United States and
Canada, is estimated to be over ONE MILLION.
There is not a branch of labor, trade or profes-
sion that exists, that cannot furnish material for a
Knights of Labor assembly, and the occupations as
are not organized are joined together in separate
assemblies. This order is not only because of its
numerical strength, but more especially on account
of its almost certain future, the most important la-
bor combination ever conceived.
The name may or may not be well chosen. Many
of the Knights have expressed themselves to the
effect that the term is too much like those of orders
with which the Knights are distinctly at war. It
was this feeling which prompted them to change the
official name of their chief executive from ‘“‘ Grand”
to that of “ General Master Workman.” Contrary
a Ab pgs eli oe
2
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 197
to current belief, the Knights of Labor is only a
semi-secret order. Members are not now oath-
bound, but are simply obligated upon word of hon-
or to keep silent as to the workings and proceedings
of the organization. On the other hand, one Knight
is not permitted to reveal another’s connection with
the order without the latter’s consent. Asa general
rule, the work done by local general assemblies is
done secretly, as expediency demands.
The preamble and platform of principles of
the order, as narrated in their various organs, is
_ briefly summarized as follows:
The alarming development and aggressiveness of
great capitalists and corporations, unless checked,
will mevitably lead to the pauperization and hope-
less degradation of the toiling masses.
It is imperative, if we desire to enjoy the full bless-
ings of life, that a check be placed upon unjust
accumulation, and the power for evil of aggregated
wealth.
This much desired object can be accomplished
only by the united efforts of those who obey the di-
vine injunction, ‘‘In the sweat of thy face shalt
thou eat bread.”
Therefore we have formed the Order of Knights
of Labor, for the purpose of organizing and direct-
ing the power of the industrial masses, not as a po-
litical party, for it is more—in it are crystalized sen-
timents and measures for the benefit of the whole
people, but it should be borne in mind, when exer-
+
198 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
cising the right of suffrage, that most of the objects
herein set forth can only be obtained through legis-
lation, and that it is the duty of all to assist in nom-
inating and supporting with their votes only such
candidates as will pledge their support to these
measures, regardless of party. But no one shall,
however, be compelled to vote with the majority,
and calling upon all who believe in securing ‘the
greatest good to the greatest number,” to join
and assist us, we declare to the world that our
alms are:
I. To make industrial and moral worth, not
wealth, the true standard of individual and Nation-
al greatness.
II. To secure to the workers the full enjoyment
of the wealth they create, sufficient leisure in which +
to develop their intellectual, moral and social facul-
ties; all of the benefits, recreation and pleasures of
associations; in a word, to enable them to.share in |
the gains and honors of advancing civilization.
In order to secure these results, we demand at the
hands of the Stats:
III. The establishment of Bureaus of Labor Sta-
tistics, that we may arrive at a correct knowledge of
the educational, moral and financial condition of
the laboring masses.
IV. That the public lands, the heritage of the
people, be reserved for actual settlers; not another
acre for railroads or speculators, and that all lands
*
Es ee ee
Cy ae re
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 199
now held for speculative purposes be taxed to their
full value.
V. The abrogation of all laws that do not bear
equally upon capital and labor, and the removal of
unjust technicalities, delays and discriminations in
the administration of justice.
VI. The adoption of measures providing for the
health and safety of those engaged in mining, man-
ufacturing and building industries, and for indem-
nification to those engaged therein for injuries re-
ceived through lack of necessary safeguards.
VII. The recognition by incorporation, of trades,
unions, orders, and such other associations as may
be organized by the working masses to improve
their condition and protect their rights.
VIII. The enactment of laws to compel corpora-
tions to pay their employes weekly, in lawful mon-
ey, for the labor of the preceding week, and giv-
ing mechanics and laborers a first lien upon the
products of their labor to the extent of their full
wages.
IX. The abolition of the contract system on Na-
tional, State and Municipal works.
X. The enactment of laws providing for arbitra-
tion between employers and employed, and to en-
force the decision of the arbitrators.
XI. The prohibition by law of the employment
of children under fifteen years of age in workshops,
mines and factories.
200 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
XII. To prohibit the hiring out of convict labor.
XIII. That a graduated income tax be levied.
And we demand at the hands of Congress:
XIV. The establishment of a National monetary
system, in which a circulating medium in necessary
quantity shall issue direct to the people, without the
intervention of banks; that all the National issue
shall be full legal tender in payment of all debts,
public and private; and that the Government shall
not guarantee or recognize any private banks, or
create any banking corporations.
XV. That interest bearing bonds, bills of credit
or notes shall never be issued by the Government,
but that, when need arises, the emergency shall be
met by issue of legal tender, non-interest bear-
ing money.
XVI. The importation of foreign labor under
contract be prohibited.
XVII. That in connection with the postoftice, the
Government shall organize financial exchanges, safe
deposits and facilities for deposit of the savings of
the people in small sums.
XVIII. That the Government shall obtain pos-
session, by purchase, under the rights of eminent
domain, of all telegraphs, telephones and railroads,
and that hereafter no charter or license be is-
sued to any corporation for construction or opera-
tion of any means of transporting intelligence, pas-
sengers or freight.
And while making the foregoing demands upon -
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 201
the State and National Government, we will endeav-
or to associate our own labors.
XIX. To establish co-operative institutions, such
as will tend to supercede the wage system, by the
introduction of a co-operative industrial system.
XX. To secure for both sexes equal pay for
equal work. 3
XXI. To shorten the hours of labor by a general
refusal to work for more than eight hours.
XXII. To persuade all employers to agree to ar-
bitrate all differences which may arise between them
and their employes, in order that the bonds of sym-
pathy between them may be strengthened, and that
strikes may be rendered unnecessary.
The manner of joining the order and the forming
of local assemblies is of interest, and the following
comments are given for the benefit of the uniniti-
ated:
Any female of the age of sixteen, or any male of
the age of eighteen, whether manufacturer, em-
ployer of any kind, wage-worker or farmer, is eligi-
ble to become a member, except lawyers, bankers,
professional gamblers, stock brokers, and any per-
son who makes, or sells, or derives any of his support
from the sale of intoxicating drink; but at least
three-fourths of every local assembly must be com-
posed of wage-workers or farmers.
No local assembly can be organized with less
than ten members.
14
202 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
Assemblies may be formed of any particular trade
or calling, or they may be composed of all trades.
The latter are termed ‘‘ mixed” assemblies.
Assemblies can only be instituted by regularly
commissioned organizers.
The charter fee is $16, which must be paid to the
organizer, and for which will be sent a charter, seal
and supplies. The expenses of the organizer are
not included in the charter fee, but vary according
to the distance traveled.
Under the laws of the Order the initiation fee
cannot be less than one dollar for men and fifty
cents for women.
The amount of local dues is regulated by each
local assembly, but cannot be less than ten cents
per month.
The Order also has a Benefit Insurance Associa-
tion, on the co-operative plan, which went into op-
eration November 1, 1883. The membership fee is
$1.25, and on the death or total disability of a mem-
ber, an assessment of only twenty-five cents is made.
Until the membership is sufficient to pay $500, the
amount of benefits will be regulated by the receipts
from assessments.
After a local assembly is formed, a candidate
must be proposed by a member in good standing,
who has an acquaintance with the applicant.
The Order of the Knights of Labor is not a mere
trade union, or benefit society; neither is it a polit-
ical party. Some of the specific aims and objects
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 903
of the Order are set forth in the preamble and de-
claration of principles published from week to
week, but any and every measure calculated to
advance the interests of the wage-workers, morally,
socially or financially, comes within the scope of
the Order. To abolish as rapidly as possible, the
wage system, substituting co-operation therefor; the
settlement of all difficulties between employer and
employe by arbitration; to educate the members to
an intelligent use of the ballot, for their own bene-
fit and protection, free from restraint of party or
the undue influence of employers or monopolies;
opposition to land, transportation, currency and
all other monopolies that affect the interests of
the masses, and the protection of all its members
in the exercise of all their rights as citizens, are
_ some of the principal objects of the Order.
Believing that these objects can be best secured
through a thorough organization of all branches of
‘honorable toil, those who are not already members
are cordially invited, and if they approve of the Or-
der, to secure the requisite number of persons to
form a local assembly in their locality, an organiz-
er will proceed to arrange a date for founding the
assembly.
Five or more local assemblies in any locality,
within a reasonable distance of each other, may form
a district assembly, for the better protection and re-
gulation of trade matters.
Local assemblies, located at any distance from
204 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
a district assembly, are attached directly to the gen-
eral assembly.
The general assembly meets annually on the first
Monday in October at such place as may be selected
at each session, and is the highest tribunal of the
Order. The general assembly is composed of gen-
eral officers and representatives from the district
assemblies and local assemblies attached to the
general assembly.
The revenue of the general assembly is derived
from the sale of supplies and a per capita tax of
six cents per quarter for every member in good
standing.
Each local assembly has control of its own funds,
and local co-operative enterprises are encouraged.
The Order has a secret work, consisting of pass-
words, signs and a grip, for the protection of the
meetings against those not members, and against
expelled or suspended members.
Each member is required to take apledge of honor,
upon joining, to obey all the laws of the Order, and
not to reveal any of the business or secret work of
the Order. No oath is taken.
There is nothing in the laws or workings of the
Order to interfere wiih the religious views of any
member.
Each local assembly is known by a number, as-
signed by the general secretary. Each local will
also choose a suitable name upon organization.
Local assemblies attached to the districts have to
URIAH STEPHENS,
Founder of the K. of &.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 207
pay-an additional per capita tax, of such amount as
may be fixed by each district assembly, for the sup-
port of the same.
Women may become members of the Knights of
Labor under the same laws and regulations as men,
and may form local and district assemblies; but the
charter fee ofa local assembly, composed wholly of
women, is $11. The initiation fee for women is fifty
cents.
The Order has an official paper known as the
‘Journal of United Labor,” published semi-month-
ly by the general secretary, and each local assembly
is required to subscribe for at least one copy each
year, as it is the organ of official communications
from the general master workman and general sec-
retary of the Order.
At the death of Uriah Stephens in 1879, the man-
tle of General Master Workman fell upon Mr. T.
V. Powderly, of Scranton, Pa.
Terrence Vincent Powderly is of Irish parentage,
and was born at Carbondale, Pa., January 24, 1849,
and was the youngest son in a family of twelve
children. Before reaching his majority he went to
Scranton and entered a railroad machine shop, where
he received $2.50 a day. While there he took a
commercial course of study, became a member of a
literary and debating society, and laid the foundation
of his success as a public speaker and a convincing
writer. 7
He soon joined the Knights of Labor, and became
208 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
a leader in the local labor committee of Scranton.
Shortly afterwards he formed the personal acquaint-
ance of Uriah Stephens: and was elected as the
head of the organization at Scranton.
He urged pacific measures and moderation dur-
ing the strikes of 1877, and his advice was the
means by which much property was saved from de-
struction. He is an eloquent speaker, and his suc-
cess as a leader of men is due to his broad and lib-
eral ideas, combined with sincere purpose and clear
judgment.
Under Mr. Powderly’s control, the Knights of
Labor has attained its present strength and import-
ance. His mettle and aims are fully expressed in
the preamble and declaration of principles of the
order, which has been scattered broadcast through-
out the land.
He has served as Mayor of Scranton, but has in-
variably declined to accept various political nomin-
ations which have been tendered him, among which
was that for Governor.
Richard Griffiths, of Chicago, was elected Gener-
al Worthy Foreman in 1879, and after serving as
General Treasurer two terms, was elected to his
present office October 13, 1886.
Charles H. Litchman was elected General Secre-
tary in 1878, and has since held the same office. He
has been a member of the Massachusetts legislature.
He lives in Philadelphia.
Frederick Turner is General Treasurer, and has
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 209
held the office of Secretary and Treasurer since 1883.
The Executive Board of the organization is made
up by the following gentlemen:
Thomas B. Barry, East Saginaw, Michigan; John
W. Hays, New Brunswick, New Jersey; William
H. Bailey, Shawnee, Ohio; Albert A. Carlton,
Somerville, Massachusetts; Thomas B. McGuire,
New York City; Ira B. RNA, Baluiors.
Maryland.
The officers of a local assembly are Master Work-
man, Worthy Foreman, Venerable Sage (retired
Master Workman), Recording and Financial Secre-
tary, Treasurer, Worthy Inspector, Almoner, Un-
known Knight, Inside and Outside Esquires, Insur-
ance Solicitor and three Trustees.
The officers of state assemblies correspond to those
of the local assembly, and the general office term
is two years.
210 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
CHAPTER XIV.
STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS.
A CAUSE OF RECENT STRIKES —- WHY WORKINGMEN
STRIKE—STATISTICS OF STRIKES IN 1880—suUCCESSES
AND FAILURES—COMPLETE REVIEW OF THEIR EFFECT
—AMOUNT OF LOSS INCURRED —- AGGREGATE LOSSES
IN APRIL AND MAY, 1886 — PUBLIC SYMPATHY FOR
STRIKERS—POWDERLY ON STRIKES—GREAT THOUGHTS
—THE POWER OF WHALTH GIVING WAY TO JUSTICE
AND RIGHT — A NEW POWER DAWNING UPON THE
WORLD—A BRIGHT FUTURE AT HAND—IDEAS FOR
WORKINGMEN TO THINK AND ACT UPON.
One of the effects resulting from the rapid organ-
ization of the unions during the last decade, is an
epidemic of strikes. It is needless to say, that so-
ber and intelligent workingmen throughout the coun-
try do not throw down their tools and leave their
benches without provocation. A week’s wages is
more to a workingman than it is to his employer,
for the simple reason that it means a week’s provis-
ion for himself and family, while his employer only
suffers a diminution of his capital. The workingman
THE YOICE OF LABOR. 911
strikes* because he feels the weight of manifest in-
justice, and seeks thereby to secure redress for his
grievances.
There is no doubt but strikes have been precipitat-
ed from causes that could have been removed by
more pacific measures; often better results could
have been secured. Instances can be cited where
petty reasons and personal animosity have been the
cause of strikes, but such cases are few. These
movements, as a rule, have been efforts to,better the
condition of labor, and great good has resulted, not-
withstanding the fact they have been generally un-
successful.
Mr. Joseph D. Weeks, of the census bureau, says
in a report on the strikes and lockouts of 1880, that
it is evident that these labor disturbances are grow-
ing less frequent. The number of strikes in certain
of the prominent trades, as given in the report, is as
follows: Iron and steel industries, 236; coal mining,
158; textile trades, 46; cigar-making, 42; building
trades, 36; transportation, 36; printing trades, 28;
glass industries, 27; piano-making, 14; boot and
shoe makings 11.
Much the greater proportion (714 per cent) of the
strikes and lockouts reported upon, were caused by
differences as to rates of wages. A total of 503, or
about 86 per cent of those relating to wages, or 62
per cent of all, were for an advance, and 77, or 14
per cent, of those relating to rates of wages, or 94
per cent of all, were against a reduction.
912 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
Of 481 strikes—59 per cent of the whole—169,
or 85 per cent, were successful; 85, or 13 per cent,
were compromised, and 227, or 47 per cent, were un-
successful. Of 807 strikes for an advance, 127, or
41 per cent, were successful; 62, or 20 per cent,
were compromised, and 118, or 39 per cent, were un-
successful. Of 45 strikes or lockouts against or for
a reduction, 3 only were successful, 8 were compro-
mised, and 34 were unsuccessful.
Of 20 gtrikes in connection with payment of
wages, 11, or 35 per cent, were successful, 6 were
compromised, and three were unsuccessful. Every
strike in connection with hours of labor, of which the
result is given, was unsuccessful. In questions rela-
ting to administration and methods of work, the
strikes were, as a rule, unsuccessful. Of 813 stop-
pages by causes reported upon, 610, or 88 per cent,
were strikes; 85, or 12 per cent, were lockouts.
Of 610 classified as strikes, the results of 369 are
given. Of these, 143, or 39 per cent, were success-
ful; 156, or 42 per cent, were unsuccessful, and 70,
or 19 percent, were compromised. Of 85 lockouts,
the results of 52 are given. Of these 10, or 19 per
cent, were successful; 34, or about 65 per cent, were
unsuccessful, while 8, or about 15 per cent, were
compromised.
In 414 strikes, the number of men idle were 128,-
262, making an average of about 310 men to each
strike. Of these, 64,779 lost $3,711,097, or $57 each.
The total loss in wages is estimated at $13,003, 866.
>
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 213
When the strikes were successful, the additional
wages compensated for a portion of this loss.
The theory and practice of strikes is greatly differ-
ent to-day from that of the past. Intelligent leaders
have perfected organization, and the: working-
man has never been better prepared to combat his
wrongs and secure his just dues. Labor is now aware
that in organization lies the true channel to a high-
er plane and a better condition, and with due regard
for the law of the land, itis destined to accomplish a
righteous advancement.
The following is a statement of the aggregate of
losses incident upon the strikes in April and May,
1886.
Current New Business
Wages. Business. Stopped.
New York City. ..$300,000 $300,000 $2,000,000
Philadelphia ..... 60,000 50,000 5,000,000
Smaller Pa. cities. 70,000 Ds OOO erecete Sica te
Detroit, Mich..... 97,000 25,000 850,000
Cincinnati... ..... 375,000 300,000 1,000,000
Milwaukee. ...... 466,000 200,000 4,000,000
New England cities 275,000 ........ 6,000,000
bee el sale ahs OOO
LONE aN ey a ten ae eas DUO aS otin «, See 150,000
Washington, D.C.. 54,000 ......... 2,000,000
Indianapolis....... AIO De oe eects erga Sar
Bittsburghy:). 02520280, 000 75,000 300, 000
Louisville, Ky.... 23.000 5,000 500,000
Coal strikes...... 200,000 500,000 Indeterm’e
Chicago. ........ 700,000 700,000 3,000,000
a
Totals... .. .. $2,802,000 2,105,000 24,800,000
MET AVeELOLAl Caen ce oe ried oe eles ea, $29.707.000
914 THE VOICE.OF LABOR.
In commenting upon this statement, the ‘‘Loco-
motive Firemen’s Magazine” says: ‘‘We presume
the foregoing figures are largely guess work, mere
approximations, anc that there are those who would
probably place sum totals much higher, and this
could be done, we apprehend, while a strict regard
for facts would be maintained. It will be admitted,
we think, that the larger the sum total of losses oc-
casioned by strikes, the more aggravating must be
the causes which produce them. The trouble is that
men contemplate the losses and lose sight of the
wrongs which provoke them. The losses to such
people obscure the wrongs. Fortunately there are
those who, though the losses by strikes are enor-
mous, maintain that the wrongs which produce strikes
and occasion the losses demand first consideration,
and they are right in their conclusions.
Take any of the industrial enterprises that have
suffered losses by the recent strikes, and employers
select the most expressive terms in speaking of their
losses and to magnify the rectitude of their treat-
ment of employes, as also the base ingratitude of
those who struck. They are in positions to obtain the
publie ear—they have money and influence, and are
the first to command audience. They never did say
the employe was right—always wrong. The strik-
ers come in later, and often after the verdict of the
public has been rendered.
If the strike touches the transportation interests
of the country, railroads or water transportation, or,
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 915
if as in the case of the telegraph strike, it interferes
with the transmission of intelligence, the strikers find
at once that overwhelming opposition confronts
them, forthough the great public may not believe the
strikers in the wrong, or may believe that their griey-
ances are aggravating, still, as the method of redress
involvesthe public in embarrassments and inconve-
niences, it demands that the strikers shall resume
work or that others shall be employed in their places,
regardless of the wrongs complained of, and as a
consequence the wrongs which led to the strike are
obscured. Take as an illustration the telegraph
strike which occurred some years ago.
