The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1869-03-27

EtEt&&H - a@a&&N%ft@ @4ta F<r<@
srnnent and people. such %
k~<ors kaown since creation,
y disEual cries OF poyerty-stricken
labor, shivering with cold and hunger, comes
up from every part Of the lands just think
Of II, acknowledges, there dre ten men
in the city Of New York, whose combined
wealth il over three hundred millions Of dol
lara, and In the same city there are over one
hundred thousand workingmen and women,
whose daily wages do not bring them the
commonest necessaries Of life, and during
last winter, many honest, industrious work
ingmen and women were compelled to sp-
ply for public or private charity to keep
themselves and their loved ones from star
vation, and many died from want q proper
iood, clothes and shelter. While these ten
men were worth millions, there were nearly
6s, 600 psupers supported by the city Of New
York, during the year 1857, and q much lar
GER number during 1868. Let it be remeu-
bered that large proportion = these poor
people, called "paupers" by newspapers and
officials, are honest wJrkipgmen and women,
the profits Of whose toll goes to make up the
fortunes 1.-The millions-of the few whose
costly equipages jostle the starving mechan-
10 in the same street.
No where in the world is so high rate Of
interest maintained; no where 10 the world is
labor more completely under the control OF
the money power, and no where in the world
is all wealth 50 surely ard so rapidly concen-
trating in the hands of the few, as 10 the Uni
| ted States.
/ IL is q first principle that no man can be-
come rich without making another one poor,
and that all accrmulations Of great fortunes
necessarily produce poverty somewhere.
I The course is plain. IL is not in the power
Of man to produce a sum Of labor so i'm
mence as to make every one rich. but be
does produce enough to make all comforta-
bic. II some, therefore, acquire large for
tunes from the pile produced by labor, il
must leave others without any. To make
this still palmer, We will suppose there 10
one hundred men whose combined, or ag-
gregate production is 100000; an equal
I division would give to each one 81 600. II
I one of these men got one dollar more than
bis share, ninety-nine would get less. Bot
suppose ten Of them got s., 900 each, then
there would be but $55555 a piece for the
other ninety; but if twenty of the ninety
take s. 500 each, then seventy would be left
without any. A truth so plain requires no
further denomination.
Wealth, seated in the midst Of her golden
paradise, often sends her artendent-false
\ benevolence-among the wretched, who are
furnishing from hunger and cold, to exhort
then to economy and temperance, or alarm
Cd oY their cries of anguish and suffering,
she gathers the poor into alms-houses, and
eases her conscience by feeding them upon
ofals, and selling their dead bodies to the
( disseeting rooms 70 defray portion Of the
/ expense. The most pernicious CT sracter In
society is the miser-the accumulator-the
man who will gather up the products o. la
Dor beyond bis needs-the man who steals
from honest toll and leaves the toiler to
starve. He il one Of the moral extremes that
meet on the verge Of misery, worthlessness,
and mon production. The accumulation is q
tyrant, whose every step inhicts anguish,
brushes the heart, or stays his victim.