Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1868-02-07
What Injustice Costs.

The standing armies of Europe number
2,S00,00 men, and they may be increased,
in the event of war, to 100000.
The annual cost of this vast army is
$400,000,000 per annum.
The maritime States of Europe hold
100000 men in their navies, besides very
large number employed in their ship yards
and docks.
The cost of these great naval establish
ments is not less than $160,00O,0O0 per
annum, though the exact figure is matter
Of dispute.
The value of the labor deducted, in the
persons of these soldiers, from the pro-
ductlve industry of the countries by
which these armies and navies are sup
ported is, at the moderate estimate of rs
cents day for the wages of healthy,
able-bodied young man, S76S,222 per diem.
or $237,813,264 per annum. srrrr--
The decentralization and pauperism con-
seQuent upon withdrawing these great
hosts of men from their appropriate places
in society and the family, may safely be
set down at $100,OO0,000 year.
To pay the royalty and aristocracy
which these armies uphold requires not
less than $150,000,000 more.
So the entire cost to the European peo-
pie of the injustice upon which their insti-
buttons are based is not less than
$1,000, 00O000-one thousand millions of
dollars per annum. -~
And every succeeding year sees the
armies growing larger and taxation more
and more oppressive. g
The only known or sufficient purpose
of these immense levies and this enormous
annul outlay, is that the large majority of
the men in those European communities
may be compelled to work for other men,
the minority, without pay or for INSULT
cient pay; and these armies are marshalled
and these taxes are collected that order
may be preserved, that is, that this work
without pay, or for only half pay, may be
still the rule.
To make men work without pay is the
kernel or essence of despotism. 1t is the
chief end of every State Church, of every
kingly throne, of every aristocratic insti-
tuition, and of every law, rule and regula-
ton that has not its foundations in natural
and universal justice between man and
man. .. ... .- .......- ,r .H.
The devices of despotism are so many
and so ingenious that men who are sub
ject to its rule may lead q life of pow
erty and toll, and never discover the
cause of taeir rulers prosperity or their
own woe.
A bad law is more potent for the pur-
poses of robbery than the presence of an
army.
Bad, because unjust and unequal, law has
done its work in Europe; aud we have
enumerated part Of the pecuniary re-
Suits But no human pen can describe all
the dreadful effects, social, moral, religious
and political, that accrue to the European
people from the continued injustice which
they suffer-. l-ssr -s rw
Among the European laboring people,
hereditary poverty, incessant toll, and
almost hopeless ignorance are the rule
competence, ease and enlightenment are
the exceptions.
The people earn and the kings, the
priests, the aristocrats, and the well born
enjoy. .--,- --- ..-.-. r-v-v .-.
We of this country are engaged in re-
modelling our institutions. Slavery-the
embodiment Of all misgovernment, as 1t Is
the sum OF all the villainies--is wiped
| out. Heavens wrath, manifest in man,
has overtaken it. -r lT
But to rake together its ashes and, by
watering them with the tears of ruined
slavehoiders, and mixing them with the
decaying matter of denominations, to make
them the planting ground Of other forms
of oppression, is the present eff.rt Of a
large minority of our people.
They want modification of what is the
rule in Europe-a system which includes
the mass of the Southern people without
| any ights-creatures outside of the law
ruled over by favored class, who, by
ingenious laws, will grab the larger part Of
what the poor earn.
-Four millions Of our countrynien are in
danger of being given up to this European
plan and behind that plan stand, at pres
ent in the shade, the denominations of mis-
government, which has made Europe a
hell to the poor.
Shall we learn that the great national
| safeguard is not in standing armies, not in
king craft nor priest-craft, nor the craft of
the aristocrat, but in organizing Justice
into Law?
God has ordained that his Justice shall
| not be dsregarded with impunity. Just
so sure as we build withoutit as the founda-
ton stone, our edifice will fall in ruins to
the ground Chicago Egening Post.
"A passenger on the Kansas City and
Cameron railroad, who had never jour
| neyed behind q locomotive before, got off
the following burst Of admiration. The
conductor came for his fare, when he
\ handed over a V. ard refused to receive