The real investment made by the owners of
the telegraph lines amounted to about $40,000-
000. The stock of the corporation had been water-
ed until* it swelled to $80,000,000. Now to de-
clare dividends on $80,000,000, it became neces-
sary to reduce the wages of employes. But when
the employes struck it was difficult for them to get
before the public the stupendous iniquity which pro-
voked the wrong.. The public demanded service
without regard to wages, this demand strength-
ened the corporation, and as a consequence, when
the strike ended, the wrong existed as when
the strike began. The strikers suffered. The
corporation came off with flying colors. Final-
ly the great public condemned the corporation, but
the condemnation resulted in no harm to the cor-
poration nor benefit to the wronged employes,
216 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
It is not to be presumed that there will never be
another telegraph strike. On the contrary, the
probabilities are there will be another strike one of
these days. Why? Simply because the flagrant
wrong exists. It has not been removed. It has not
been modified. Wrongs are like cancer. They eat their
way to the surface. You must remove the roots or
they will come again; hence, we observe, that the
man who discusses the wrongs which produce
strikes is a better statesman, a better citizen, and
more of a philanthropist, than he who is eternally
deploring the losses which strikes occasion, without
giving a thought*to their cause.
It is quite probable that men generally do not re-
gard successful revolutions worth what they cost.
Strikes are revolutions and rebellions combined.
We read and speak of the American reyolution—
the British call it a rebellion. Rebellion or revolu-
tion, it was dear to England, because she provoked:
it and lost. It was costly and bloody to the colo-
nies, but they won, and yet they were colonists who
were opposed to the revolution. They did not be-
lieve that the tea tax and the stamp tax were of suf-
ficient importance to warrant rebellion and revolu-
tion. It is not to be presumed that the colonies
would have rebelled because of the amount of mon-
ey involved in the taxation imposed, but the impo-
sition of the tax brought into prominence the insuf-
ferable wrong of taxation without representation.
It was taxation and chains, taxation and serfdom,
Ten An SOR VLR ee
aye in tit bch Re Sinan eC ie UAE eta g tia’ a Dae anit) led
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 217
and hence the colonies struck for freedom and in-
dependence, and had they been defeated in the-war
of °76 they would still have been striking for the
recognition of their rights. It goes for nothing to
say that strikes are always expensive. The fact is
universally admitted, but it is not true that strikes
ought not to occur because they are costly.
There is a way to prevent strikes, as there was a
way in 1776 to have prevented the war of the re-
volution. Had England acted justly, there would
have been no war, and if employers would act just-
ly towards their employes there would be fewer
strikes, or strikes would forever disappear from the
industrial records of the country. Arbitration, com-
promise, reasoning together, should always precede
a strike, but as certainly as rivers flow to the sea,
when injustice is continued in spite of such things,
strikes will come, and the more wide-spread the in-
justice the more terrible will be the consequences of
strikes.
Manifestly, thinking men, who have the welfare
of society at heart, are becoming profoundly inter-
ested in the labor problems of the day. They see
distinctly that there must be less injustice or more
strikes. If more strikes, then more turbulence, more
losses, more mobs, more collisions, more blood,
more demoralization. As a consequence, congress
is discussing remedies, and the same is true of leg-
islatures throughout the country; the supreme idea
being to remove causes for strikes, enthrone justice
SERRE EN ap TS ante Ly
Berle sy ee, eae a ees Dotty saa nar ut ® Mie erate Bee CaN bea Cb a Pr
218 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
and right and overcome wrong. We regard the
signs of the times as cheering. We believe that
strikes in the future will be less frequent, because
we believe the working men will see that the great.
public heart is throbbing responsive to their de-
mands for justice. The press of the country is
evincing deep solicitude in the welfare of working-
men. The pulpit is taking a hand in the discussion,
but above all, and better than all, workingmen them-
selves have resolved that they will master the pro-
blems, and by logic and law, and by the intelligent
use of the ballot, remedy many of the evils of which
they justly complain.”
GENERAL MASTER WORKMAN POWDERLY
ON STRIKES:
‘¢ The prospect for the future of the laboring man
in America, is brighter to day than it ever was,
notwithstanding the seemingly ‘strained rela-
tions’ at present existing between employer and
employe.
‘«That we are passing through an epidemic of —
strikes, lockouts, and boycotts, is true, but the fact
must not be lost sight of that were it not for the
growing power of organization, we should have a
great many more strikes to contend with than we
have had.
‘‘The growth of organization for the last ten years |
has been steady and healthy. It is only where orga-
nization is in its infancy, that serious troubles such
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 219
as strikes and lockouts exist. The causes from
which strikes and lockouts spring, are to be found in
all parts of the country, but the methods of dealing
with the troubles as they arise are different. In places
where no organizations of labor exist, or where the
seeds of organization have just been planted, dis-
puting parties are apt to become involved in strikes.
The reasons advanced in support of that proposition
are as follows: Until recently very few working-
men dared to express their opinion in public on the
subject of labor, for the reason that they were al-
most certain of an immediate dismissal from the ser-
vice of the man or company they worked for, if it
became known that they in any way favored the
association of workingmen for mutual protec-
tion.
‘¢With such asentiment existing in the breasts of
-workingmen, they could not be expected to feel very
kindly toward the employer, who so jealously
watched their every movement, and who, by his
actions, made them feel that they were regarded
rather as serfs than freemen. While the real bone
and sinew of the land remained in enforced silence, ex-
cept where it could be heard through the medium of
the press and rostrum, through chosen leaders, anoth-
er class of men who seldom worked, would insist
on ‘representing labor,’ and in making glowing
speeches on the rights and wrongs of man, would
urge the ‘abolition of property’ or the ‘ equal divis-
ion of wealth;’ such speakers very often suggest-
920 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
ing that a good thing to do would be to ‘ hang cap-
italists to lamp-posts.’
‘‘The employer of labor who listened to sucn
speeches, felt that in suppressing organization among
his workmen he was performing a laudable act. Yet
he was, by that means, proving himself to be the
most powerful ally the anarchist could wish for.
He caused his employes to feel that he took no in-
terest in them, other than to get as many hours of
toil out of them for as few shillings as possible.
The consequence was that the employer, who was
himself responsible for the smothering of the hon-
est expression of opinion on the part of labor, be-
came possessed of the idea that the raw-head and
bloody-bones curbstone orator was the real repre-
sentative of labor, and determined to exercise more
vigilance and precaution than ever in keeping his
‘help’ out of the labor society. |
‘‘The speaker who hinted at, or advocated, the
destruction of property or the hanging of capi-
talists to lamp-posts, was shrewd enough to speak
very kindly and in a knowing manner of labor as-
sociations, giving out the impression that he held
membership in one or more of them. Workingmen,
who were denied the right to organize, very fre-
quently went to hear Mr. Scientific lecture on the ~
best means of handling dynamite. And when the
speaker portrayed the wrongs of labor, the thought:
ful workman could readily trace a resemblance be-
*
4 ont
Pie
ri tue
2 i
on ee
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 223
tween the employer painted by the lecturer and the
man he himself worked for.
‘¢ Workmen employed by those who frowned on
labor organizations became sullen and morose; they
saw in every action of the stiperintendent another
- innovation on their rights, and they finally deter-
mined to throw off the yoke of oppression, organize,
and assert their manhood. ‘The actions of the su-
perintendent, or boss, very often tended to widen
the breach between employer and employe. When
the organization did come, it found a very bitter
feeling existing on both sides, and, before studying
the laws of the society, they joined, or becoming
conversant with its rules or regulations regarding
the settlement of disputes or grievances, the work-
men determined to wipe out of existence the whole
system of petty tyrannies that had been practiced
on them for years. Not being drilled in organiza-
tion, and feeling that the employer would not treat
with them, the only remedy suggesting itself was
the strike. And, on the other hand, the employer,
who felt that every move of his workmen in organ-
ization would be directed against his interests, de-
termined to take time by the forelock and turn
them all out on the street. Thus we find the or-
ganization in its infancy face to face with a strike
or lockout.
«Absorbed in the task of getting large dividends,
the employer seldom inquired of his superintendent
how he managed the business intrusted to his keep-
924 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
ing, or how he treated the employes. In thousands
of places throughout the United States, many super-
intendents, foremen, or petty bosses, are interested
in stores, corner groceries, or saloons. In many
places the employe is told plainly that he must deal
at the store, or get his liquor from the saloon in
which his boss has an interest; in others, he is given
to understand that he must dea: in these stores or
saloons, or forfeit his situation. Laws have been
passed in some states against the keeping of com-
pany stores, but the stores are kept nevertheless,
and workmen are made to feel that they must pa-
tronize them.
‘¢In many cases, the owners of mills, factories or
mines are not aware of the existence of such insti-
tutions as the ‘pluck me’—the name applied to the
company store—but they stand so far away from
their employes that they cannot hear the murmur of
complaint, and if a whisper of it ever does reach
their ears it comes through the boss, who is not on-
ly interested in the store, but in keeping its existence
a secret from his employer. The keeping of such
stores is another source of injustice to workmen, for
their existence tends to widen the breach between
employer and employe. It may seem that I
am dealing with insignificant things, but when
the statement is made that seven out of every
ten superintendents, or bosses, are interested in the
management and derive profits from the opera-
tion of stores, which employes are forced to pa-
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 925
tronize, [ make an assertion which can be prov-
ed:
‘(In a country where every man, however hum-
ble, is taught from his infancy that he stands the
equal of all other men, it is but natural for a citizen
who is given to understand that he must patronize
a certain store, or that he cannot join a certain soci-
ety, to feel restive, and, where so much is promised
and so little obtained, men are apt to lose faith in a
law-making system which obliges the workman him-
self to become complainant and prosecutor in cases
where the laws are violated to his detriment. If he
prosecutes he is discharged. If he does not prose-
cute for infractions of law, but simply complains,
he is told to invoke the majesty of the law in his
own behalf. In this way the law is disregarded; it
becomes a dead letter; men lose hope in law and
law-makers.
‘The constant itching and irritation caused by
the indifference of the employer to their welfare,
and the injustice practiced on them by petty bosses,
go on until the men feel that the only remedy
is through the strike. In this way the men who
belong to no organization are launched into
strikes.
‘‘Workingmen are not, as a rule, educated men.
When the strike does come, while they feel that they
have been wronged, yet they are lacking in the
command of language necessary to state their case
properly to the world, and hence set forth their
2296 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
claims in such a way as to arouse prejudices or cre-
ate false impressions. The other side having the
advantage of education, either personally or by right
of purchase, can and does mold public opinion in a
great many cases.
‘‘T have pointed out one or two of the little
things which cause a great deal of uneasiness and
vexation to workingmen; others have pointed out
the root of the evil. The workingman of the Unit-
ed States will soon realize that he possesses the
power which kings once held—that he has the right
to manage his own affairs. The power of the
king has passed away. The power of wealth is
passing away. The evening shadows are closing
in upon the day when immense private fortunes can
be acquired. The new power dawning upon the
world is that of the workingman to rule his own
destinies. That power can no longer be kept from
him. How will he wield it?
‘‘This question is of great concern not only to
the workingman but to every citizen of the republic,
and the hand of every citizen who loves his country
should be extended to assist the newruler. Ihave
no fears because of the present apparently disturbed
condition of the labor world; on the contrary, the
signs are very hopeful. Wendell Phillips once
said: ‘Never look for an age when the people
can be quiet and safe. At such times Despotism,
like a shrouding mist, steals over the mirror of Free-
dom.’
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 22T
‘“‘The people are not quiet to-day, but they are
safe. It is the power of monopoly that is not safe.
The men who pile up large fortunes must com.
pensate for that privilege in the payment of 4
graduated income tax. The blessings which they
derive from wealth must be shared by the natior,
from which they extract that wealth.” .
228 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
CHAPTER XV.
EIGHT HOURS.
EFFECT OF THE EIGHT HOUR AGITATION—NUMBER OF
MEN IN THE MOVEMENT IN 1886 —— THE BENEFITS
CLAIMED—LABOR NOT A COMMODITY—A BIRDS-EYE
VIEW OF THE WORKING WORLD — THE AGENTS OF
CORPORATIONS-—EXACTIONS ARE FETTERS—APPEALS ©
AND MUTTERED DISCONTENT—A GREAT PLEA—THIRST
FOR KNOWLEDGE SHOULD BE GRATIFIED—-ROBERT G.
INGERSOLL’S ELOQUENT WORDS ON THE SUBJECT—
HOURS OF LABOR SHOULD BE SHORTENED.
Tue agitation for the reduction in the hours of la-
bor was extremely active after the close of the war of
the rebellion. Various conventions were held, demon-
strations were made, and much discussion was had.
Three classes of employers were created by the
movement: Those who favored eight hours a day,
and eight hours pay; Those who opposed reduction
of either hours or pay, and those who were willing
to concede ten hours pay for lessened time.
The men generally failed to secure what they
sought.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 929
The history of 1867 has been repeated in re-
cent efforts in the same direction, yet considerable
gain is reported at various points. It is cal-
culated that about 450,000 men participated in the
eight-hour demand in 4886, of whom 185,000 were
_ granted shorter hours. Strikes continued during the
months of May and June,with a total loss in wages
of $2,802,000, and a stoppage in new business to
the amount of the enormous sum of $24,800,000.
Both employers and workmen. find the eight-hour
system to be impracticable in certain lines of busi-
_ness, while in others, it is a most gratifying success.
The chief benefits claimed for the eight-hour
movement are: 1. Employment for all. 2. Steady
employment. 3. Better wages. 4. Relief from anx-
iety and poverty. 5. Time for improvement, re-
creation, and home enjoyment.
. ‘Labor is not a mere commodity or exclusive in-
dividual property,” is the language of a reformer on
this question. ‘‘It is human life and skill exerted to
sustain human society through mutual exchange of
works and services by means of money-wages. The
application of physical forces in aid of human hands
vastly increases production and the facilities of
transportation, while the application of moral forces
to the relations of employers and employes tends to
distribute the beneficial results of civilized indus-
tries among the whole people through high wages,
cheap goods and services. The national com-
bination of working people’s organizations enforces
230 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
a rise in wages and a fall in profits, tending to
equalize the standard of average living among the
masses. The first cost of manufacture and trans-
portation is getting minimized by the progress of
discovery and invention, but the retail price paid
for small distribution is yet very high, except in a
few governmental services of water-works, post-.
offices, etc. The wasteful system of retail trade
greatly enhances the cost of living and withdraws
large numbers of able-bodied persons from produc-
tive labor.
‘“‘The average term of employment for all work-
ing people is not over nine months during the year, —
so that there is always a certain per centage of com-
pulsory idleness. High wages for efficient work is
comtemporaneous with cheap goods; a spinner on
the hand wheel with one spindle can turn off three
pounds of No. 10 cloth yarn in a week, a mule-
spinner about three hundred pounds; a hand-loom
weaver can weave fifty yards of common shirting
a week, and the product of the power-looms which
the weaver in a factory would attend to is 1,500
yards. Therefore, wages of the working people
rise with the concentration of labor in great estab-
lishments, while the cost price of goods and ser-
vices fall in proportion to the enlargement of or-
ganized labor in the processes of the manufacture.
To enforce such general distribution of the benefits
working in society, and by the best approved com-
binations of capital and labor, is the aim of organ-
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THE VOICE OF LABOR. 2ao
ized labor in all the contentions throughout civilized
communities.
‘¢ Fifty out of 500 trades and occupations are or-
ganized, and have established their own daily wages.
Many trades have been under paid, while the aris-
tocracy of organized skilled labor has succeeded in
grabbing $3 to $5 a day by keeping competition
down to a minimum by restricting the number of
apprentices. Human working time is the measure
of wages. Piece-work is usually paid at a rate
which takes into account how much the worker
should earn during the whole working day on a cer-
tain kind of work. By means of minute subdivis-
ion of labor, and the employment of so-called help-
ers—men, women, and children—the number of
skilled mechanics and artisans has been minimized
in the mammoth manufacturing establishments.
This great mass of under paid working people is re-
inforced by a class of small farmers, and by large
numbers of the middle class of business men, who
are driven into bankruptcy by the competition of
large farming enterprises, or by the cheapness of
work in the great manufactories and large retail
establishments.
‘‘The old industrial system of a well-defined
subdivision into about fifty standard trades and oc-
cupations, has entirely outlived its usefulness, and
the working people are rising in their might to re-
arrange a mode of living wages for all. Labor is
only - small proportion of the first cost of an arti-
934 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
cle, and its wages are paid by the whole people as
final consumers of goods, and therefore an attempt
for a general rise of wages for common labor need
not raise the retail price of goods and services to
any appreciable extent. But interest, rent, profit,
and unnecessary expenses will have to be curtailed
and wasteful styles of business abolished. The
newspapers which sold for five cents are being grad-
ually supplanted by papers which sell for one and
two cents, without any reduction in wages of com-
positors, reporters, editorial writers, or correspond-
ents. When the trackmen, freight handlers, and
other low-paid employes struck on Jay Gould’s
railroad system, all well paid employes were reduced
to compulsory idleness, and the public suffered
great losses as a penalty for allowing the system of —
starvation wages to exist.
Wages must be leveled up and _ profits, in-
terest, rent, and taxes leveled down. High rents
are paid out of the proceeds of overworked
and under paid employes as, for instance, the rents
paid for mammoth dry goods and certain clothing
stores, where male and female employes are paid such
small pittances that they depend upon their parents
to make up the deficits in their standard of living.
The owners of business blocks in central locations
get these enormous rents owing to the competition
of merchants, who bid against each other for the
small area of the business center. Extortionate
rents mean starvation wages for cashboys, cash-
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 235
girls, salesladies, clerks, bookkeepers, and other
help in wholesale and retail stores. In fact, the
army of working people employed in distribution
is outrageously overworked and under paid for the
benefit of a comparatively small number of mer-
chant princes and store keepers.”
Between the men who pay the wages and the
millions who receive them, there is not a proper re-
cognition of the common ties of humanity. It is
noticeable that when a man is placed in control of
others, he soon learns to disregard their inter-
ests and personal feelings. We see in corporations
extinction of sympathy for its employes, and the
term ‘soulless corporation,” is justly put. Through
the superintendents, managers, presidents and direct-
ors, the workingman may appeal, but he never
reaches any one but an agent. There is no one per-
sonally responsible to whom he may apply for the
relief of a grievance.
Every man who acts as an agent feels it to be
his duty to demand and exact strict service from
those under him, but he is not at liberty to make
concessions. It is not strange that workingmen .
are restive under this kind of supervision. They
never come in contact with the power that can rem-
edy their troubles, and show indulgence to their
-wantsasmen. An agent listens to their complaints
with impatience, and often discharges them if they
betray discontent.
The eorepemien of to-day feel it their right to
236 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
have more time to themselves. The strict exactions |
of corporations and agents have become fetters
which chafe and irritate. Appeals and muttered dis-
content have availed nothing, and the result has
been a general demand and uprising for shorter
hours.
The greatest plea the workingman has for more
time away from the shop, factory and bench is, that
he seeks mental culture. No one can deny that
thirst for knowledge is a most laudable craving, and
it is one which should be gratified whenever demand-
ed. Ignorance never increased the product of a
nation. As a matter of right he is entitled to
education, if he creates the wealth of the na-
tion.
‘‘Why should labor,” says Robert G. Ingersoll,
‘fill the world with wealth and live in want? Ev-
ery labor-saving machine should help the whole
world. Everyone should tend to shorten the hours
of labor. Reasonable labor is a source of joy. To
work for wife and child, to toil for those you love
is happiness, provided you can make them happy.
But to work like a slave—to see your wife and chil-
dren in rags—to sit at a table where food is coarse
and scarce—rise at four in the morning—to work
all day and throw your tired bones upon a miserable
bed at night—to live without leisure, without rest,
without making those you love comfortable and hap-
py—this is not living—it is dying—a slow, linger-
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 937
ing, crucifixion. The hours of labor should be short-
ened. With the vast and wonderful improvements
of the nineteenth century there should be not oniy
the necessaries of life for those who toil, but com.
forts and luxuries as well.”
