The state rights democrat. [volume] (Albany, Linn County, Oregon) 1865-1900, 1866-02-03
THE FRIENDS OF THE WORK
ING NAN

Everybody is aware that there are no
of the laboring classes outside of
New England, save they be of Puritan
stock. Massachusetts, declares this to be
and who shall dare to question or deny
anything which Massachusetts, says? 1t
is treason to do so. The fact being estab-
then, that the New England fac
tory lords are the only real friends of the
laboring man, suppose We glance at the
condition they impose upon their
own poor operatives. A late Boston
Journal QoyaD says:
The hours of labor in the mills of Woon-
socket, r. l., have been reduced to eleven,
and the operatives are much rejoiced at the
change. Heretofore they have labored if
teen hours per day.
The same paper also gives the follow.
ing:
The operatives at the Wamsutta Mills, to
the nr1lDer of several hundred, struck Tues
day noon for a reduction of their time of
labor from twelve to eleven hours.
1t requires but a moments thought to
appreciate how perfectly the /" working
mans friends" these lordly factory own
ers must be. We all know they are the
men who have for years contributed with
lavish hand to break up that system of
negro labor in the South, under which
the slaves were obliged to work almost
eight hours per day on plantations, or, at
the excess, in harvesting, picking or
planting seasons, twelve hours per day, at
generally healthful, strengthening labor.
These negroes were well-fed, comfortably
clad, and abundantly provided for in
every needful manner. They were given
occasional days of rest and recreation,
and invariably permitted to enjoy the
holiday season of year. They were
furnished with spending money or the
means of earning it. They were con
tented, cheerful, often joyous, for they
were not obliged to have a care for them
selves, in the matter of food and clothes
and a roof to shelter them. On the other
hand, the poor operative in a New Eng
land factory must work from eleven to
fifteen hours per day within close, heated
walls, at an unhealthy employment, for a
mere pittance, upon which he can barely
provide home and food and clothes from
month to month To continue in this
employment, he must vote any ticket his
employer dictates, he must attend the
Church he is directed to, and must be not
only a slave bodily but mentally also to
his hard, implying master. And his
children are consigned to the same miser-
able lot. Little girls and boys of from
nine to fourteen or fifteen years have to
labor through the same long round Of
daily labor, for barely enough to miserably
clothe and scantily feed them. But they
ought to be happy-they are the employ
ices of the /" Friends of the Working
Classes"
What blindness it is in people to OBJ.
serve these things and not profit thereby.
The real purpose of the factory lords Of
New England and of her political fanatics
is, to subjugate the working classes en-
tireiy to their control. Their sympathy
for the negro is but aruse to enable them
the better to effect their designs against
the white laborers. Now that they have
forced a killing freedom upon the negroes
! of the South, they do not exert their In
fuence to give the poor wretches home:
or employment among themselves, nor tt
benefit them in any way. No, they seel
instead to make the negro public paupei
, to be supported by the States outside o
New England, until they can place
5 ballot in his hand, which they Intend
5 shall be voted exactly as are the ballot
, placed in the hands of their own Whit
operative paupers-as they direct afte
which they will continue to make tn
miserable black their instrument ant
e creature, or leave him to perish-as the,
$ have left the descendants of the Indian
whom their fathers FIRST robbed and the
} made war upon-from vile disease, run
t and restitution. But all the while the,
are subjugating to their viii and profit
; and crushing out the spirit of the labor
: ing whites. Not only those who labor i
a their factories are oppressed and NOR
and more impoverished, but also thos
who live from hand to mouth by thei
daily labor in other States; for, by mean
: of the tariff, which New England Con
= gressmen shape to afford a monopoly
New England manufactures, the poor ar
y compelled to pay the bulk of their scant
earnings for the meagre supply of tn
coarse fabrics which they must wear, an
have but a trife left to purchase necessar
, : food, to pay rent, &C. Thus. the Friend
of the Working Glasses" in favored
! loyal New England, who work their fac
tory hands at only fifteen hours bar
labor daily for a pittance, virtually b.
friend the working classes of all the othe
lie States in equal name Who viii que:
lion their philanthropy, their generosit,
or their loyalty?
THE WooLLEN TRADE.-The two larp
. woollen factories in San Francisco employ a
aggregate of 600 hands, and the machiner
is Of the latest and completest style in boil
" Yet, so great is the demand for wooller
g that the LARGE nnantitias shinned frnm arano