Randolph County journal. [volume] (Winchester, Randolph County, Ind.) 1855-1862, 1858-02-04

anu oIOiiP'hod'iVhs uiu not Keep pace
in some of the most needful and hon.
orable pursuits, did not rise at all
The balance is easily struck: valuables
/ going up all the while, pay remaining
stationary, or nearly so, the middle.
classes were all the while growing poor
and the poor poorer. Wealth was re-
ceding from the millions,-even the
meager wealth which priests, and party
leaders, and prisons. had quite success
fully schooled them into being salts.
fed with. Whittier was the money
flowing? Into the hands of usurers,
and of the spectators who step be-
tween the producer and consumer, buy
not to distribute, but to keep out OF
the market, and rob behind and before
them alike.
The great benefit of the present
crisis is, that it has, in a good degree,
torn away the bubble on which infia-
ted prices were riding, and brought
commodities to something near a rea-
sonable standard again. In so doing,
it has tripped the spectators. How
long they are to remain down, we
know not; but, in the name of hu-
manity, why not to eternity? One is
beset with opportunities to abandon
his faith in freedom, in equality, in
man, when vampires are allowed to
darken all the air between him and
Gods sun. Proudhon has been chas-
tised with all the gravity of insulted
justice for that remarkable expression,
"Property is roJbery;," deservedly so,
perhaps, for the instinct of property is
essential to complete humanity; but
so are the instincts Of Jenerolence and
justice. 1t is certain, then, Mot ueolM,
in the modern acceptation of the term,
IS cruelty. In the plain-spoken Greek
the same word signifies to acquire
property" and to "stcal." No be-
nevolent and conscientious man would
consent to absorb the sunlight, and let
his fellows perish for lack of it.
What shall we say of them who, with
out misgiving or remorse, absorb from
thousands of their fellows the bright
est of the rays that 90 to make up the
sunlight of the soul? Miss Flora
McFlimsy" peramulates Broadway
with years support of four families
strung about her person! She goes
home to feast her low pride in gazing
on a parlor whose appurtenances rep
resent years living of twice or thrice
as many more. Even this would not
be so bad, did she not all the while
knoso that those dozen or more of fam
lilies are suffering a destitution of act
ual needs of body and soul, that she
may crafty set of requirements quite
Fictitious and unnecessary. If this is
the summing up of Miss Flora's rela-
tions to the great family of which she
is but an equal unit, what shall we say
of Miss Flora's brother-father-mo-
ther? Do they redeem the character
of their house drawn by the gentle
damsel who should be the light of all
eyes within it-ay and of all without
it? Said we not rightly, using the
word in its received sense, that uealM
IS cruelty9 Wherein is an Austrian
Haynau more cruel than fashionable
woman? We shall have to make
large deductions from the accredited
kindliness of heart of the sex at large,
and of both sexes alike, till brown
stone fronts approach nearer to and
assimilatc at half way with the cabins
of the honest poor.
That the poor are improvident, nay
even vicious, is no excuse for the
course of those who absorb the profits
of their toll. Have the latter no weak
ness-no foiblcs-no .faur pas? Only
too many; but with vastly better
opportunity of concealing them. The
, real question is not at all who is weak
or wicked, or foolish, or prohgate;-
| for in all classes too many are so
The question is, do weakness, folly
and prohigacy combined, in the labor
ing classes, confer on employers, al
though it is granted they have power
: any right to fix prices-paid and re
ceived-and the system Of exchange
in such way that capital shall accu
mulate in some hands faster thar
actual labor bestowed demands, an'
hence be drained from other hand
e beyond wh1 actual labor deserves
i. The answer can only be, No; and s.
r our commercial system stands con
s demned. Force and fraud do not con
= fer rights; yet these are as absolutel
! the reliance of the fortunate few to
S day, as they were in barbarian or feu
D dial ages. Only for the bloody han
and the hand of brainless retainers
: substitute false system and the facil
: cobwebs of law, and the picture re
mains essentially unchanged.
d For this state of affairs, we douf
y not, time has remedies in store; br
e they come slowly. One good ha
V been attained in the recent panic
: Prices have fallen nearer to actu;
II values. This has made the poor ma
= and every man who has works f
t. stipulated pay, by so much, pecun
e arily, richer than he was year sine
1t His meager salary will cover more
e. the good things of life, more of Il
ar elements of wealth now than befor
he If he would keep this, what must
v, done? He must put bounds to tho
lr gas-works that initiate society till 81
a no longer knows herself, only tn
rs some may profit, first, by her delusio
;" secondly, by her collapse. He mu
1? see to it that his country has, befo
H. long, a regulated, uniform, nation
d. currency, not susceptible of tinkerin
Sc bona ride medium of exchange, al
L. not, as now, primarily medium
OF speculation. But late, when ft
he hundreds of foolish men gathered
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