238 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
CHAPTER XVI.
ARBITRATION.
ARBITRATION NOT AN EXPERIMENT—THE JUSTINIAN LAW
-—--ENGLISH AND ROMAN LAW—JUDICIAL BOARDS OF
ARBITRATION—-PRESIDENT CLEVELAND'S MESSAGE ON
THE QUESTION — RICHARD GRIFFITHS, G. W. F., ON
ARBITRATION—-GEORGE RODGERS — FRENCH COURTS
OF ARBITRATION — HOW THE GREAT BRICKLAYERS
STRIKE IN CHICAGO WAS SETTLED-—JUDGE TULEY’S
DECISION—ARBITRATION JUST FOR EMPLOYER AND
WORKINGMEN—THE SCALES OF JUSTICE A TRUE BAL-
ANCE.
THERE is nothing new or experimental in the idea
of adjusting differences by arbitration. The old
Justinian law contains a detailed system for this
method of settling disputes, the chief idea of which
is the promptness and certainty of the settlement.
The general derangement and injury to business is
always a great evil attendant upon strikes and sim-
ilar troubles. All of the European nations have
adopted the practice of the principles found in the
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 939
eighth section of the IV Pandects, and even Eng-
land overrides the common law in her _prefer-
ence for the Roman system.
Various propositions have been made to establish
judicial Boards, or Courts of Arbitration, for the
settlement of the differences which continually
arise between employers and employes, some of
which are feasible and some are vagaries of illusion-
ists. President Cleveland, prompted by the pres-
sure of the great question of the workingman’s con-
dition, sent the following message to congress:
‘‘To THE SENATE AND House oF ReprEsENTATIVES:
The constitution imposes on the president the duty
of recommending to the consideration of congress,
from time to time, such measures as he shall judge
necessary and expedient. I amso deeply impressed
with the importance of immediately and thoughtfully
meeting the problem which recent events and a
present condition have thrust upon us, involving the
settlement of disputes arising between our laboring
men and their employers, that I am constrained to
recommend to congress legislation upon this se-
rious and pressing subject.
Under our form of government, the value of la-
bor as an element of national prosperity should be
distinctly recognized, and the welfare of the labor-
ing man should be regarded as especially entitled
to legislative care. In a country which offers to all
its citizens the highest attainment of social and po-
litical distinction, its workingmen cannot justly or
940 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
safely be considered as irrevocably consigned to
the limits of a class, and entitled to no attention, and
allowed no protest against neglect.
The laboring man, bearing in his hand an indis-
pensable contribution to our growth and _ progress,
may well insist, with manly courage and as a right,
upon the same recognition from those who make
our laws, as is accorded to any other citizen having
a valuable interest in charge; and his reasonable de-
mand should be met in such a spirit of appreciation
and fairness, as to induce a contented and patriotic
co-operation in the achievement of a grand national
destiny.
While the real interests of labor are not promot-
ed by a resort to threats and violent manifestations,
and while those who, under the pretext of an advo-
cacy of the claims of labor, wantonly attack the
rights of capital, and for selfish purposes or the love
of disorder sow seeds of violence and discontent,
should neither be encouraged nor conciliated, all
legislation on the subject should be calmly and de-
liberately undertaken with no purpose of satisfying
unreasonable demands or gaining partisan advan-
tage.
The present condition of the relations between
labor and capital are far from satisfactory. The
discontent of the employed is due in a large degree
to the grasping and heedless exactions of employ-
ers and the alleged discriminations in favor of cap-
ital as an object of governmental attention. It must
gt
THE VOICE OF LABOR. D471
also be conceded that laboring men are not always
careful to avoid causeless and unjustifiable disturb-
ances. Though the importance of a better ac-
cord between these interests is apparent, 1t must be
borne in mind that any effort in that direction by
the federal government must be greatly limited by
constitutional restriction’. There are many grievan-
ces which legislation by congress cannot redress
and many conditions which cannot by such means
be reformed.
I am satisfied, however, that something may be
done under federal authority to prevent the disturb-
ances which so often arise by disputes between
employer and employed, and which at times
seriously threaten the business interests of the
country; and, in my opinion, the proper theory
on which to proceed is that of voluntary arbitration
asthe means of settling these difficulties. But I sug-
gest that, instead of arbitrators chosen in the heat
of conflicting claims and after each dispute shall
arise, there be created a commission of labor
consisting of three members, who shall be regular
officers of the government, charged, among other
duties, with the consideration and settlement, when
possible, of all controversies between labor and
capital.
A commission thus organized would have the ad-
vantage of being a stable body, and its members,
as they gained experience, would constantly im-
prove in their ability to deal intelligently and use-
a
949 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
fully with questions which might be submitted to
them. If arbitrators are chosen for temporary ser-
vice as each case of dispute arises, experience and
familiarity with much that is involved in the ques-
tion will be lacking; extreme partisanship and bias
will be the qualifications sought on either side, and
frequent complaints of unfairness and _ partiality
will be inevitable.
The imposition upon a federal court of a duty
foreign to the judicial function, as the selection of
an arbitrator in such cases, is at least of doubtful
propriety. The establishment by federal authority
of such a bureau would be a just and sensible re-
cognition of the value of labor and of its right to
be represented in the departments of the govern-
ment. So far as its conciliatory offices shall have
relation to disturbances which interfered with tran-
sit and commerce between the states, its existence
would be justified under the provisions of the con-
stitution which give to congress the power to regu-
late commerce with foreign nations and among the
several states. And in the frequent disputes be-
tween the laboring men and their employers of less
extent, and the consequences of which are confined
within state limits, and threaten domestic violence,
the interposition of such a commission might be
tendered upon the application of the legislature or
executive of a state, under the constitutional pro-
vision which requires the general government to
protect each of the states against domestic violence.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 943
If such a commission were fairly organized, the
risk of a loss of popular support and sympathy re-
sulting from a refusal to submit to so peaceful an
instrumentality, would constrain. both parties to such
disputes to invoke its interference, and abide by its
decisions. There would also be good reason to
hope that the very existence of such an agency
would invite application to it for advice and coun-
sel, frequently resulting in the avoidance of con-
tention and misunderstanding. If the usefulness
of such a commission is doubtful, because it might
lack power to enforce its decisions, much en-
couragement is derived from the conceded good that
has been accomplished by the railroad commissions
which have been organized in many of the states,
which have little more than advisory power, have
exerted a most salutary influence in the settlement
of disputes between conflicting interests.
In July, 1884, by a law of congress, a bureau of
labor was established and placed in charge of a
commissioner of labor, who is required to collect
information upon the subject of labor, its relations
with capital, the hours of labor and the earnings
of- laboring men and women, and the means of
promoting their material, social, intellectual, and
moral prosperity. The commission which I sug-
gest could easily be engrafted upon the bureau thus.
already organized by the addition of two more com-
missioners, and by supplementing the duties now
imposed upon it by such other powers and func-
944 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
tions as would permit the commissioners to act as
arbitrators when necessary between labor and cap-
ital, under such limitations and upon such occa-
sions as should be deemed proper and useful. Pow-
er should also be distinctly conferred upon this
bureau to investigate the causes of all disputes as _
they occur, whether submitted for arbitration or
not, so that information may always be at hand to
aid legislation on the subject when necessary and
desirable.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
Executive Mansion, April 22, 1886.
Although there is much antagonism existing
between the workingmen and their employers, both
concede the advisability of mutually agreeing upon
some just method for settlement. Voluntary arbi-
tration is generally held to be a most useful and
equitable course to pursue, but as cases constantly
arise wherein there is much ill feeling, this method
is beyond question, and recourse to a special tribu-
nalseems the only way to reach a definite and bind-
ing settlement.
In reply to a letter of inquiry upon this topic,
General Worthy Foreman Richard Griffiths, of the
Knights of Labor, writes: ‘I am an advocate of
and a firm believer in arbitration. Peace between
capital and labor will be intermittent until the two
are impelled, by self-interest, public sentiment,
or public law, to meet each other in a spirit
*
ONIXVIIOINA
t -
ie
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 94%
of mutual respect and forbearance, and_ sub-
mit their disputes to the decision of impartial tribu-
nals. The Knights of Labor are the evangels of
this new gospel of good will. The twenty-second
plank of their preamble and declaration of princi-
ples is as follows:
‘To persuade employers to agree to arbitrate all
differences which may arise between them and their
employes, in order that the bonds of sympathy be-
tween them may be strengthened, and that strikes
may be rendered unnecessary.’
‘‘T can assure you that the practices of the Knights
are in harmony with their theories. In proof of
this I would call your attention to the fact that in
the territory embraced in district assembly No. 30
—the manufacturing sections of Massachusetts—
over one hundred disputes were settled by arbitra-
tion in the twelve months between January, 1885,
and January, 1886. In not one instance that
arbitration was resorted to did it prove abor-
tive.
‘At first, manufacturers objected strenuously to
submitting to arbitration. Not a few resented the
intimation that there was anything to arbitrate as
an insolent and unwarranted interference with their
prerogative. But the great majority of the employ-
ers in the old Bay state now admit, without reluct- -
ance, that their employes are entitled to opinions
regarding their own wages and conditions of em-
ployment, and many of them eagerly avail them-
248 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
selves of the new and enlightened system of settling
industrial disputes.
“‘The Knights of Labor favor the establishment of
national and state courts of arbitration. Acting by
authority of and under instructions from the general
assembly, a committee composed of several of the
brightest members of our order are now in Wash-
ington, laboring for the creation of such courts. I
am advised that there are grounds for hoping that
their efforts will prove successful. When the legis-
latures of the several states meet, this same matter
will be pressed upon their attention.
‘Arbitration, in my judgment, should be advocated
by all thinking people; there isa crying need of it.
But workingmen, especially, should bear in mind
that, after all, arbitration is o1ily the cap-stone of
the edifice, that education and organization must
precede, or least go hand in hand with it. Unless
mechanics are thoroughly organized many employers
might, as of old, decline to treat with them. While
workingmen should always favor peace—should
never strike until all other means of obtaining
redress had failed —it is a duty which they
owe to themselves to be prepared for emergen-
cies. :
‘‘Tam glad to observe that decent newspapers are
taking an interest in this great question. The press
can do more than any other single agency toward .-
harmonizing the clashing claims of capital and labor.
The day was when workingmen were set down as in
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 949
the wrong in all disputes, and employers ever in the
right—when reports were doctored, and editorial
opinions made to order. But times are changing for
the better, and I thank God for it.
‘¢ Please set me down as heartily in favor of arbi-
tration.”
Mr. George Rodgers expresses a similar opinion
in the following words: ‘+I consider arbitration to
be one of the most important matters of the day.
Thinking, being my forte, I usually leave the writing
to others. However, I am a thorough believer in
arbitration, and hold the same views on this method
for the settlement of disputes in the industrial world
that are held and practiced whenever possible by
the entire organization of the Knights of Labor.
The constitution and laws of the Knights of Labor
expressly direct that all disputes shall be submitted
to arbitration when the employer consents. Em-
ployes, who are Knights of Labor, are thus compell-
ed to submit to arbitration; but there is at present
no law to compel employers to do likewise. This is
not so in other countries.
“Compulsory submission to arbitration is provided
for in some parts of France. An examination of the
consular reports made to the state department in
1884, will show that the law of arbitration is grow-
ing inthe various countries of Europe, and that its
growth there can be measured by the intelligence of
the people.
“The fact that no courts of arbitration yet exist in
17
950 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
America, is no argument against them; for it is
well known that all reforms are in advance of the —
law. Agitation always precedes remedial legislation.
These courts will take labor disputes from antago-
nists to impartial juries.
‘“‘The people, in my judgment, understand that
bullets and clubs are poor arguments—_very much
inferior to cool reasoning and reasonable conclu-
sions. The proposal of arbitration made by the
street-car strikers settled that very dangerous dis-
pute. If arbitration were compulsory, the Lemont
affair, wherein citizen-soldiers shot down working-
men, and used their bayonets on their wives, would
not be something to recall with indignation. The
aim of the Knights of Labor is to discourage
strikes, to settle by arbitration, disputes, and to
remedy Ee be A on the side of employer or
employe.”
In Europe the law has been found a satietar
_ tory solvent for various phases of strikes and lock-
outs. A court of arbitration has long existed in
France, and in 1859, Lord Brogham stated, that of
28,000 cases submitted to the Conseils des Prud-
hommes, 26,800 were settled without appeal. If
such results have been secured in the crowded coun-
tries of Europe, there is no valid reason why the
same ends cannot be accomplished 1 in the United
States.
The great bricklayers’ strike in the summer of
1887, at Chicago, which caused a loss of over $2,-
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 251
000,000, was settled by Judge M. F. Tuley, who,
as umpire, proposed the following scheme, which
was accepted by both sides, and will undoubt-
edly prove efficacious in obviating future difficul-
ties.
‘That a standing committee, to be elected an-
nually in the month of January, defining its pow-
ers and duties, we request shall be incorporated into
the constitution of each association.
‘‘This joint committee will be constituted of an
arbitration committee of five members from each or-
ganization (the president of each being one of the
five), and an umpire who is neither a working me-
chanic nor an employer of mechanies, to be chosen
by the two committees. This joint committee is
given power to hear and determine all grievances
of the members of one organization against mem-
bers of the other, and of one organization against
the other; to determine and fix all working rules
governing employers and employes, such as: (1)
The minimum rate of wages per hour; (2) the num-
ber of hours of work per day; (8) uniform pay
day; (4) the time of starting and quitting work; (5)
the rate paid for night and Sunday work, and ques-
tions of like nature. And it is given power to de-
termine what number of apprentices should be en-
rolled, so to afford all boys desiring to learn the
trade an opportunity to do so, without overcrowd-
ing, so as not to cause the coming workman to be
unskilled in his art, or the supply of labor to gross-
952 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
ly exceed the demand therefor. It is also given
exclusive power to determine all subjects in which
trade organizations may be interested, and which
may be brought before it by the action of either
organization, or the president thereof.”
THE VOICE OF LABOR. ; 253
CHAPTER XVII.
CO-OPERATION.
ALL GREAT ENTERPRISES DEPEND ON CO-OPERATION—
A COMMON OBJECT IS COMMON ADVANTAGE—ORGAN-
IZATION AND CO-OPERATION A GREAT POWER—THE
WAGE SYSTEM OPPOSED TO CO-OPERATION—CO-OPER-
ATION A SUCCESS—-LECLAIRE’S GREAT ORGANIZATION
— RAILROAD CO-OPERATION IN FRANCE——INDUSTRIAL
PARTNERSHIP IN ENGLAND—ALFRED TAYLOR ON THE
SUBJECT—D. S. CURTISS—-DEVELOPMENT AND EXTENT
OF CO-OPERATION IN THE UNITED STATES—COMPLETE
REVIEW OF WHAT HAS BEEN DONE.
Crviuization rests and advances, to a great extent,
on the principles of co-operation. All of the enter-
prises and industries which produce vast and bene-
ficial results depend, for development, on associa-
tion. Itis the channel by which discoveries in
art and science are distributed, and thus inure to
the benefit of the world.
The organization of individuals for a common ob-
ject lends the strength and capacity of the strong
and able to all, and the weakest and those of infer-
ior capacity reaps the common advantage. When
954 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
the principles of co-operation are fully understood,
their adoption will be carried into effect by thous-
ands of industries, and the injurious effects of in-
corporated concerns will be avoided. A country’s
wealth depends upon its production, and as organi-
zation and co-operation increases production, it
naturally follows that the country adopting co-opera-
tion will enjoy an unbroken era of prosperity. The
intelligent direction and application of labor has
a direct tendency to enhance wages. A forcible
illustration of this truth may be found in the pro-
duction of wheat in Egypt, India, and America,
which is sold in the English market. The labor
er’s day wages in Egypt is a small radish; in India,
five cents, and in many of the United States, $2.00
a day, or forty times as much as the harvester in
India. High wages are paid only from high pro-
duction. The American, by improved machinery,
cuts, threshes and sacks one hundred pounds of
wheat at a cost of but a few cents.
The pages of history reveal the sad fact, that the
want of the actual necessities of life has ever been
the curse of labor. The cause of this distress lies in
the fact that governments have legislated with the
only thought to preserve the government instead of
for the best interests of their producers. The im-
mense armies of Europe are evidence of the truth
of this statement. The declaration of principles in
the constitution of the United States asserts that
every American citizen has inalienable rights—
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 255
rights which secure him liberty, property, and the
pursuit of happiness, even to the commanding the
support of every citizen in the whole country.. We
need no standing armies to menace the people; and
our time can be well directed to securing an abund-
ance of the necessaries and comforts of life.
If the wage system were abolished and the equi-
ties of co-operation placed in its stead, the vast army
of non-producers would vanish, and humanity would
be in a better condition. Legislation would be
directed towards the developing of the welfare of in-
dustries and to the creation of peace and plenty. To
supersede the wage system by the introduction of
the co-operative industrial system has always been
the goal of the Knights of Labor, and the order has
a supervising board which looks after its interests
in that direction.
The practical application of co-operation is not
an innovation. It is now in successful operation
in hundreds of localities, and is everywhere meet-
_ ing with the most gratifying results.
To directly interest the workingman in the
profits of his labor is a sure means of avoiding
strikes and lockouts, and to obviate all possibility
of differences between the employer and the em-
ployed. Edme-Jean Leclaire, a house painter, the
son of a poor village shoemaker in France, was the
first to successfully introduce the principles of co-
operative industry. In 1841 he put ito execution
his plan of surmounting the antagonism which cx-
956. THE VOICE OF LABOR.
isted between workman and master. He organiz-
ed a number of house and decorative painters into a
society, each member of which was to receive a pro-
portionate amount of the profits of the year’s work,
over and above their wages. Considerable opposi-
tion was met with, and at every side he met
with discouragement from masters. The press ac-
cused him of seeking to reduce wages; the police
saw in his plans a cunning scheme for enticing
workmen away from their employers, and did their
best to thwart him by prohibiting meetings of
his employes. However, on the 15th of February,
1842, Leclaire met his workmen, forty-four in num-
ber, and divided 11,886 francs between them.
All opposition vanished, and he was given un-
limited confidence. In succeeding years larger
sums were distributed. During the six years
from 1842 to 1847 inclusive, about 20,000 franes
were annually divided among anaverageof eighty
persons. Leclaire’s organization finally secured a
legal status, and has never ceased to prosper.
There are at present over fifty industrial estab-
lishments in France, Alsace and Switzerland, work-
ing upon co-operative principles, all of them in a
highly prosperous condition. The Paris and Or-
leans railway company have, since 1844, annually
given their employes a share of the profits. Three
other railroads in France, united with the Paris and
Orleans road, give their operatives the same ad-
vantage. :
KNIFE, FORK AND SPOON WORKERS,
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 259
Industrial partnership has, of late, been introduc-
ed in England with remarkable results. In 1864,
the Whitwood collieries entered into an arrangement
whereby their employes receive a share of the pro-
fits. The best results were obtained during the suc-
ceeding ten years, when, in 1874, a change in the
trade necessitated a reduction of wages, the men
struck, and the system was discontinued. Had the
men intelligently investigated the situation, it is
probable no strike would have occurred.
The success which has been achieved in Eng-
land—and it has been a marked success—has been
in co-operative distribution. Some of the societies
do a vast business, and divide among those who are
at once members and customers very handsome pro-
fits. Naturally enough, this has led to experiments
by the same societies in co-operative production.
