The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1866-05-26

no mesns disposed 10 condemn, when moth.
ing else can be done, bat that consider tls
most dsky and improbable thing mar
can do.
And here 10 che first and To NV mind The
worst way in which eap;lal tyrannises over
labor, especially In our greet cities. II
turps Itself into houses. In which il often
cnmpels the laborer 70 kennel, sometimes
TO rat generally 70 suffer, always TO be
skinned worse than the most merciless en-
pioyer ever herd Of burst think of trying
to skin him sucking away like q vampire,
for the sake OF aDothm thousand or two OF
twenty 70 leave ut HE death, or to spend in
foolery while he lives, the very life of the
hard handed and hard working mechanic
or laborer. do wish every workingmar
in this city, who lives It rented house,
wo1ld sit down, take slate, and If he
cannot do the snm himself get his boy who
gees to the public school TO do it for him,
TO find out exactly what the house in which
be lives cost bis landlord; then what il costs
him, first in rent, second in doctors bills
and loss Of work, third In stiHulents, such as
are always consumed in vastly greater guam
titles whenever you are compelled to breathe
bad air than when you live in sweet and
wholesome way, and SO al last come TO on
exact understanding, as TO how far the hand
Of the landlord dips into the weeks wages.
believe, most sincerely, that If the cork
ingmen OF Chicago would once realize what
a terrible tyranny capital exercises over
labour in this one thing, it would create a
revolution in year that would compel
landlords to build fair, sweet, well c0ntriyed
dwellings, or tc loose the most Of their in :
Yestments. But il is the workingmen who
must do it the power that is 10 meet this
heavy and bitter inhiction will never come
from capital except as you make that CAPT
tai for yourselves, and you can make it,.
The workingmen, who form this Trades
Union can be the pioneers that shall lead on
great movement to emanclpate their more
helpless fellows by first emancipating them
selves. Let them work steadily for the
very best wages, their strength and skill can
command. then let them make sure of q
surplus of their earnings over their spend
ings. Then let twenty or fftv mite to erect
a structure in which they eau be, each fami-
", as perfectly secluded as they please, and
they will find that with the money II would
take to build twenty or Fifty separate dwell
ings awav out Of town, they can secure q
home very near their work, with every i'm
provement that science can suggest. 1ney
can break up this balefal monopoly il they
will, and thew can begin at once 70 DO u.
Now ], for one, do not like this eternal DIN
about what should be done for the working
man. When | was a workingman myself |
did not like it, did not believe in it, and
did not believe in the people who were al
ways insisting on taking care OF his con-
Germs. believe tia: the workingman can
and ought to, and where he is the man be
ought to be, will take care Of himself. 4
imagine that God Almighty made his hand
skilful, his eye true, his head clear and his
heart loving. that he might do this. be-
lieve with Burns that ::
ITO make Q happy freside chime
10 Aeans and wife"
That's the true pathos and sublime Of hui
man life; and that the man who has weans
and wife and does not try to do il has very
little indeed of human about him. There
are very few workingmen who do not hold
the first remedy in their own hands In this
conflict between labour and capital and II
each member of the Trades Union will not
only try to keep himself, but to help another,
too, will be two instead of one man
power to get this great wrong righted OF
frightful rents, for frightful tenements, BY
owning their own ZONES, and so defying the
tyrants, the workingmen in this city would
be set on their feet il one OF tine most inn
portant Thugs with which they can have any
thing to do. But then, this again is only
of second Importance, if indeed 1t be second,
to that that you shall unite wherever and
whenever 1t is possible, in such way as 70
be your own employers, your own store
keepers anu to do whatever others do Tor
you ', ana by which they make their for
tunes. | was very greatly interested in my
visit to England last summer to find what
great strides the workingmen there had tax
en- there in the fifteen years since | left there
towards the most important and Independent
position. can well remember the day In
England when the workingman was almost
completely at the mercy of what is there
termed, and without any exaggeration-the
master. | can remember when once my
father lost bis work how appalled, we were
with fear that he would not find work soon
again, and that the mother and children
must suffer for want. 1t is not so any long
er. The grand openings presented BY this
country and Australia, has taken away the
surplus population of my mother country,
and yet the employer is still called the mas
ter, and is the master in far greater degree
than il good either for him or his workmen,
But this is what find some Englishmen
have done, and that l commend to your
most earnest attention as the second bull
work of labour against capital. They have
become their own employers, capitalists,
in their own right, have made it impossible
for any body but themselves to give them
the sack, and have demonstrated that some
men can do some things as well as others.
| know o. one instance especially. Some
time before Ileft my native country, Aum.
Der of mechanics in one OF the suburbs Of
Leeds, feeling that they did not get the
worth Of their WORK in their wages, and be-
ing little forelanded, rented an old shop,
went in together, pat all they had in with
their labour and skill, determined to see
what would come of it. What did come OF
it 1t wes marvellous and most perfect
success. Every man Of them feeling that
what he was doing must not merely be done
good enough to pass the eye OF the foreman
but to pass the eye of bis own conscience
and SELF interest, and save what he had put
into the conc N and bring out his living,
put his whole manhood into his work, made
himself all he could be shove Que man
power. The consequence was that the work
was 80 excellent ~ to grow into very great
and as the enterprise was started
under some sort of curious agreement that
the surviving partners should buy up the
interest Of those that died. The men that
are now left are immensely wealthy, and the
concern is one Of the most notable in the
town.