This is a short and easy step. If the members are
to divide the profits which would go, ordinarily, to
the jobber, wholesaler, and retailer, why should
they not also become manufacturers of some of the
principal commodities, and so divide among them-
selves the manufacturers’ profits as well? The prin-
cipal experiments have been those of the ‘* Whole-
sale Society” of Manchester and that of Glasgow,
and the experiment in each case has been the man-
ufacture of shoes. The Manchester society has two
factories, employing 1,000 people and doing an an-
nual business of over $1,000,000. Being able to
sell their goods largely in their own stores and to
260 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
their own members, the societies have had an ad-
vantage over ordinary manufacturers, and their new
enterprises have been lucrative. The co-operative
consumers—if we may so describe the members of
the societies in their original capacity—are simply
shareholders in the factories, those enterprises af-
fording an opening for the investment of their sur-
plus. The old force of competition—from which
the new system of co-operation was to have effected
deliverance—therefore comes in.
Wide application of co-operation offers a pros-
pect of vivifying and purifying industry to an ex-
tent of which we have as yet but a faint conception,
and the employers and consumers in America can-
not do better than avail themselves of the profitable
experience of those who have tested its merits.
Capital is bitterly denounced on the one side, and
the inefficiency and apathy of labor is execrated on
the other. These extremes are one of the causes
of strikes and increased depression during hard
times. ,
‘¢One of the prime causes of existing labor trou-
bles,” writes Alfred Taylor, ‘‘is to be found in the
wage system itself. This system is erroneous to
start with. While there is no doubt that the rela-
tions of employer and employe might be better than
they are, it is still true that the system retains some
of the spirit of master and slave. No man is at
his best without the feeling of-independence; the
feeling that he is master of his ownacts. Strive as
THE VOICE OF LABOR. %61
he may, no man can take the same interest in the
affairs of another that he takes in his own. Jt is
not natural; it is a strained position and his trust-
worthiness will be in the ratio of his intellectual
development. It is well known that wage slavery
makes intellectual culture next to impossible, be-
cause of the want of time and means to obtain such
culture. Hence, just in proportion that the employ-
er is successful, just in the same proportion is the
employe reduced to the mental and moral condition
where his trustworthiness and interest in the wel-
fare of his employer is at zero.
‘“The only true remedy for this is in co-operative
industry. When each man can feel that he is a
proprietor; when he can feel that he is working for
himself and not for a master; when he can feel and
know that his brain and muscle weighs equally in the
scale withthe dollar of his associates, and that the
dividends on each shall be declared in the just ra-
tio, then, and not till then, will labor stand upon its
proper pedestal. |
‘«The wage system places the laborer at the mer-
cy of the employer, and the self-interest of the em-
ployer prompts him to get all the labor he can for
the smallest price, while the self-interest of the em-
ploye prompts him to get the greatest price for the
smallest amount of labor. This leads to antago-
nism where there should be harmony. The employ-
er has the advantage in this ‘antagonism in propor-
tion to the amount of labor in the market. What
962 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
difference is there under these circumstances be-
tween buying and selling men, and buying and sell-
ing the labor of men when there is but one party to
the contract? And this is the case where the mar-
ket is overcrowded, and where machinery enables
capital to dispense with human labor. Capital is
not to blame for taking advantage of these circum-
stances, nor is labor to blame for its dissatisfac-
tion. *
‘Tt is the system that is wrong, and as soon as
this can be made plain, there will be an universal
effort to remedy it. Wherever co-operation has had
a fair trial it has proved successful. And when
capital can be convinced that co-operation will in-
crease rather than diminish its gains, by creating a
nobler incentive on the part of labor, it will fall
readily into line and do its duty.
‘‘Self-interest, after all, is the key to the situa-
tion. That is a chord in human nature that is al-
ways responsive. And while inordinate greed is re-
prehensible, a true self-interest is the parent of in-
dustry, economy and every material virtue. Guide
this self-interest into the channel of co-operation,
and capital and labor join hands upon one common
ground of friendship and equality.”
In a paper contributed to ‘‘The National View,”
Col. D. 8. Curtiss says: ‘‘ Co-operation is equally
adapted to large or small enterprises—to very mod-
erate or most extensive operations. It may be ad-
vantageously employed in constructing large bridg-
THE VOICE OF LABOR. BBB
es, mills, factories, in working large farms and
even in digging canals and constructing railroads,
and then in operating them, in any operation that
requires more manual labor than the family can do,
this mode will do. Under this system, in labor
_operations—such as building houses, carrying on
shoe, cabinet, blacksmith or other shops, working
farms, and running factories, according to mutual
agreement—all the laborers or operatives will re-
ceive pay for the quantity and quality of work they
perform, and an equal division of all the profits of
the operation. So in trading and merchandising, all
will be fairly paid by mutual understanding for the
service performed, and all the parties in the co-
operation will share the profits of the trade or store
in the proportion which they buy or pay into it,
while they who furnish any more capital than
their purchases, will be paid a just interest for it,
as shall be agreed upon. Thereby, on this princi-
ple, all of the customers, operatives and capitalists,
justly share the profits and are fairly compensated,
no class monopolizing an undue portion of the pro-
fits or gains of another’s labor or efforts. But I
need not dwell upon the mode of co-operation, as it
is easy to understand; my chief object is to call at-
tention to it as one of the lawful and inoffensive
means of readily securing more adequate, even full
reward, to laborers, and thus soon end the violent
strifes now being waged between labor and incor-
porated capital, forced by the latter upon the former.
264 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
‘¢ Wealthy monopolies and chartered corporations
have long and steadily combined to enhance their
own interests, and to keep down the wages of all
laborers, they have chartered privileges, not pos-
sessed by them individually, to aid their power of
combination against labor, and those in government
authority always aid the wealthy and monopolist,
but strike down and coerce the laborer; therefore,
laborers have a right to combine for their own wel-
fare, they are justified in the most effective combi-
nations they can make for their own protection and
welfare. A further effect of this system will be to
peacefully compel the more arrogant employers to
act justly toward employes who do not happen to
enlist in the self-employment of co-operation, as
they will be rendered less dependent upon wealthy
employers. Under this system there will be no
motive or need for strikes, boycotts, lockouts, or
other violent measures, to secure just pay and hours
to the hard workers.
‘CWhen fairly and thoroughly organized in this
manner, such a body of industrious, intelligent, and
skillful workers would always and everywhere com-
mand the respect and confidence of the community;
and should they at any time wish to enter upon
more extensive enterprises than their personal means
would enable them to carry out, they could find
plenty of unemployed capital whose owners would
be glad to invest it with them-—to loan it to them at
a reasonable low rate of interest. For instance,
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 265
should a co-operative association, embracing many
laborers, wish to enter into a contract to build a
costly house or bridge, or mill, or manufactory, or
to run a large grain and stock farm, but lacked the
requisite means to start with, they would have no
trouble in borrowing the money; it would be more
difficult for money to find laborers than for labor to
find money, when co-operation extensively prevail-
ed, because most laborers would be better employ-
ed than working for capitalists; while large capi-
talists could not make large contracts for building,
as they would be unable to hire much labor.
‘¢ Another effect that will result from the general
establishment of co-operative organizations will be
the more equitable apportionment of wages for ser-
vices; under present customs a most flagrant dis-
parity of salaries compared to the services perform-
ed, and the dangers assumed, obtains; in many po-
sitions and occupations extravagant salaries are paid
where but little service is rendered, light accounta-
bility, with no hardship or danger incurred. As an
instance, take the operating of railroads, superin-
tendents, vice-presidents, and presidents receive var-
iously five, ten, and even twenty-five thousand dol-
lars’ salary annually, with little responsibility for
the safety of life and property, and none of the
hardships and dangers of running the trains; but
the trusty, skillful engineer or engine-driver, who
stands at the open-mouth of danger and death, in
night and day, light and dark, in storm and cold,
18
266 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
holding in his hand, watchfully and secure, the safe-
ty of thousands of lives and millions of property—
upon whose honest skill and care the lives of the
passengers and the value of the entire train constant-
ly depend for safety—this grandly skillful and
highly responsible employe receives in salary
scarcely more hundreds than those easy fellows,
above named, receive thousands. It is a shameful
injustice that those skillful, responsible, danger-be-
set men should be so meagerly paid,when those na-
bob officials are paid so much for no hardships, or
risks, or dangers.
‘The same fact holds true, to a large extent, to
other train hands on railroads, and to some degree,
in fact, among the operatives in express companies,
large mills, and manufactories, telegraph compan-
ies, and some other avocations of the business world.
Inadequate compensation to those who incur most
toil, hardship, and exposure, and liable to greater
dangers and responsibilities, but extravagant pay
to those most exempt from danger and hardship is
a shame and disgrace. This unjust and unreasona-
ble disparity of wages will be mostly done away
under the general adoption of co-operation. There
is no just reason why a skillful compositor should
not receive as much pay for setting up an article as
the man gets for writing the same; it requires as
many years for the printer to learn to set type, read
manuscript, and punctuate correctly, as the writer
spent in qualifying to write it. So in regard to a
*
~ >) ahs ‘i! as a ey. nh cok Ts
‘ THE VOICE OF LABOR. eT LeOs
lawyer or doctor. There is no justice in paying them
more for an hour or day’s service than should be
paid to a good carpenter, shipwright, or other skill-
ful mechanic; it requires as long time and study to
learn a trade well as to learn those so-called pro-
fessions, while the latter has a more easy life,
‘‘When this peaceful method of co-operation is
generally adopted, and mechanics and other labor-
ers unitedly vote for only their friends, observe
economy, sobriety, study, and thoughtfulness, all
workers will be better paid, happier, and more pros-
perous; then all branches will be fairly and equally
paid.”
A partial census of the co-operative undertakings
in the United States, by investigators of the
Economic Association, shows that there is much
more co-operation in this country than is generally
supposed. According to the New York correspond-
ent of the Philadelphia ‘ Press,” reports have been
received from New England, the middle Western
states, and, with minute detail, from Minnesota.
Both distributive and productive co-operation are
included in the inguiry. In New England there are
at least fifty-three establishments engaged in dis-
tributive co-operation. More familiarly these are
known as co-operative stores. About one-half, or
twenty-eight, are in Massachusetts; six in Connecti-
cut, sixteen in Maine, two in New Hampshire, and
one in Rhode Island. Most of these have been or-
ganized since 1870; one dates back to 1847, and
268 . THE VOICE OF LABOR. 6
another to 1850. These two early ones, and another
founded in 1866, are the only survivals of the old
union stores of forty years ago, At one time there
were 106 of these. Somewhat similar are the
Grange stores, which are patronized by the 25,000-
or 80,000 members of this organization, These
Grange stores in the East are confined to Maine,
New Hampshire and Connecticut. They are the sur-
vival of the fittest, and have a successful basis,
Of the fifty-three stores, thirty-two report an ag-
gregate capital of $137,000, the amount of each
ranging from $1,000 to $40,000. In general, the par
value of a share is $5. This is significant as indi-
cating the possibility of investment by the poor —
man. The number of shareholders in fifty-two com-
panies is 5,470, which indicates a rather wide inter-
est. The trade reported by the thirty-three stores
making full returns is $1,600,000. As many of the
stores turned over their capital more than twelve
times during the year, it may be safely stated that
the entire business of distributive co-operation in
New England was $2,000,000 during the past year.
In the West, the Grange store has not generally
survived the misfortunes of its earlier days. In Illi-
nois there were at one time co-operative stores in
one-half of the counties of the state. These have
been mostly failures. In Michigan there are three
semi-successful stores; in Indiana and Ohio little
remains of former prosperity. The idea has been
better realized in Kansas, where at the present time
i
ROS Se Ge
4&4 HAPPY HOME.
> Seabee ee eee
THE VOICE OF LABOR. O71
there are twenty or thirty small stores. The oldest
and most successful is at Olathe, which has increas-
ed its sales from $41,000 in 1876 to $210,000 in
1886. , |
The efforts of the Knights of Labor, or of other
labor organizations, are too recent to justify much
mention. In 1886, sentiment in this direction rapid-
ly crystallized, and labor stores were established. It
is here that interest in the future will be the great-
est. A unique, though not, perhaps, strictly co-op-
erative, institution is the Mormon undertaking,
called the ‘‘Zion’s Co-operative Mercantile Institu-
tion.” The stock of the company is $1,000,000, and
the sales between $4,000,000 and $5,000,000. It is
more proper, however, to call this a joint stock cor-
poration, although its results have been somewhat
similar to those reached by thewholesaleco-operative
stores of New England.
Later in time there has been developed that form
of co-operation known as productive. Of the
twenty companies in New England, sixteen are in
Massachusetts. There are eleven in Ohio, seven in
Indiana, fourteen in Illinois, fourin Michigan, nine
in Missouri, and two in Kansas. Productive co-op--
eration seems to have struck more deeply in the
West than elsewhere.
Of more importance is the form of production
which co-operation has taken. Jn New England
there are seven co-operative shoe companies, three
printing companies, and two furniture companies.
972 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
Five other companies have been just organized, and
it is estimated that in this year there will be a busi-
ness of more than a million dollars. The most suc-
cessful, perhaps, is the stove company in Stoneham,
Mass., which has an annual product of $150,000,
with a capital of $20,000, divided among fifty-
seven shareholders, twenty-five of whom are em
ployed in the establishment. There are at least
1,100 shareholders in these twenty associations, and —
if we take into consideration those which have not
reported, it is safe to say that ten thousand persons
are interested in co-operation in New England.
In the West more kinds of industries are repre-
sented in co-operation. In 1886 there were at least
seven co-operative mining companies in operation
in Indiana, Illinois and Missouri. Three of them,
with a combined capital of $55,000, are reported as
prosperous; and in those cases where failure has
occurred, it has been due to the hostile action of the
railroads. These companies all originated either
from strikes or disaffection with wages. The furni-
ture-makers have enjoyed considerable success. Of
their five undertakings, one dates back to. 1878;
three of them are situated in St. Logis. The great-
est success has been achieved by the coopers in Min-
neapolis. - The history of their work is of common
report. Their one shop of 1874 has increased to 8.
_ Farmers have done little with productive co-oper-
ation. The few agricultural colonies are as yet ex-
perimental, but co-operative creameries are common
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 273
in New England, New York and Ohio. It is esti-
mated that about one-fourth of the dairying in some
counties of the latter state is carried on in the eo-
operative form.
This completes the review of what has been done
in co-operation thus far in the United States. In
conclusion, it may be said, that this experienge shows
that the co-operative store can be made successful,
but that as yet co-operation with dividends to labor
is, except in Minneapolis, in such a tentative condi-
tion that no definite ju lgment can be given. In
addition to the forms of co-operation mentioned,
there should be added, to make a complete inquiry,
co-operative banks and building associations.
274 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
CHAPTER XVIII.
HOME THE PALLADIUM OF SOCIETY.1
MAN WITHOUT A HOME AN OUTCAST—THE STATE IS BUT
THE INDIVIDUAL, THE INDIVIDUAL A MINIATURE STATE
—HOME THE BULWARK OF VIRTUE—CICERO’S MAXIM
—DEFECTS OF OUR SOCIAL SYSTEM——THE BURDEN OF
INDIRECT TAXATION—HANDWRITING ON THE WALL—
CO-OPERATION A BLESSING FOR THE PEOPLE—SUCCESS
OF CORPORATIONS — ‘‘ SWEET HOME” CAN BE MADE
A REALITY-—WISDOM FOR THE HOMELESS.
‘“*Men who are housed like pigs can hardly pray like Christians; and
where life is along flight from starvation, it is not a flight that takes
the fugitive towards heaven.
“7 don t know whether it will shoecx you. She said that a home
which a decent man can respect, has as much to do with holiness as
have all the Seven Sacraments.‘
‘¢THE OLD ORDER CHANGES.”
Were [ asked, ‘‘What is the most important step
‘to take, at once, in the interest of the whole peo-
ple,” I should say, without a moment’s hesitation,
place every head of a family in a home free from
tax, rent and interest. Were the question then put,
‘‘Hlow are we to do this,” my answer would be, have
1 By Albert Owen.
TAE VOICE OF LABOR. OTD
men and women, to incorporate themselves into
companies, select and obtain lands suitable for
town, farm and factory, and go to work upon a well
matured plan to employ themselves, to build their
houses, to grow their crops, to operate their facto-
ries, to exchange their services and to discipline
their lives.
Home is the basis for every reform. Without
homes people will be shiftless, nothing can be
substantial, and the best effort, the kindest thought
are but a mockery of what they might be were
every one properly employed and comfortably hous-
ed. The homeless are the discontented, the diseas-
ed, the criminally inclined. The destructionists, the
anarchists, the nihilists, only exist where there are
homeless people. A man or a woman without a
home is a waif. Society is ever and incessantly
forcing him or her tomove on. ‘‘Thechattel slave
had his or her cabin, but the modern tramp has not
a place whereon to lay his or her head. A person
without a home is a factor for revolution.
Evolution can be brought about only by those who
have homes wherein they can study, think and plan.
There is nothing certain connected with a home-
less man or woman, except uncertainty. Justice can
not be practiced, and equity is simply a name among
a people who are but partly housed. Instructions
in ethics, morals and science are worthless where
people live along gutters, and sleep in houses and
on lands owned by other people than themselves; and
N
276 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
‘‘reformers” may agitate about ‘the land’s unearn-
ed increment,” total abstinence, no distinction of
sex in the political franchise, ‘‘salvation in Christ
Jesus,” eight hours for a day’s work; and the trade
unions may strike every dayin the year, but until the
producers incorporate to secure themselves agreea-
ble, regular and remunerative employments, to han-
dle and exchange their own products, and to place
every head of a family in a beautiful home, free
from tax, rent and interest, they will do nothing
that is substantial to right the wrongs under which
modern society is staggering, tottering towards its
inevitable engulfment.
The great Plato maintained that ‘the state is
but the individual on a larger scale, the individual is
but a miniature state;” and the greater Aristotle,
who was a pupil of Plato, based his philosophy on
the principle of experience; that is to say, the prin-
ciple that all our thinking should be founded on the
observation of facts. Aristotle was the founder of
the inductive school, and built not from theory but
from established fact—from what had been actually
done. Heraclitus was of the deductive school, and
imagined a base, and then eloquently expounded a
doctrine like our ‘‘land unearned increment” ex-
pounders do to-day. He began with ‘Fire is the
substance of everything,” “and everything flows;”
and Pythagoras, likewise, took as the basis for his
agitation and reform: ‘‘The numerical proportions
are the real substance,”
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 277
Well, what of it if they are? What-has that
to do with the employment and contentment
of the people; how is that theory going to give
employment to the 1,000,000! men and women,
who are begging for work, lest they die, in these
United States; why pass time—precious time—
over nice theories when the census tells us that there
are 500,0002 young girls, in these United States,
being prostituted, and that 100,000 of them are dy-
ing every year—dyirg disgraced, broken hearted
and prematurely; and yet Pythagoras was in his day
one of the great leading philosophers, and he rous-
ed the people up at town meetings and at cross
roads then, just as our popular agitators do to-day,
and with about as little result towards ameliorating
the conditions of the people.
But it is claimed these agitators ‘‘make the peo-
ple think.” That is so, but of what—to think
of things which entertains and diverts the pro-
ducers from the real facts in the case,while the cun-
ning tricksters, the lawyers, the brokers, the middle
men and ‘the cannibals of Exchange Alley” put
them more and more into debt, pile taxes upon
them, increase their rates of interest; steal their
highways, monopolize their exchanges, occupy their
lands, buy up their inventions,and educate their
- children with false teachings. Aristotle, on the
contrary, began all reforms from establisbed facts,
17T. V. Powderly, July 22, 1887, at Wilkesbarre, Pa.
2 The Prodigal Daughter, by Rachel Campbell.
278 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
and with lessons acknowledged after they had been
practically applied; he took every step cautious-
ly, methodically and in keeping with the logic of
circumstances.
‘¢ It is, however, not so much by his philosophi-
cal system that Aristotle has wielded his enormous
influence, especially as this begins only at present
to be fully understood and justly appreciated, as
by his logical inventions and his method of philo-
sophy in general. He has, more than any other
philosopher, set the world to thinking logically, to
teaching science and art systematically, to banish-
ing from the domain of science the rampant and
arbitrary action of fantasy, to observing coolly be-
fore venturing to systematize, and to loving truth
for its now sake.”
Cicero, though a Roman, went to Greece, and
studied in the inductive school of Plato and Aris-
totle. He said: ‘“‘The first function of justice is
that no one should do violence to another unless
compelled by violence to himself. The second is,
that no one should use public things other-
wise than as public things; and should use pri-
vate things only as his own.” These are, to my
mind, the greatest lessons ever expounded in any
age or by any person. ‘There never has been a na-
tion which ever properly discriminated between pub-
lic things and things private, and there never has
been a nation which has ever succeeded in giving
to its people diversified employments and beautiful
THE VOICE. OF LABOR. o7$
homes; and, hence all nations in the past and pres.
ent, have been held together by armed forces and
by the intrenched influences of privileged classes.
The United States are no exception to the rule.
What are the facts in the case. The institutions of
the United States have had one hundred and eleven
years of trial, under the most favorable circumstan-
ces, and they are a failure. They do not give to
the citizen security for life, property or happiness.
The inalienable right to life, to the use of property
and to the pursuit of happiness, is thus far a myth.
Those who are taxed do not necessarily have repre-
sentation. Even the people who vote do not goy-
ern, and rarely a majority of them elect the candi-
dates set up by privileged classes. A moneyed aris-
tocracy has seized the nation. Incorporated and
privileged classes own and control the exchanges,
transportations, lands, waters, fuels, lights, powers,
inventions and legislations.
The producers are slaves, without an hour to call
their own: with bodies over-burdened, brains mud-
dled, and without the right even to possess the things
they make, the lands they improve, or the graves
they are buried in. Even the children and wom-
en of the American laborer are driven, from neces-
sity, and forced by hirelings, to toil from dawn
till night, that others may luxuriate in over-abun-
dance. The houses they shelter themselves in, the
farms tly cultivate, the factories they work in, the
theatre they go to, the hotels they stop at, the cars
280 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
they journey in, the wagons they haul in, the boats
they steam in, are each made and operated by
themselves, but they all belong to the privileged and
incorporated classes.
The direct tax paid by labor, and every tax paid
is paid by labor, whether it is land tax or interest
on money, is unnecessary in every case; but it is
infinitesmal in amount to the indirect tax—the in-
terests, rentals, expressages, freightages, etc. ,which
the producers are forced, by law, to pay for the use
of their own eredits, houses, highways, exchanges,
transportations, ete.
Our agitators, however, are forever arousing pub-
lic thought on the injustice of direct taxation; and
never even whisper concerning the indirect taxa-
tion, which is really the question at issue. The
facts, in a similar case, are that a great and inces-
sant howl is made about free trade. This is a mis-
nomer to begin with, for those who advocate ‘free
trade” have no wish to see free home trade, ‘but
they advocate that foreign manufacturers who are
kept up by English subsidies and pauper labor,
shall be free to crush out our comparatively young
industries at home. These brilliant reformers make
all their noise about our ‘foreign trade,” which
amounts, at best, to but ten per cent of our com-
merce; and they ignore, as unworthy of their
thought, the ninety per cent of internal, inter-state,
or home trade.
Hence it is, that while our people’s minds are at-
\
et u
V
MIDNIGHT FIRES—BLAST FURNACES, PITTSBURG.
a
*
bt
» =k ol
.. She
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 983
tracted by eloquence and sweet sounding phrases
upon questions other than those at issue, that the
_ population of the United States has only doubled,
while the idiots, deaf and dumb patients, convicts,
inebriates and those who are dependent upon the
charities for protection, shelter and food, have in-
creased eight-fold. What a picture for a republic to
present after alittle over one hundred years’ of trial.
Where did a despotism ever do worse in so short a
time? .
The hand-writing is on the wall. The decadence
of our institutions is seen every day in the regattas,
horse racing, prize fighting, burring matches, base
ball gambling, and the ballet enacted for the de-
praved tastes of a class made luxuriously rich and
indifferently selfish by the possession of privileged
monopolies. The daily suicides, murders, robberies,
crimes and filthy diseases of the homeless, over-
burdened and dissatisfied are the other side—are the
shadows to the first picture. Well may our heathen
friend, Wong Chin Foo, boast that among the four
hundred millions of people in China, there are less
murders in a year than there are in the single state
of New York, within the same time..
The question is: What is to be done, and how,
when and by whom? This is business. If the ques-
tions of our day are to be solved, they will be soly-
ed by business persons—others are not capable
of looking into causes, or competent to mature a
plan and perfect the details necessary to carry the
984 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
same into execution. Induction teaches us that we
must go from a part tothe whole. In almost every
community we see half a dozen or more busi
ness persons incorporate themselves into a com-
pany and obtain the privilege to receive money on
deposit, to loan credit and to issue currency; and
-it does not take much watching to see that these
persons get rich.
Again, some one or more of these bankers will
associate with themselves four or more successful
corner grocerymen, prosperous butchers, or well-to-
do manufacturers, etc., and will incorporate and ob-
tain the privilege to furnish gas; others to bring
water into the town; others to buy, mortgage, im-
prove and sell lands; others to build and oper-
ate street tramways; others to construct steam rail-
roads; others to put up telegraphs and telephone
lines; others to make toll roads and bridges; others
to buy and control the oil production; others to
operate steamships and sailing vessels; others to in-
sure life; others to insure property; and others to
build and lease hotels, theatres, flats, etc.; to buy,
improve and monopolize inventions; to manufacture
and control rubber goods; electric motors; to farm
large tracts of land; to raise cattle; to publish pa-
pers, magazines and books, ete,
We see more and more companies incorporated.
every day, and we see the little companies being ab-
sorbed by the larger. Everywhere we see the in-
dividual business man associating with himself
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 985
other business persons and taking out papers of
corporation to do something too big for one man
to execute. Everywhere we see concentration and
combination and corporation limited, If we look
close we will find that he or she who has had bus-
_ iness forethought to get into two or more of these
incorporated companies is richer than he or she who
has only incorporated in one; we _ will see
that. the great wealth, in the United States particu-
larly, has been made through investments in incor-
porated companies; and that there is scarcely a suc-
cessful business person who is not in one or more
ways connected with them.
Luxury and over-abundance of everything char-
acterizes the surroundings of the incorporated indi-
vidual; poverty, wretchedness and the absence of
the common comforts of existence are the lot of the
unincorporated individual.
Those who have incorporated, for a well-planned
purpose, act independent of those they hire. Those
who have not made a business alliance with others,
and incorporated to carry their purpose into execu-
tion, are dependent upon those who have.
If these incorporated companies have been so uni-
formly successful in carrying out their plans and in
making stockholders prosperous and influential, that
they give their members more agreeable employ-
ments and better homes, and that the person who is
in two is better off than the person who is in one,
would it not be wise for a large number of men
286 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
and women to take out papers of incorporat.on te
establish a deposit and loan bank; to buy, lay out
and improve a town sight and farm; to build
houses, operate factories; to furnish gas, water, fuel,
power, transportation, food, drink, clothes, etc.; to
insure life and property: to secure inventions; to
employ, educate, entertain, amuse, cremate, ete.
If to incorporate and control any one of these has
been found to be conducive to the good health,
spirits, comfort and education, of those who
have monopolized them, why should it not be bet-
ter to pool all, or to consolidate a hundred or more,
into one large incorporated company ?
In doing this we will act in the strict line of the
instruction given us by Cicero, ‘that no one should
use public things, otherwise than as public things, and
should use private things only as his own.” The
control of the land and its deposits, the highways,
water ways, the atmosphere, exchanges, transporta-
tions, entertainments, amusements, instructions,
sanitations, insurances, the ways and means of pay-
ment, etc., belong to the public; and society
depends upon their equitable management for its
safety and advancement.
To discriminate between what belongs to the pub-
lic and that which belongs to the individual, has
puzzled statesmen in all ages. Why is this nota
good test. That which a man or woman can do
unassisted is private, but all other things are pub-
lic and should be made and controlled by the pub-—
THE VOICE .OF LABOR. 287
lic. Equity does not admit of one person being
employed by another in any way, time or place,
but always in any way and in every place
each individual should be assisted in the line of
production he or she elects, by his or her own agent
or the companies’ director, and no two or more
persons should be permitted to form a co-partner-
ship or firm within the corporation. In this way
every one is forced to be usefully occupied, to stand
upon his or her merits, and to be paid forthe qual-
ity and quantity of the work delivered to the agent
elected to receive and to give credit for the same.
' There is no equality, no communism, no license
in this suggestion. It is a plain business proposi-
tion to combine into one company what has
heretofore mostly been carried on by separate in-
corporated bodies. Men and women would en-
joy more security, more privacy and more liberty
in a community organized as suggested, than under
any government ever yet proposed. Trustees of the
association would simply conserve and utilize all
public things for the use of the public, and assist
the individual to be comfortable, useful and _ pro-
gressive. It does not permit a person or persons
to get a special law passed, that he or they may take
advantage of those who work, and hence, great in-
dividual fortunes would not be possible.
There is no necessity for a test to be made of the
plan herein suggested. Everywhere, and for every
288 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
purpose under heaven, we see incorporated com-
panies in cperation, and nine out of every ten are
successful. The way for the laboring men and wo-
men to apply these suggestions to practice, at once,
is plain, and may be made easy if method and dis-
cipline are conformed with.
In this way slowly, surely and in a strict busi-
ness way, persons can be taken from farms, factor-
ies, shops, counting houses, ete., and placed in
the occupations he or she selects, under their own
management, upon their own lands, in their own
homes, and where direct interests, taxes und rents,
need be unknown.
In such a community there need be no drones,
every one can worship God after his or her own
wish; and, while compensation between man and
man should not be permitted, rivalry in all useful
callings should be encouraged: the strong would
be attracted to assist the weak, and the weak would
be glad to co-operate to the best of their ability
with the strong, because it would be the interest of
~each to do so: poverty being unknown, great indi-
vidual riches would be impossible: aad while the
company would become wealthy and influential, the
individual would receive full, prompt and cash pay-
ment for anything and everything he or she did, and
would be protected in his and her labor, property
and individuality: and housed, instructed, amused,
transported and entertained better and at less cost,
than has yet been dreamed of.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 289
Such would be evolution not revolution: such
would not interfere with any well-intentioned person
on earth—such would be peace, prosperity and hap-
piness to producers who organized to employ them-
selves, to exchange their own products, and to put
every head of a family in a beautiful home free
from tax, rent and interest. ‘*Sweet Home” should
and can be made a reality to every industrious man
and woman.
The suggestion to producers is, act for yourself
and be not satisfied with discussion and agitation:
do not rest with organization, but incorporate—in-
corporate to employ yourself, to handle your own
exchanges, to own the lands you improve, to grow
your own crops, to own and occupy the houses you
build. In this way you can each have a home.
290 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
CHAPTER XIX.
PRISON LABOR.
A GREAT QUESTION—HOW CONVICTS ARE EMPLOYED—-
OCCUPATIONS IN VARIOUS PRISONS —- WORKING FOR
THE STATE —- THE CONTRACT SYSTEM — THE LEASE.
PLAN—E. C. WINES ON THE CONTRACT SYSTEM—ITS
EFFECT—ABUSES—SHOULD BE ABOLISHED —LEASES
AND FAULTS THEREOF—57, 500 CONVICT WORKMEN
PITTED AGAINST HONEST LABOR — DR. SEAMAN’S
VIEWS — DEMANDS OF THE PUBLIC — CARROLL D.
WRIGHT’S REPORT—PRISON LABOR MUST NOT CON-
FLICT WITH INTERESTS OF THE WORKINGMAN.
Wuar should be done with convicts industrially,
has been a question ever since our present peniten-
tiary systems were instituted. The distinction be-
tween penal, or hard labor and industrial labor,
does not exist in the United States as in England.
The sentence of ‘‘hard labor” here simply means
industrial labor. This is an element of good policy
and justice, because it is right that criminals should
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 291
do something to reimburse the state for the expense
they have incurred because of their crimes, and it
is proper, beceuse work is an essential condition of
reform,
All kinds of productive labor is found in Ameri-
can prisons. In Texas, Alabama and North Caro-
lina the convicts build railroads; they raise cotton
in Mississippi, and in New York and Tennessee they
work in mines; and in many states they do farm
work and cultivate vegetables. Prison employ-
ments are mechanical except in the South, and deal
with work in the metals, wood and leather, though
a great deal of stone work is done where prisons
are in course of construction. At Auburn, N. Y.,
agricultural tools are make in large quantities; at
Philadelphia cell work is done in shoemaking, weay-
ing, tailoring and light wood work; in Massachu-
setts, cabinet making, brush and shoemaking, and
work on sewing machines; an important depart-
ment of labor is making of carpenter’s rules in Con-
necticut; in Maine, carriage manufacturing is car-
ried on at a large scale; a great iron mine furnishes
ore tothe Northern New York prison, which is smelt-
ed, forged and wrought into nails; leather tan-
ning is the chief product of the Michigan prison,
chair making at the Detroit House of Correction,
and in the Indiana prison (South) the convicts are
mainly employed in building railway cars in all its
branches. |
Two prisons weave wire; bolts and hinges are
292 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
made in one; brushes in several; stoves in one;
edge tools in one; car-wheels in one; iron work
(bronzed) in one; cigars in five; machinery in
one; axles in one; moulding in three; chairs
in eight; weaving in three; cabinet making
in six; farming implements in one, brooms in one;
cooperage in nine; saddles and harness in several,
and shoes in overa dozen; while tailoring, paint-
ing, carpentry and smithing in all.
At different prisons and times, convict labor
has been employed in the following systems: 1.
Working the prisoners for the state in the manu-
facture of crude material furnished by the state.
2. The contract system. 38. That of leasing the
prison for a certain period; the lessee assuming en-
tire control of both discipline and industries, and
furnishing food, clothing, medicine, ete.
‘¢ The contract system,” says E, C. Wines, in his
‘State of Prisons,etc.,’ “obtains in the major part of
our prisons. In a few, perhaps a tenth or eighth of
the whole number, the prison labor is managed by
the prison administration; and this is especially the
case when the building or enlarging of a prison is
‘going on; There are many objectionsto the contract
system of prison labor, but it has been found in gen-
eral less expensive to the government than its man-
agement by the prison officers. This is,no doubt, due
to the general instability of our prison administra-
tions. Where party politics dominate these admin-
istrations, and where, owing to the fluctuation of par-
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 993
ties, new and inexperienced men are so often put
in charge of our prisons, it is not to be expected
that so vast and complicated a machine as the in-
dustries of a large prison should be successfully
managed by them. Even wader our present sys-
tem, the industries in prisons of moderate size, con-
taining not more than three hundred or four hun-
dred inmates, have been and are carried on by the
authorities with fair success. Take the history of
the state prison of Massachusetts as an example—
a prison from which we have financial returns for a
longer period than from any other ih the country.
During the sixty-two years covered by these re-°
turns, the prison has exhibited a profit above its ex-
penses in twenty-three years, and a deficit in thirty-
nine years. ..... The first effect of the contract
system is to place for the whole working day all the
prisoners contracted for, to a great extent, under
the control of men with no official responsibility—
men who see in the convicts only so much machin-
ery for making money: men whose only, or at any
rate whose chief, recommendation to the positions
they holdin the prison is that they were the highest
bidders for the human beings hired by them.
The second effect is to introduce among the con-
victs, as superintendents of their labor, strangers
to the prison, who are employed by the contractors
as agents, foremen, and in some instances even la-
borers—men entirely irresponsible—men selected
with little regard to their moral character, and of-
994 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
ten without morals; men who do not hesitate to
smuggle liquor into the prison and other contra-
band articles, and sell them to the convicts at an
increditable advance on their true market value.
A third effect of the system, is to set up in the pris-
ons a power behind the throne greater than the
throne; a power well-nigh omnipotent in its sphere;
_a power that coaxes, bribes and threatens in pursuit
of its selfish ends; a power that makes and unmakes
officers, imposes and remits fines through agents
whom it has been able to bend to its will, and even
stoops to mean devices to get the poor prisoner,
who has incurred its wrath, into straits and difficul-
ties, that its revenge may be gratified with the
sight of his punishment.”
In the lease system the whole control of the pris-
on and its inmates is turned over to the lessee whose
sole object is to make money. The general result of
the plan is, that food and clothing are reduced to
the minimum; the strength of the convict is tasked
to the utmost limit of human endurance; the prop-
erty of the state is neglected and injured; the pris-
oners are held as so many machines, and are valued
upon the basis of the amount of work they can do;
reformation is ignored and the higher ends of dis-
cipline are held for naught,
It was supposed when the various industries were
introduced to prisons that the great problem of what
to do with convict labor was successfully solved.
Convicts who worked at an average of about fifty
——
*SHAIL NHGTIO HHL NI ONINVA AVR
Lie
Pa
~~ as
y 5
in
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 297
cents a day produced certain articles which sold in
the market at less prices than the same goods pro-
duced by free labor. The consequence is plain to be
seen. Convict labor is pitted against honest labor
to the detriment of the latter. The honest working-
man must pay taxes, and the margin on prison made
goods goes into the pockets of the contractors or
prison lessees. :
There are in the United States 57,500 convicts
who are daily engaged in competing with free la-
bor, and over one-half of them are skilled laborers.
From this source the industry of the entire country
is affected. Every prison is virtually an immense
factory or workshop, with a daily output as against
the honest workingman who is earning a bare sub-
sistance.
It is universally held by legislators that this com-
petition is the foe of free labor, andin many of the
states the contract and leasing systems have been
abolished, but an effectual remedy for the evil has
not been put into actual practice. If labor is taxed
for the support of penal institutions, the inmates
should in some way be made to return the expendi-
ture, and in a way so as not to interfere with free
labor:
Dr. Seaman, late chief of staff of the Blackwell’s
Island hospital and penitentiary, spoke upon the
problem of convict labor in a recent address before
\ Mthe Medico-Legal Society. He argues in favor of
the English system of employing long sentence
20
298 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
prisoners on great public works, such as harbor and
fortification making. An effort is being made in
another quarter to introduce transportation to Alas-
ka. But there is a third alternative, suggested by
some very common-place facts, here submitted for
consideration.
Society is, perhaps unnecessarily, afflicted by hav-
ing to bear two enormous burdens, costly, demoral-
izing and oppressive. These are (1) the maintenance
of criminals,and (2) the maintenance of widows and
orphans left destitute by “accidents.” It is meant,
here particularly, the families of miners killed by
coalpit explosions, which occur so frequently. Now,
the miner is probably the worthiest working citizen
in the commonwealth. For our good he submits
not only to tremendous toil, but to the sacrifice of
sunlight and the pure air of heaven, and cheerfully
faces the risk of being himself among the percent-
age of miners who every year get killed, something
like one in thirty-eight. We owe more to the miner
than we care to acknowledge.
On the other hand, the criminal forfeits ordinary
sympathy. The worst class, criminals who have
just (unfortunately) dodged the hangman, society
pronounces unfit to associate again with the commu-
nity for a long time, if ever; i.e., society says they
are unfit to live in the world.
Yet we exalt these malefactors to the position of
state pensioners, we give them palatial residences,
a costly staff of liveried servents, with all the re-
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 999
sources of medical and sanitary science to prolong
their precious lives to the last possible gasp—all at
the expense of the honest, law abiding, virtuous
taxpayer. And the coal getter? Well, we condemn
him to banishment into the bowels of the earth,
with the tolerably sure and certain hope of an ‘“ac-
cidental”’ explosion, with loss of life or limb, and
the probable pauperization of widows and orphans
to follow.
Suppose, by way of experimental reform, our all-
wise legislature were to select the life sentence con-
victs of the most worthless and repulsive type, and
single out also the most dangerous mines. Suppose
they were to place the former in the latter, say, for
ten years’ daily labor. If, in the mysterious work-
ings of Providence, an explosion were to bereave us
_ of these our erring brethren, the calamity would
not end the lives of our honest and industrious
miners, who raise their families as good citizens.
On the other hand, the saving in cost of prisons
would go far to insure the safety of our worthy
miners by providing better preventives of ‘ acci-
dents.”
The public asks that prisons be made self-sustain-
ing, and at the same time they must not interfere
with free labor. As long as the industrial system
is carried on in penitentiaries as at present, so long
will their labor operate against the outside work-
ingman, but there is amedium wherein reformation
and productive labor may meet. ‘There is no doubt
300 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
but the ‘‘piece-price plan” is better than all others,
as either the state or an individual may be in con-
trol. A convict at work is doing no more than he
should do if free, and he certainly should be
obliged to support himself during his incarcera-
tion.
If prison made goods are to be placed in the
market, they should be sold at free labor prices,
and the proceeds should be judiciously expended
towards the accomplishment of the convict’s reform-
ation.
In the second annual report of the National Bu-
reau of Labor Statistics, Carroll D. Wright, Com-
missioner, reports in favor of the state system, and
favors what he calls the ‘‘hand-labor public ac-
count system.” His conclusion is expressed as fol-
lows:
‘‘Hand-labor under the public account system
offers many advantages over any other that has
been suggested to the bureau. It involves the car-
rying on of the industries of a prison for the bene-
fit of the state, but without the use of power ma-
chinery, tools and hand machines only being al-
lowed, the goods to be made to consist of such arti-
cles as boots and shoes, the coarse woolen and cot-
ton cloths needed for the institution or for sale to
other institutions, harnesses and saddlery, and ma-
ny other goods now made by machinery or not now
made at all in prisons.”
Whatever policy may be pursued in the future,
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 801
it is well settled in the minds of the people, espec-
ially the workingmen, that convicts should be em-
ployed with the least possible expense for machin-
ery, and that their product should be disposed of
so as not to conflict with honest labor.
302 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
CHAPTER XxX.
LIQUOR AND THE WORKINGMAN.
THE ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF MONEY EXPENDED FOR LI-
QUOR—-MR. POWDERLY ARRAIGNS THE DRUNKARD—
HIS POWERFUL SPEECH AT LYNN, MASS.——HOW LIQUOR
PRODUCES POVERTY—FIFTEEN MILLION PEOPLE SPEND
SEVEN HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS ANNUALLY FOR
LIQUOR——LIQUOR COSTS THE PEOPLE THREE TIMES AS
MUCH AS CLOTHING—INTEMPERANCE A CURSE TO THE
WORKINGMAN.
In an article on prohibition of the sale and man-
ufacture of liquor, a writer in a leading southern
paper says, as a matter of dollars and cents, the
question of a tariff for revenue or protection, the fi-
nancial policy and all others combined, pale into
utter insignificance compared with the amount of
money that is annually expended for that which de-
stroys the peace of thousands of happy homes,
brings degradation and want, brings the unfortu-
nate victims to premature graves, and consigns them
to an endless hell—from the best statistical inform-
ew.
THE VOICK OF LABOR. 303
ation obtainable about nine hundred millions annu-
ally for alcoholic drinks, all of which comes out of
the pockets of the consumers. Estimating from all
sources—federal, state and municipal—the revenue .
derivable from this source, on the sale only, amounts
to about three hundred millions of dollars.
Mr. Powderly in a speech at Lynn, Mass., said:
“Ten years ago I was hissed because I advised
men to let strong drink alone. They threatened to
rotten egg me. I[ have continued to advise men to
be temperate, and though I have had no experience
that would qualify me to render an opinion on the
efficacy of a rotten egg as an ally of the rum drink-
er, yet I would prefer to have my exterior decorat-
ed from summit to base with the rankest kind of
rotten eggs, rather than allow one drop of liquid
villainy to pass my lips, or have the end of my
nose illuminated by a blossom that follows a plant-
ing of the seeds of hatred, envy, malice and dam-
nation, all of which are represented in a solitary
glass of gin. |
Ten years ago the cause of temperance was not
so respectable as it is to-day, because there were
not so many respectable men and women advocat-
ing it. It has gained ground; itis gaining ground,
and all because men and women who believe in it
could not be browbeaten or frightened. Neither
the hissing of serpents nor the throwing of rotten
eggs has stopped or even delayed the march of
temperance among the workers.
304 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
Why doI so bitterly arraign the poor drunkard?
For the reason that he is a drunkard, and because
he has made himself poor through his love of drink.
Did I or any other man, rob him of the money he
has squandered in drink; did I make him poor, the
vilest names that tongue can frame would be ap-
plied to me. Must I stand idly by and remain
silent while he robs himself? Did he rob only him-
self it would not make so much difference. He robs
parents, wife and children. He robs his aged fath-
er and mother through love of drink. He gives for
rum what should go for their support. When they
murmur he turns them from his door, and points
his contaminating drunken finger toward the poor-
house. He next turns toward his wife and robs her
of what should be devoted to the keeping of her
home in comfort and plenty. He robs her of her
wedding ring and pawns it for drink. He turns his"
daughter from his door in a fit of drunken anger
and drives her to the house of prostitution, and
then accepts from ‘her hand the proceeds of her
shame. To satisfy his love of drink he takes the
price of his child’s virtue and innocence from her
sin stained, lust bejeweled fingers, and with it tot-
ters to the bar to pay it to the man who ‘‘does not
deny the justice of my position.” I don’t arraign
the man who drinks because he is poor, but because
through being a slave to drink he has made him-
self and family poor. I do not hate the man who
drinks, for I have carried drunken men to their
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 305
homes on my back, rather than allow them to re-
main exposed to inclement weather. I do not hate
the drunkard—he is what drink has effected, and
while I do not hate the effect, I abhor and loathe
the cause.
Take the list of labor societies of America, and
the total sum paid into their treasuries from all
sources from their organization to the present time
will not exceed $5,000,000. The Knights of Labor
is the largest and most influential of them all, and
though so much has been said concerning the vast
amount of money that has been collected from the
members, yet the total sum levied and collected for
all purposes—per capita tax, assistance fund, ap-
peals, assessment, Insurance and co-operation—up
to the present time will not exceed more than
$800,000.
The total sum collected for the first nine years of
the existence of the general assembly was but $500,-
724.14. In nine years less than $600,000 were
collected to uplift humanity to a higher plane, and
to bring the workers to a realizing sense of their
actual condition in life. It took less than $600,-
000 to teach the eivilized world that workingmen
could build up an organization that could shed such
light upon the doings of landlords, bond-lords, mo- -
nopolists and other trespassers of the domain of
popular rights, that they were forced to halt for a
time and stand up to explain, Less than $600,000
(not a dollar unaccounted for), and on the statute
306 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
books of the nation will you find the impress of the
workingman’s hand. On the law book of every
state can be traced the doing of labor’s representa-
tives. Less than $600,000 to create a revolution
greater, further reaching in its consequences and
more lasting in its benefits, than the revolution
which caused the streets of the towns and cities of
France to run red with human blood less than a
century ago. Less than $600,000 to make men fear —
and believe that woman’s work should equal that of
the man. Less than $600,000 to educate men and wo-
men to believe that ‘“‘moral worth and not wealth is
the true standard of individual and national great-
ness.” Less than $600,000 to cause every newspaper
in the land to speak of the work being done by the
Knights of Labor—some of them speaking in abu-
sive terms, and others speaking words of praise, ac-
cording to the interests represented by the papers
or according as the work done harmonized with the
principles of the order. :
In one day an employer’s association organizes
and pledges itself to contribute $5,000,000 to fight
labor. The next day the papers are almost silent
on that point, but are filled to the brim with lurid ac-
counts of the reckless autocratic manner in which the
officers of the Knights of Labor levy a 25-cent as-
sessment to keep over 1,000 locked out men and
women from starvation. Putting two and two to-
gether, itis not hard to guess why papers that
applauded the action of the employers in one col-
‘SUAMOTST HILLOG AHL SNOWY
eee
~~ i 23
oot ¢) as
re} a
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 309
umn should in another column advise the workers
not to pay the twenty-five cent assessment. $600,000
for sober men to use in education and self-improve-
ment.
Now let us turn to the other side. In the city of
New York alone it is estimated that not less than
$250,000 a day are spent for drink, $1,500,000 in
one week, $75,000,000 in one year. Who will dis-
pute it when Isay that one-half of the policemen of
New York city are employed to watch the beings who
squander $75,000,000 a year? Who will dispute it
when I say the money spent in paying the salaries
and expenses of one-half of the police of New York
could be saved to the taxpayersif $75,000,000 were
not devoted to making drunkards, thieves, prosti-
tutes, and other subjects for the policeman’s net to
gather in? If $250,000 go over the counters of the
rum-seller in one day in New York city alone, who
will dare to assert that the workingmen to-day do
not pay one-fifth, or $50,000, of that sum?
If workingmen in New York city spend $50,000
a day for drink, they spend $300,000 a week, leav-
ing Sunday out, In one month they spend $1, 200,-
000— over twice as much money as was paid into the
_ general assembly of the Knights of Labor in nine
years. In six weeks they spend $1, 800,000——near-
ly three times as much money as that army of o-gan-
ized workers, the Knights of Labor, have spent from
the day the general assembly was first called to or-
der up to the present day; and in one year the work-
310 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
ingmen of New York city will have spent for beer
and rum $15,600,000, or enough to purchase and
equip a first-class line of their own — $15,600,000,
enough money to invest in such co-operation as
would forever end the strike and lockout as ameans
of settling disputes in labor circles.
A single county in Pennsylvania, so I am inform-
ed, spent in one year $17,000,000 for drink. That
county contains the largest industrial population,
comparatively, of any in the state. $11,000,000 of
the $17,000,000 come from the pockets of working-
men. New York city,in one year, contributes $15,-
600,000 to keep men and women in poverty, hunger
and cold, while one county in Pennsylvania adds
$11,000,000, making 4 total of $26,600,000.
I am not a fanatic—I do not damn the man who
sells liquor. I have nothing against him. Many men
‘who now sell liquor were once workingmen, and
were victimized through a strike or lockout. I would
not injure a hair of their heads, but I would so edu-
cate workingmen that they would never enter a sa-
loon. Then the money saved from rum, and rum
holes, would go to purchase necessaries, and such an
increased stimulus would be given to trade that the
rum-seller could return to an honest way of making
a living.
I may be taken to task for being severe on the
workingmen. It may be said that I slander them
even. If to tell the truth is to be severe, then on
this one question | hope some day to be severity it-
THE VOICE OF LABOR. SEL
self: but I speak to workingmen, because it is in
their welfare that I am interested. I have not been
delegated to watch or guard the fortunes of million-
aires, and in no way can I hope to accomplish any-
thing until I state my policy freely and frankly to
those I represent. We are seeking to reform existing
evils. We must first reform ourselves.”
In the report issued in July, 1887, by the Bureau
of Statistics, at Washington, it is shown that the to-
_.tal annual expenditure for liquors at retail in the
United States is sEVEN HUNDRED MILLLION DOLLARS,
and that the drinking population is about rirreEeN
MILLION PERSONS. In 1880 (last census) the total pro-
duct of our four great industries were, viz.:
COCHIN sae taro ainia te esa PLT L ODO, 204
COGLON FEOOUS. . ci oles sisinees eo sf 210,900,080
Wioolem-GOOUS a2. o. eweies.¢. ov 100,606,721
EPOficatid: SteG) sin exces cers aie wee ee 20 0; 00 (, 09D
By comparison we see that the amount of money
spent for liquor was more than three times greater
than that expended for ready made clothing: that it
was in excess of the value of the total combined pro-
duct of the cotton, woolen, and iron and steel indus-
tries, and not much less than the value of the pro-
duct of all four of the industries named. Of the
fifteen million people who wasted this vast sum,each
man expended nearly one dollar a week in gratifying
abase appetite. Every dollar of all this money was
just as much wasted asif it had been dumped in the
ocean. Indeed, such disposition of it would have
oly THE VOICE OF LABOR.
been wise economy compared with that which was
really made of it, for only the first cost of the rum
appears in the sum of $700,000,000.
Probably the amount would be increased more
than fifty per cent if we should ascertain the cost of
the crime, pauperism, and insanity which always
follow the product of the rum traffic. Now, sup-
pose all this money, three times the value of the to-
taliron product of the country, had been expended
for things useful, comfortable, and necessary, does
any man believe there would be complaint of over-
production? Would any laborer who wanted to work
be forced into idleness? Is it not clear that there
would be such a stimulus for business as would give
to this country prosperity more than at any time
in the past, with good wages for work. The great
majority of these fifteen million people are work-
ingmen.
Os, THE VOICE OF LABOR. Sis
CHAPTER XXI.
THE FARMER AND HIS INTERESTS.
CAPITAL DRIFTING AWAY FROM AGRICULTURE — THE
LABOR QUESTION LINKED WITH THE FARMER — HON.
W. F. SADLER BEFORE THE GRANGE — AN ABLE DIS-
COURSE — A STARTLING ARRAY OF FACTS AND FIG-
URES—THE AVARICE OF CAPITAL—MR. JOHN NORRIS
ON RAILROAD MONOPOLY — CHARLES SEARS’ MEAS-
URES—A BALEFUL WARNING—-MR. CHARLES SEARS’
EXPOSITION OF TRUTHS — PUBLIC CARRIERS AND
MONEY LOANERS ARE ABSORBING CAPITAL——A PEACE-
FUL MODE OF ADJUSTMENT—-MEASURES AND REME-
DIES——-UNITED EFFORT BY REFORM PARTIES NEC-
ESSARY TO SUCCESS—-LABOR ASCENDING THE THRONE
OF POLITICS.
Tue gradual drifting of capital from agriculture to
industrial centers, during the past fifty years, has
produced its effect. Farming to-day is not the pay-
ing vocation it has been, and the true wealth of the
nation is suffering from a great shrinkage on ac-
count of the farmer’s inability to reap his due meas-
ure of products. Linked with the interests of our
21
314 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
farmers are the interests of trade, manufacturing,
commerce, and the welfare of the entire country.
Inseparably connected with the great question of
labor, which has been forced to the surface of the
stream of current affairs, is the depressed condition
of agriculture.
Hon. W. F. Sadler, in eG before the Grange
inter-state exhibition, 1886, said: ‘+ While the pre-
eminence of the importance of agriculture over that
of any other art of man has always existed in fact,
yet it will be conceded that it has been slow in se-
curing deserved recognition and rightful apprecia-
tion: It will be also agreed by the intelligent and
observant, that as its true relations to the other oc-
cupations is becoming thus more properly under-
stood, the propriety, desirability and necessity that
it should be thoroughly studied, wisely practiced,
and it needs have due regard become the more ap-
parent. It has not only long been, as it now is,
the chief subsistence of the race, but its prosperity
has had an intimate relation to the progression of
the latter. Indeed, in the rudimentary tillimg of
the soil the individual could only produce bread for
himself and family, and there was, therefore, no
surplus human force to make development sete
in other lines.
Men could only devote brain and energy and
muscle to the other human pursuits which character-
ize our modern civilization, when less than the
whole number could provide food for the whole.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 315
It needs no demonstration to show that the fewer
of the population required for the one purpose the
more can be employed in others, and also that
the more perfect system of agriculture the less num-
ber of persons will be needed to furnish the produc-
tion necessary for supply.
To-day the crops seem to be the business barom-
eter of our nation. Trade halts until it learns what
their condition is. The <‘ bulls’ and ‘bears’ of our
great commercial centres alike listen with bated
breath, while the telegraph tells of the growing, gath-
ering, garnering and yield of the harvest fields of
the land. Upon them the railroad is dependent for
freight, the banker for exchange, the country for
exports, and the whole world for bread.
Their abundance, in short, is the harbinger of
business prosperity, while their failure is the pre-
cursor of diminished trade, if not of pecuniary dis-
tress.
Besides, it claims special attention on account of
the multitudes engaged in the cultivation of the
soil. Of all those enlisted in occupations in the
United States more than forty-four per cent are
enumerated in our last census as being agricultur-
alists. So that, in addition to the relative import of
this industry, there is the immediate dependence
upon it of a much larger factor of our population
than upon that of any other. It may be safely as-
,sumed, I think, that more than one-half of all our
male population of an age fit to work are engaged
316 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
in producing crops, and in the transportation and
delivery of them to the consumer.
There has been too little of this in the past—
there is not enough at the present. The Thom-
ases, Piollets and Rhones of the Granger move-
ment have done much to infuse a proper spirit in
this respect into the farmer—but much remains
to be accomplished. It is time that there was less
of humility on part of those who cultivate the soil,
and more pride. It has too long been considered
degrading to dig. The tiller of the soil does the
most beneficial work of man, and the regard of so-
ciety for hislabor should be proportionate in de-
gree. It may also be observed that a proper esti-
mate by the farmer of his own calling will tend to
insure a juster one by others, and would be _ pro-
ductive as well on his part of an assertiveness, justi-
fied by the position which should be accorded to,
taken and maintained by those upon the skill and
productivity of whose toil annually depends the
chief food of all the people. The -husbandman’s
boys would also more highly regard the father’s oc-
cupation if he himself accorded to it due consider-
ation, and there would thus likely be less anxiety
on their part to seek other employments.
While press and forum and party platform prop-
erly vie in the attention given to the grievances,
wants and rights of the employers of our great
manufacturing, mining and mechanical industries,,
it were well to remember that the cultivators of the
Sak Seah ary
ae Ue ne HOt) ea ; ae
¥ rad
THE VOICE OF LABOR. sy We
soil also have wrongs, and wants, and rights, entitl-
ed to a high and present regard—the laborers among
them nearly equaling those in the departments al-
luded to. That while the nation’s brain throbs with
speculations and plans, as to how content may come
to the hand at the factory and shop, and, by what
method of computation a fair distribution of the
earnings of labor and capital may be allotted be-
tween employer and employe, it must not be forgot-
ten that the husbandmen are a craft of workmen,
not only more ancient in its institution, mightier in
its proportions,and more essential to society’s well
being, as well as to existence of mankind, but also
that problems, numerous, complicated and fraught
with the highest importance to their welfare, demand
consideration.
Some of these are even now invoking the con-
cern and affecting the interests of the farmer, espec-
ially of the Eastern states—such as the rates at
which these products shall be transported to mar-
ket, while others, more serious, as how land shall be
held and how let to the tenant, are eliciting not
only the attention, but affecting the prosperity, dis-
turbing the quiet and imperiling the peace of the
most powerful as well as the wisest nation on the
globe, and for which no method of solution has yet
been found.”
It is pertinent at all times to scrutinize our sur-
roundings, and a glance backward over the road we
have traveled never does harm. What progress we
318 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
have made is a subject well worth examining. How
has the farmer and wage-worker been affected by
the absorption of railroads, by pools and by monop-
olies? A glance at results tells the tale. A dollar
invested in one of the largest and most productive
states (Pennsylvania) in 1880, yielded a smaller re-
turn than in any of the other states. Pennsylvania
has thousands of miles of railroads.
PERCENTAGE oF Farm Propuction to Farm
VALUE In 1880,
NORTH ATLANTIC GROUP.
Maine, - - - 21. Connecticut, - .15
New Hampshire, .17 New York, - .16 4-5
Vermont, - - .20 New Jersey - .154
Massachusetts, - .164 Pennsylvania, .13 1-5
Rhodelsland,- - .14
SOUTH ATLANTIC GROUP.
Delaware, - - .17 North Carolina, - .38
Maryland, - .17 South Carolina, - .61
Districtof Columbia.14 Georgia, - - - 59
NORTHERN CENTRAL GROUP.
Ohio, - - - .14 Iowa, - . - .24
Indiana, - iS Missouri, - “5.25
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 319
NORTHERN CENTRAL GROUP—OCOONTINUED.
Illinois, - - .20 Dakota, - - .25
Michigan, eared | Nebraska, mrtg ye hs,
Wisconsin, - - .20 Kansas, - - .22
Minnesota, Stay 25.
SOUTHERN CENTRAL GROUP.
Kentucky, - - .21 Louisiana, - - 71
Tennessee, - .80 Texas, -. 74.08
Alabama, - - .72 Arkansas, - “59
Mississippi, - .68
WESTERN GROUP.
Montana, - - .62 Nevada, : - .52
Wyoming, - 44 Idaho, - - 54
Colorado, - - .20 Washington Ter. - .30
New Mexico, - .34 Oregon, - ~ 7 323
Arizona, - - .54 California, - - .22
Utah,- - eaeee
Each combination of capital makes the working-
man more dependent, and renders it the more diffi-
cult for the small manufacturer to conduct his busi-
ness. By glancing over the census report of 1880,
it is apparent that centralization of capital is crowd-
ing out the workingmen by reducing the number of
establishments.
320 THE VOICE OF. LABOR.
REDUCTION IN NUMBER OF MANUFACTURING ESTABLISH-
MENTS FROM 1870 to 1880.
STATE. 1870. 1880. Repucrron.
Pennsylvania, - 37,800 31,232 5,968
Missouri, - 115871 8,502 3,279
Ohio, - - 22,773 20,699 9,074
Maine, - 5,550 4,481 1,069
Louisiana, - - 9,557 1,558 1,004
Tennessee, - 3,347 4,326 ok
Indiana, - = 118412115105 649
Connecticut, - 5,128 4,488 640
Michigan, - - 9,455 8,873 582
Vermont, - 3,270 2, 874 396
Mississippi, iets Gr 1,479 252
Georgia, - 3,836 3,508 243
Florida, - - 659 496 233
Virginia, - 5,933 5,710 223
New Hampshire, - 3,342 3,181 161
Nevada, x 330 184 146
Alabama, - - 2,188 2,070 118
West Virginia,- 9,444 2,375 69
Kentucky, - - 5,300 5,328 62
Delaware, - 800 746 54
‘On every side we see,” writes Mr. John Mor-
ris, of the ‘*Philadelphia Daily Record,” “ that
wealth and power are drifting into few hands. We
find traces of this condition not only in railroad
consolidations but in the coal combination, the coke
syndicate, the Western Union Telegraph Company,
HON. JOHN SEITz.
ee
t tae
pes
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 39a
the Standard Oil Company, and the hundred other
parasites of our railroads. We find combinations
of capital against which the individual is helpless,
creating classes that are fabulously rich and classes
that are shockingly poor. We find deepening want
with increasing wealth. Individual enterprise has
given way to the corporations. The factory is su-
perseding the mechanic, and the larger farm is ab-
sorbing the smaller farm.
‘¢We find some few natural monopolies due to
invention and to healthy business enterprise, and
we find many artificial monopolies that are due to
special and discriminating rates and to the evils that
characterized our railroad policy. The harmony
and symmetry of our development has been dis-
turbed by these improper influences, A condition
of affairs has been created which will soon become
intolerable. _ In view of these appalling facts is
there not a necessity for arousing the public con-
science? Is there not a necessity for warning the
people against these baleful tendencies of the
times ?”
_ Mr. Charles Sears, in an able essay on the causes
of the financial and industrial depression of the
times, says: 3
“Taxes are finally liquidated with products.
There are no other means of payment. The accu-
mulated wealth of cities, towns and country is sur-
plus product. The rate of accumulation is estimated
at about three per cent annually.
824 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
‘¢From tables of statistics it appears that in the
western states about three-fourths of the farms are
mortgaged for one-third to three-fourths of their
current value; and that this class of debt bears in-
terest at seven to twelve per cent yearly; and that -
it is rapidly increasing, as it must do, for the rates
of interest paid exceed the rate of property in-
crease. The farmers, therefore, are contributing
more than their surplus tothe sum of wealth, they
trench upon the capital, and consequently, are
steadily passing out of the ranks of independent
citizens into a class of tenant farmers, or that of
wage-workers. Can this, in any sense, be deemed
a safe state of affairs ?
‘Why do farmers have to borrow money? Be-
cause their produce will not pay the cost of produc
tion. Why are prices realized by farmers so low?
A chief reason is the cost of transportation of pro-
ducts. The average cost of transportation is stated
to bea fraction less than five mills per ton per mile.
The prices exacted and paid range from three to
six times that rate. It appears, therefore, that the
transportation companies and money lenders are
absorbing not only the surplus of production, but
capital also; and that with the present rates of in-
terest and freight, the production of grain, cattle,
horses, wool, cotton, etc., are, economically consid-
ered, impossible industries. |
‘¢The government has delegated, by charter, the
power to Banking Corporations to issue money and
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 325
control the circulating volume and thereby deter-
mine the rate of interest; to railroad companies the
power to tax the public ‘what the traffic will
bear.’ Between these two the producer of raw ma-
terial is confiscated, for with high rates of interest
and high freight rates his property is confiscated,
and this through chartered privilege. He might as
well be out of the world as without property.
‘This is an unsafe condition, an unjust relation of
producer, middlemen and consumer. It is a con-
dition which cannot endure, for in the end, proper-
ty acquired without rendering a fair equivalent is
an unsafe possession. An adjustment, in which the
equities shall be considered, must come, either
peacefully or through violence.
‘When class rises against class in desperation,
reason 1s in abeyance, passion rules. The steady
drain of property from producer to the coffers of
transportation companies and bankers is disinteg-
rating society—dividing it intorich and poor,a state
we are rapidly approaching—that of distinctly de-
fined classes. This is the direct road to violent re-
clamations. 3
‘(A peaceful mode of adjustment would be for the
government to acquire possession of the railroads at
a fair valuation and manage them at cost. This
would put railroads on the same footing as are
country roads—both would be public property and
both maintained at cost.
« Another measure tending toward a peaceful is-
326 THE VOICR OF LABOR.
sue from dangerous wants would be the issue of
money direct to the people on their own securities,
repayable in five per cent yearly installments with
yearly - interest at three per cent, which would be
part of the public revenue, divided equally to the
treasuries of the counties, the state and the general
government, and be so much in lieu of taxes.
‘‘A still further measure tending in the same di-
rection would be the organization of production and
exchange in the interest of producer and consumer.
These measures would save us from impending
bankruptcy and perhaps a worse condition, for they
leave to the producer the fruit of his labor and so
remove the causes of discontent.”
The stumbling block to reform movements here-
tofore, has been in a lack of united effort and the
consolidation of different parties. Petty factions
and egotistical opinions have served to prevent a
national union of workingmen, and results have been
of little value.
Labor is ascending the throne of politics, but un-
til it fully comprehends the power of the ballot, and
presents a united front at the polls, it will never
grasp the sceptre.
eu)
bo
=T
THE VOICE OF LABOR.
CHAPTER XXII.
FOREIGNERS AND FOREIGNERS.
THE IMMIGRATION OF TO-DAY A GREAT EVIL—5)00, 000
IMMIGRANTS IN 1887—oOFFICIAL FIGURES—OVER
8,000,000 ALIENS IN THIS COUNTRY—A FLOOD OF
PAUPERS AND CRIMINALS TAINTING THE NATION—
H. H. BOYESEN ON UNRESTRICTED IMMIGRATION—THE
EVIL OF ANARCHY AND COMMUNISM ONE OF THE
CURSES OF THE FOULSTREAM—SUMMARY LEGISLATION
A JUST DEMAND OF WORKINGMEN — AMERICAN LA-
BOR MENACED BY FOREIGN IMMIGRATION —— HOSTILE
SENTIMENT THROUGHOUT THE LAND—A QUESTION OF
THE DAY.
Tae workingmen of the United States have
awakened to the fact that a great evil lurks in the
tide of immigration which has so long set in upon
this country. Notwithstanding the extended lim-
its of our domain there is a feeling that we are
crowded, especially in large cities.
The huge ocean steamers daily landat their docks,
and thousands of the substratum of European hu
o
398 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
I
manity swarm from their gangways. To this unre-
stricted immigration is justly attributed one of the
disturbing elements which has much to do with the
problem labor is endeavoring to solve. Since the
Declaration of Independence was signed, over four-
teen millions of immigrants have crossed the
ocean and made their homes in the United
States.
The increase in immigration in May, 1887, was
28,400 over the same month of the preceding year,
and the increase in the eleven months ending with
May, was 133,600. This means that over half a
million foreigners have come to this country during
the last fiscal year. The official reports do not
give the number from Canada and Mexico across
the border, and the number of such immigrants is
known to be considerable. In 1884-5, the last
year for which it was officially reported, this immi-
gration was 38,614; with the general decline in im-
migration last year it may have fallen to 30,000, but
with the general increase this year it has probably
risen to 40,000 or more.
The most accurate computation for the increase
of population during twenty years ending with 1880,
proves to be that which allows 2 per cent yearly for
increase by the excess of births over deaths, and
then adds the immigration each year. At that rate
the increase each year since July 1, 1880,would be
as follows:
_
‘THE VOICE OF LABOR. 329
Increase. Immigration.
TSS0-1 eee a 1 008 FS 669,431
TSE se aes eee ais ako, 000 788,992
ASBO- Bien Oye eee OTS! OTT 603,322
1 S83 dee a tee wos 1 106,000 518,592
TSR tbe ee i. 1199-109 395,346
MSS OeOe es er cee 1,109,199 384,203
Teno eee ee 100-878 500,000
Total - - - 17,728,149 3,809,886
In the statement of immigration for the last and
the current year the official figures are followed,
embracing no allowance for immigrants from Cana-
da or Mexico.
If 70,000 be added for these the aggregate popu-
lation July 1, 1887, would be 61,763,818, unless the
increase by excess of births over deaths has been
smaller during the present than during the preced-
ing decades.
Without any allowance for Canadian immigra-
tion the population July 1 would appear on this
basis to be about 61,700,000. The fact that all
treasury estimates give lower figures is in the main
explained by their failure to make separate allow-
ance for the immigration, which has been larger
during the recent than in any previous decade. As
the table shows, the addition by immigration alone,
has exceeded 3,800,000 in seven years, and has
been almost half the increase from all other sources.
22
330 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
Maintaining the same average increase of 1,650-
000 for the remaining three years of the decade,
the census of June, 1890, will find close on 66,000,-
000 of inhabitants within the limits of the great re-
public.
In 1887 Great Britain and Ireland furnished the
largest number. Of the arrivals in May, 29,277
were from the British Isles, 16,416 being from Ire-
land, while the German immigration was but 18,-
086 and the Scandinavian 13,139. Italy furnish-
ed the comparatively large number of 8,642. Dur-
ing March and April the British immigration great-
ly exceeded the Irish. There is a growing disin-
clination among the British mechanics who are not
satisfied to live at home to go to the colonies. They
prefer the United States. It is said that seventy-
five per cent of those who go to Canada finally find
their way here. The question whether this large
European immigration is an unmixed ‘blessing is
engaging the serious attention of thoughtful Amer-
icans.
According to the last census, there were 6,677-
360 aliens in the United States, and the succeeding
years have swelled the number above eight millions.
At present, the critical condition of military affairs
in Europe and increased taxation has stimulated
immigration anew, and public attention is called to
the fact, that the quality of this influx of population
is undesirable,
Stringent legislation is needed to divert the con-
SEN Sy ane
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 3381
stant stream of pauperism and imbecility which is
pouring into our fair land.
A recent editorial upon this subject, in the ‘Chi-
cago Tribune,” is as follows: ‘‘In Iowa for instance,
the principal asylum has just been enlarged for the
third. time, and yet the improvement was hardly
completed before more room was demanded, and
this too, notwithstanding the fact that extensive hos-
pitals for the insane had been established in other
parts of the state. Much the same experience can
be noted in all parts of the North and West where
there is a large inflow of population from Europe,
and yet by a singular inversion of logic the opinion is
that overwork, nervous tension, or some other char-
acteristic feature of American life has caused the re-
markable increase in the percentage of insane per-
sons. Dr. Gilman, a leading expert in insanity,
says this is all a mistake; that the proportion of in-
sane among the native-born population remains
about the same, and the increase comes from the
wholesale importation of lunatics from Central Eu-
rope. Along with the deported paupers and quasi-
criminals coming to this country is a flood of wretch-
ed creatures on the verge of insanity and sure to be-
come in a brief time tenants of our tax-supported
asylums. Diseased blood is brought into this coun-
try, and capital and labor are taxed heavier every
year to provide maintenance for the hordes
of lunatics and paupers arriving from Enu-
“rope.
302 THE VOICE OF LABOR:
‘*When General Master Workman Powderly,
of the Knights of Labor, and President Depew, of
the New York Central Railroad—men representing
interests in wide contrast—are found equally urgent
in advocating a restriction of immigration, itis clear
that the question will soon become one of earnest
agitation. Without wasting any discussion on such
a matter as the importation of paupers, lunatics, and
criminals as still carried on under the existing lax
laws, Powderly says he is opposed to a great deal
of immigration, pure and simple, and would allow
no immigrant to land unless provided with means
of support for a year. Depew presents something
of the same thought when he declares that the ex-
haustion of the public domain and the disappear-
of the unbought homestead will soon put the mat-
ter of immigration on anew footing. In fact, ow-
ing tothe causes stated, the character of the immi-
gration to the United States is changing already.
The government reports show a falling off of seventy
per cent in the number of farmers, mechanics, and
trained workers entering the United States from Eu-
rope, and the substitution of unskilled laborers, va-
grants, paupers, and representatives of all the de-
fective and dependent classes.
‘¢Such of these undesirable newcomers as do not
become an immediate burden on the public, simply
enter the overcrowded labor markets of the large
cities, and throw their weight into the scale to de-~
press wages and promote labor troubles and discon-
BESSEMER STEEL MANUFACTORY.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. OOO
tent. Grandiloquent talk about the United States
as an asylum for the oppressed of all nations was
well enough when the government had an immense
unappropriated domain, and by the offer of free
homesteads was able to attract enterprising, thrifty
home-seekers from Europe to the Western territories.
These conditions are changing rapidly, and instead
of attracting the old class of immigration the Unit-
ed States is becoming a dumping ground for the
refuse of Central Europe. The evil is getting in-
tolerable. The present restrictions on immigration
are practically inoperative, and congress must pro-
vide some effective means to shut out, at least, the
paupers, lunatics, and criminals voided on the Unit-
ed States from the jails, almshouses, and asylums of
‘Central Europe.”
Apart from the question of its necessity, accord-
ing to Mr. H. H. Boyesen, there are indications on
all hands that public opinion is ripe for legislation
tending to restrict and regulate immigration. The
congressman who shall initiate such legislation need
have no fear of alienating the immigrant voters.
The great majority of them, so far as I have been
able to ascertain, would favor a law having such an
end in view. The second biennial report of the
Wisconsin Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statis-
tics (1885-6) shows conclusively that public opinion
in the West has been undergoing a great change
on this question since the anarchists made their ap-
pearance, and labor troubles have led to disturbance
336 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
and loss of property in many states. The report of
the commissioner is of particular interest, because
Wisconsin has a very large foreign population; and
the overwhelming sentiment in favor of restriction
may therefore be taken to indicate that the immi-
grants themselves would not object to having the
gates shut against theirown countrymen. The re-
port particularly emphasizes the fact that ‘a large
percentage even of those demanding total prohibi-
tion for longer or shorter periods are foreign born,
and some mention this circumstance as a reason
why they know better than others the necessity of
taking the question thoroughly in hand.’ Out of a
total number of about 40,000 employes interrogat-
ed, 14,561 returned no answer, 5,728 declared
themselves in favor of ‘unqualified restriction,’
4,059 favored ‘total prohibition,’ 6,316 wished to
exclude socialists and anarchists, 2,928 paupers
and criminals, 1,998 wanted a property qualification,
220 an educational test, and 1,320 thought all
should be excluded except those of ‘ good charac-
ter... Among the employers, too, a similar senti-
ment in favor of restriction and even exclusion was
proved to exist; and I do not doubt that, if the com-
missioners of labor statistics in other states should
extend their inquiries so as to include this question,
they would arrive at similar results.
That something must be done before very long is
obvious. Merely to extend the term required for
naturalization, as the Wisconsin legislature has re-
THE VOICE OF LABOR. Bt
cently done, is of no avail. It is not the privileges
of American citizenship which entice the immigrant
away from his old home; it is the prospect of earn-
ing an easier living. The sentiment hostile to im-
migration, which from time to time has swept over
the country, has usually found expression in some
such law; as when congress, in 1798, required a
residence of fourteen years before citizenship could
be acquired. This law was, however, repealed in
1802. Restriction, if it is to be effective, must pro-
hibit entrance to certain specified classes of people;
and no immigrant should be permitted to land un-
less he can exhibit a certificate, signed by the Amer- .
ican consul at the port from which he has sailed,
showing that he possesses the qualifications, what-
ever they may be, which the law shall require. Such
a requisition would, of course, greatly increase
the labor and responsibility of the consuls, and
might necessitate an increase in the numbers of
these officials. But as a consulate, in all but the
principal commercial cities, is at present almost a
sinecure, this objection can scarcely be regarded as
a serious one.
The unexpended surplus now in the labor mar-
ket is steadily increased by immigration, and the
fact is patent that our republican institutions are
menaced. The alarming outbreaks of socialistic
and communistic conspiracies unerringly show the
character of the material which is pouring into the
338 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
great industrial centers, and the evil annually in-
creases. Effective restriction of immigration is
imperatively demanded by American working-
men.
i THE VOICE OF LABOR. 339
CHAPTER XXIII.
THOUGHTS OF TO-DAY.
HON. JOHN SEITZ—-LABOR ENTITLED TO FIRST CONSID-
ERATION—OPINIONS OF R. F. ROWELL—HON. GEORGE
L. WELLINGTON—HON. JESSE HARPER — HON. 0. W.
BARNARD —H. E. BALDWIN—HON. ALF. TAYLOR—N.
M. LOVIN— ©. B. FENTON-—C. T. PARKER—REV. DR.
THOMAS — G. W. PHILLIPPO — O. J. SUTTON—wW. H.
ROBB—J. D. HARDY—-W. W. JONES—COM. MINERS
AND MINE LABORERS-—W. H. DAVIDSON—R. ©. MC-
BEATH—D. W. SMITH—N. B. STACK—-HON. WILLIAM
BAKER—JAMES MITCHELL—-HON. A. J. STREETOR—
THE notorious HAZARD CIRCULAR — a. a.
BEATON.
_ Wartr ‘issues” may change from time to time as
a result of changed conditions, the objects of gov-
ernment should ever be the same—to protect all
men and all classes of society in the enjoyment of
‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Give
all occupations equal legal opportunities for self-
support and self-improvement, and protect the weak
340 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
against the cunning of the unscrupulous, and the
rapacity of the strong.
‘‘With Lincoln, I believe that ‘ Labor being prior
to and the creator of capital, is entitled to the first
consideration.’ ‘That not the laborer only, but all
classes of society are interested in the elevation and
prosperity of the productive labor of the country.
The peace and safety of society and the stability of
good governmentdemand encouragement and respect
for honest industry. Hence a broad and wise
statesmanship will aim at the upbuilding of the la-
boring people so that every willing worker shall be
able to acquire a home of his own, the dearest spot
on earth, which he can improve and beautify with-
out fear of losing; where he can rear his little
ones like a true American freeman. Thus will con-
tented labor become the sheet anchor of law and
order at home, and the right arm of the state against
foreign foes.
‘sWith Daniel Webster, I believe that a concentra-
tion of the country’s wealth in few hands fastens
aristocracy upon us, no matter what the form of our
government. The colossal fortunes made in a few
years through corporate privileges should alarm ev-
ery lover of justice and republican government.
Natural resources, the machinery of production and
distribution, and the government itself have fallen
into the hands of organized greed. Hence pov-
erty and destitution in the midst of plenty, and the
blasphemous cry goes out, ‘ Over-production is the
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 341
cause.’ There can be no over-production till every
industrious person shall enjoy a comfortable share
ot the good things of life. The prime cause of
labor’s hardships may be found in the inadequate
and costly machinery for distributing the products
of labor. 7
_ «When congress shall resume its constitutional
power ‘to coin money and regulate its value,’ and
render it stable by supplying an ample and uniform
volume, and drive the ‘money changers from the
temple’ by making all money of equal legal tender;
when it operates telegraphs and railways at cost,
when it drives foreign and domestic landlords and
nabobs into the sea by a ‘graduated tax; when
these things are done, ‘labor strikes’ because of
‘hard times’ will be remembered only as an ugly
vision of the past. There are other questions, but
these be the main timbers in the new republic
which enlightened organized labor will secure in
the near future, by taking control of the government
the rightful prerogative of tho majority.”
JOHN SEITZ,
Union Labor Candidate for Governor of Ohio.
‘‘What is now needed is to abolish the necessity
for the unnatural use for money, by the abolition of
the debt and credit system.”
R. F. Rowen, L. A., 4616, K. or L.
842 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
‘Labor is the great force by which civilization has
been evolved from savagery and barbarism. Labor
is the power which has created wealth. Labor is the
giant which has sent the world forward and upward
in its course. All history gives proof of this. As
we look backward over the past and view the ruins
of the nations that have been and are no more, and
as we turn and look upon the grandeur, magnifi-
cence and wealth of the nations which are in exist-
ence now, and then ask the chronicler of the world’s
annals, ‘by what power and force came all this?’
the answer shall be, ‘by labor, the great creative
power which is God’s greatest attribute, and which,
when exercised by man,makes him akin to God.’
While this has been demonstrated among all nations,
its grandest exemplifications has been given in our
own land. Four centuries of time have backward
rolled since Columbus first saw the shores of the
‘New World.’ When its discovery was made known
the adventurous spirit of the European nations sent
men forth to search the Western hemisphere for
new houses and better fortunes. Almost a century
was consumed in gaining a foothold upon the soil
on the Northern portion of the continent. At last,
however, the indomitable spirit of the English,
French, German and Dutch settlers founded colon-
ies, which lived and prospered, and in an apparent:
ly unlimited wilderness.” —
Hon. Grorce L. WELLINGTON.
‘OdVaO0I0O NI DNININ
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THE VOICE OF LABOR. 345
“The object of the noble order of the Knights of
Labor is to educate a man to his own best interest,
and by-the association of ideas and proper compar-
ison of things and events, and by bringing famil-
iar subjects under debate, that it will-set a man
thinking for himself, and bring his latent faculties
into play, and in a very short time surprise him-
seli;”
A True Knyiaar,
« There are two great evils that are afflicting hu-
manity to-day as it has not been plagued in all the
ages bygone. One is afalse money system (and its
correlatives), a system which, in its operation, is a
crime against the right of man. The other is a le-
galized liquor traffic. These two giants in wicked-
ness, monsters in iniquity, are endangering, as it
never has been before, the Christian civilization of
the nineteenth century.
«The substitution of full legal tender paper mon-
ey, in volume sufficient for all purposes—is the
remedy so far as the money question is concerned.
“We have over one hundred and twenty-five thous-
and miles of railroad, costing about two thousand
million dollars.
“The monopolies of transportation have also a
land gift, munificent as an empire—as large as nine
states like Ohio.
«The telegraph, costing twenty million dollars, is
watered up to eighty million dollars.
346 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
Ninety bushels of wheat and one hundred and
sixty-five bushels of corn, per capita, to each wage-
worker; fifteen per cent above an average of pota-
toes, and eighteen per cent above an average hay
crop; the best wool crop in ten years, less sickness
than in any year for twenty—and at the end of it
two million workers out of employment and desti-
tute to a degree unprecedented in the past.
America! the egis of liberty: the beacon light of
hope. Land of the free church; land of the free
school; land of the free man. The divinely guided
Magi came from the East to worship in the man-
ger, the Omniarch of the world. His star moved
west until it bathed in the silver waters of the ocean
of setting sun. Then its burning corruscations
shone back upon the track where man had taken
his weary march, and the glory of that double shin-
ing made brighter than halo—America.
Hon. JEessz HARPER.
The ennobling pursuit of agriculture, forming as
it does the very basis of our national prosperity,
should have every fostering care thrown around it,
lying legitimately within the domain of legislation.
Toward the railroad and manufacturing corpora-
tions, as such, I have no feeling of hostility, but be-
lieve that the states, and national government, if
necessary, should place wholsome checks upon their
power, to the end, that the producing classes may
not be burdened and oppressed, and that the law
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 347
should be enforced against such corporations the
same as against individuals.
<<] believe we should maintain the dignity of la-
bor, by giving it its just reward, and inasmuch as
the wealth and capital of the world are the creatures
of labor, the latter should receive the higher con-
sideration at our hands, and the laborer be permit-
ted to enjoy fully the fruits of his labor.”
Hon. O. W. Barnarp.
‘¢ That labor demands is such legislation as_ will
conform strictly to the principles laid down in the
Declaration of Independence. Make it possible
for the industrially inclined to decently exist, edu- |
cate their children and reduce crime to a minimum.”
H. E. Baupwry.
‘Wealth and labor bear the same relation to each
other that exists between the mill-wheel and the
water in the dam; the stream in the boiler and the
engine, They are the complements of each other and
wealth has no right to treat labor with contempt.”
AuFRED Taytor, Ep. ALABAMA SENTINEL.
_ ‘Labor demands but one reform-——Emancipation.”
W. C. Owen, L, A., 8133, K. or L.
‘‘The bonded indebtedness of the nation, the na-
tional banking system, the convict labor, Chinese
and foreign pauper labor, transportation—both of
348 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
freight and news—and the great land question, are -
among the many questions now before the people.”
N. M. Lavin, M.W., L. A., 4001, K. or L.
‘One of the measures required is a change in oul
mode of taxation, to the end that the burdens be
taken off of labor, and that capital pay its just
share.”
O.;-B>Bantron, L.A. 1917, K.-on dy.
‘‘As long as there is one living being on the face
of the globe to be benefited through use or con-
sumption of natural or artificial products, resources,
or elements, there can be no over-production.”
C.-T, Parker, L A., 2514, K. ‘or L.
« The strikes cannot last long, and the radical
question of labor is yet to be settled. It will be
settled by the principles of right and justice. There
is no monopoly in truth and love.”
Rev. Dr. Tomas.
‘¢The stars and stripes will afford all the protect-
ion we may need, and is the only flag that should
be allowed on American soil. Under it let labor
assemble and march on to victory. There are hun-
dreds of thousands of people who are in sympathy
with legitimately organized labor, and if we will
keep radicals in the rear, our success will soon
be assured.. Everywhere organized labor, free
from red flags and radicals, makes a stand for their
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 3849
rights as against oppression and monopoly, wonder-
_ ful progress has been made.
“There is but one way to deal with men who march
through the streets of any city in this country
with any other than the American flag, that is to
shoot them on the spot. If the stars and stripes are
‘not good enough for them to march under, they are
not good enough to be tolerated in America.
‘Our fight is not fora class, but for all. The small
business man, the farmer, the mechanic and small
capitalist, is equally interested with us.”
Grorce W. Puriupro, 3
eA O45 9 oral:
“The only way for the great body of producers to
secure laws favorable to themselves, is to send their
own men to the law making bodies, who will not be
bound by party obligations that are antagonistic to
their interests.”
O. J. Surron, L. A:, 55381, K. or L.
‘As the wrongs of which the laboring man com-
plains have come through legislation, the remedy
must also come through legislation. Organization
is doing a great work in educating the working
classes in the principles of political economy.
‘¢Prison labor should not be brought in conflict
with free labor. The present system is a pernicious
one, because it brings the labor of our convicts in
competition with the honest artisan, and has a ten-
850 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
dency to lower his wages. In my opinion, the con-
victs should be placed at work on our roads under
the supervision of the state. And magnificent high-
ways, something after the manner of the celebrated
Appian Way, should be constructed by this labor.
In this manner the convict can be kept at work
without interfering with honest labor.”
W.-H Rope, G.-A., 9197, Ke orb:
‘‘Those who have been intrusted with the power
to enaet the laws, as well as those who have been
intrusted with the execution of these laws, have pan-
dered to the influence of money and power, instead
of the will of the people, until they have gone be-
yond the danger line. |
‘‘Arbitration is the best method for the adjustment
of all differences between capital and labor, or be-
tween individuals.” |
J.D. Harpy, L. A., 9806, K. or L.
‘‘Money performs precisely the same duty to a na-
tion that the blood does to the human body. To
have a healthy body there must be the necessary
amount of blood, and it must be good and must
circulate to the extremities of the body. If this be
not the case, the body cannot be in good health;
but if all of the blood flows to the head, apoplexy
and death ensue.”
W. W. Jonzs, L. A.,9189, K. or L.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 351
‘‘The history and experience of the past make it
apparent to every intelligent and thoughtful mind
that strikes and lockouts are false agencies and bru-
tal resorts for the adjustment of the disputes and
- controversies arising between employing capital and
employed labor. They have become evils of the
gravest magnitude, not only to those immediately
concerned in them but also to general society, be-
ing fruitful sources of public disturbances, riot, and
bloodshed. Sad illustrations of this truth are now
being witnessed in certain of our large cities, and
in several of the mining and manufacturing cen-
ters of the country. These industrial conflicts gen-
erally involve waste of capital on the one hand and
impoverishment of labor on the other. They endan- |
ger bitter feelings of prejudice and enmity, and en-
kindle the destructive passions of hate and revenge,
bearing in their train the curses of widespread mis-
ery and wretchedness, They are contrary to the true
spirit of American institutions, and violate every
principle of human justice and of Christian charity.
“Apart and in conflict capital and labor become
agents of evil, while united they create blessings of
plenty and prosperity, and enable a man to utilize
and enjoy the bounteous resources of nature intend-
ed for his use and happiness by the Almighty.
‘¢Capital represents the accumulated savings of
past labor, while ‘labor is the most sacred part of
capital.’ Each has its representative duties and ob-
ligations toward the other. Capital is entitled to
352 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
fair and just remuneration for its risks and its use,
and must have security and protection, while labor
on the other hand, is as fully and as justly entitled
to reward for its toil and its sacrifices. Each is en-
titled to its equitable share, and there is no law,
either human or divine, to justify the one impover-
ishing and crushing the other.”
ComMiITTEE oF Miners AND OPERATORS,
National Federation of Minersand Mine Laborers.
‘(Labor is the honorable thing anong men. There
is not a neatly graded lawn, a pretty garden ora
well trained tree that does not tell of it. It builds
magnificent cities, navies, bridges, rivers, lays the
railroad track, and drives tbe flying locomotive;
whenever a steamer plows the waves or a canal
bears the nation’s inland wealth; wherever the
corn, cotton or wheat fields wave and the mill
wheel turns, there labor is the conqueror and the >
king. The newspaper, wherever it spreads its
wings, bears the impress of toiling hands.
‘Should not the laborer be well housed? Should
he not have the best wife, and the prettiest chil-
dren in the world? Should not the man who _pro-
duces all we eat and clothes the nation be honest?
To us there is more true poetry about the laborer’s
life and lot than in any other condition under heav-
en. It matters not in what calling a man labors,
or toils, if he toils manfully, honestly and content-
edly. The little tin pail is a badge of nobility.”
Wiitram H. Davipson.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 353
‘¢The present monetary system of the United
States is a stupendous obstacle in the way of edu-
cational advancement; the most potent engine of
demoralization, and fruitful source of evil, now ex-
tant; doing more to destroy patriotism and venera-
tion. for law, than all other influences combined;
leading to peculation, speculation and extortion
upon the one hand, and degradation and _ brutaliza-
tion upon the other.”
R. C. McoBraru.
‘¢ As long as individuals are allowed to monopo-
lize the industries of this nation, so long the peo-
ple must live in poverty. They will render it’ im-
possible for the remainder of the people to prosper.
If the remainder of the people work harder and in-
crease more, the monopolists will increase their
demands.
‘«The monopolists have it in their power to regu-
late the amount the people may retain, and all they
will allow them to retain, whether they produce
much or little, will be just enough to live on and
keep producing, and under such circumstances it is
idle for the people to think of bettering their con-
dition. We must legislate monopolists out of exist-
ence as we have legislated them into existence.”
D. W. Smrra, L. A., 3215, K. or L.
‘«‘The tramp, convict, anarchist and such charac-
ters are legitimate productions of society. If we
would eliminate them, we must first purge society
354 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
of these abnormal conditions giving birth to them,
by adopting what the doctors call a constitutional
treatment; purifying the blood and whole system,
for these characters have had little to do with their
own formation. When we locate the cause of these
abnormal productions, we find it to be what the
phrenologist calls acquisitiveness, or the love of
property, abnormally developed.”
J.J. Woopatt, AGRICULTURAL WHEEL.
«If the laboring masses would conform strictly
to the preamble and declaration of principles of the
Knights of Labor, and use every effort to have them
carried out to the letter, their God given rights
would be restored to a suffering people. with the
grandest government on earth to protect them.”
N. B. Sracg, L: A., 5009. K. or L.
‘‘The eight-hour law should not be overlooked.
The nation, by enactment, says it’s right. Why do
‘not states follow the decree? Men are not slaves,
vassals, or menials, crouching under a kingly pow-
er, but freeman who dare assert their rights. This
world’s a stage and we its actors, and in its daily
battle, eight hours for rest, eight hours for work,
and eight hours for recreation and improvement.”
Hon. Winiiam Baker.
‘Organization, agitation, co-operation and edu-
cation are the four mighty auxiliaries for raising the
THE VOICE OF LABOR. - 355 .
moral, mental and material status of the ene
millions.”
JAMES MITCHELL,
Ed. Fort Wayne Dispatch.
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Oranges hanging on its boughs.
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 397
ship to act upon the important truth, that no great
undertaking and reform like the Alliance movement
ean be successful without a clear understanding of
its principles, purposes and plans, and an earnest
and intelligent devotion to the cause; that harmony
of feeling and action, coupled with a persistent ef-
fort, based upon the great central thought or funda-
mental idea, that in things essential there should be
unity, and in all things charity and brotherly kind-
ness to one another, and good will to all mankind,
are necessary to insure strength, influence and final
triumph to our cause; that the evils of which we
complain andthe condition we would improve are
the growth of many years, aided largely by class
legislation, and that it will require bold efforts and
long and continuous struggles to change and better
them; thatit must be accomplished largely through
a change of public sentiment produced by agitation,
that will arouse and enlighten the masses; and that
we shall constantly strive to suppress personal, lo-
cal, sectional and national prejudices: all unhealth-
ful rivalry and all selfish ambition, and teach that,
as citizens of one government, we should feel a
common interest in its affairs; and that our patriot-
ism and good will for one another should not be
measured by sections or geographical lines, to suit
the purposes of politicians.
By our frequent meetings we confidently believe
we shall be able to break up the isolated habits of
farmers,improve their social condition, increase their
398 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
social pleasures, and strengthen their confidence in
and friendships for each other. ~ ‘
We propose to make the study and improvement |
of practical agriculture in all its branches a part of
the mission of the Alliance, that its standard may
be elevated, its profits increased, and its followers
made more prosperous and contented.
We shall encourage more diversity of farming;
the production of less cotton, and more grain and
meat; selling less raw material, and more in manu-
factured articles.
In our meetings and through our press we shall
discuss and examine into the best and most approv-
ed methods of farming; the preparation of the soil;
planting, cultivation, harvesting, handling and mar-
‘keting of crops, farm and agricultural products gen-
erally. Also the raising of stock, dairying, fruit-
growing, gardening; and, in short, every branch of
agriculture that goes to make up a full line of farm-
ing, and render it pleasant and profitable.
Through our Alliance, we shall endeavor to fur-
nish facilities for, and shall encourage the study of
the laws of business and trade, the best methods
for buying and selling, and the transaction of all
kinds of business it moy be found desirable for
farmers and laborers t ‘ugage in; and under all
circumstances we shali iscourage the credit
system.
We propose to attend to our own business affairs
in our own way, and make no fight against any le
Ss Cone le
THE VOICE OF LABOR. 399
gitimate business; but we shall oppose methods
found to be contrary to justice and equity.
Believing that-a strict observance and practice of |
these teachings, principles and purposes will insure
our success, we submit our cause to a fair and im-
partial public, invoking the blessing of Heaven
upon our undertaking. |
WOMEN OF THE ALLIANCE.
The grand secret of unprecedented success of the
Farmers’ Alliance has been the subject of much
comment, and finally it has been conceded that one
of the most efficient and prime factors in building
up this institution is the admission of women to
full membership, making them eligible to fill any
office in connection with the Alliance. And why
should it not be so? When God placed man in his
Eden, he saw it was not good for man to be alone,
and the first man’s happiness was incomplete until
woman was admitted as a member of that first
family circle, and since then she has ever held her _
place in the most responsible relations in life. Could
man expect to prosper in any kind of enterprise,
society or Alliance who would advocate the exclu-
sion of the wife of his bosom, and the mother of
his children,from any association or Alliance which
has for its object the happiness, prosperity and gen-
eral good of our common humanity founded upon
right and proper principles?
++ is an evidence of semi-barbarism, or a low
400 THE VOICE OF LABOR.
state of civilization that does not accord to woman
her right, in placing her on an equal with man.
Many, and most of the correct and honorable, as
well as the most successful business transactions a
man ever engaged in are those in which he has been |
guided by the advice of his wife. And with woman
as an ally, what wonder if prosperity and. success
unprecedented has attended the Farmers’ Alli:
ance.
That voice which first fell in bird-like melody
upon the ear of man, sounds equally as sweet when
raised in denouncing the evils of monopoly and op-
pression. The refining and purifying influences re
ceived from the society of pure and noble woman-
hood are more potent for good than the pulpit or
the press. The gentle hand that soothes by its
magic touch the fevered brow of stricken humanity
can wield the pen mightier than the sword. For
the ‘‘hand that rocks the cradle sways the world.”
United effort and hearty co-operation now is all
* that is necessary for the Farmers’ Alliance in order
that her banner may proudly wave till the victor’s
wreath shall crown their noble and united efforts;
till from the ranks of intelligent toilers in agri-
cultural pursuits shall come noble men to take their
place in the senate-chamber and legislative halls of
Congress and raise their voice against oppression
and injustice. . |
We urge our brethren ol the Alliance to united
and untiring efforts, regardless of any form of
ek n Pane 4
ae upon our” Ras Bo enne
A
oe
ee
ternal vigilance i is 3 the ees of liberty. uv
JAGARA FALLS PANORAMA
“en PHILIPPOTE AUX’ MASTERPIECE.
- Just come from London, and visited by Queen Victoria, Prince
and Princess of Wales, Prince Albert Victor, King and Queen of
— Sweden, and all the crowned heads and nobility of Europe, and
_ by nearly 3,000,000 people.
EVERYBODY IN CHICAGO SHOULD SEE IT,
“The First and Greatest Attraction of the World’s Fair,
SE. COR. WABASH AV. AND HUBBARD CT.
Y)pen Daily and Sundays 10 a.M,to10P.™M.