Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1869-07-06
BABYLON is FALLING.

weaver in a Lowell cotton mill writes
letter to the American Workman newspaper,
from which we extract the following para
graph:
How shall we "escape from this body of
death ?" All the mill-owrers are combined
together: whose is discharged by one OF them
is discharged by all, if it be for any OF these
aforesaid crimes or debts. They have houses,
and lands, and much goods; we are naked,
and poor and have not where to lay our head
Our condition is not likely to grow better
Great numbers of skilled English operatives
are on their way to compete with US Tor bread.
The capitalists are bringing ingenious me.
chanics from the ends of the earth, to still
further lengthen our hours or reduce our Fay.
Mills are starting in the Western aud South
ern States, to take advantage Of the homeless
labor in those sections, and 3till further en-
chain US. In this helpless condition in which
we find ourselves, by no fault of ours, We ap-
peal to you, friends of the laborer, las you
have shown yourselves to beg IL come to our
aid We ask the readers of the American
Workman candidly to consider our situation,
and if they can do no more, instruct our law
makers to make ten hours, and no more, a
legal days work, and see that our children
are taught as the law directs, and protected
from needless danger in the mill, work.
The New York Democrat, makes the above
extract subject of comment, and says: We
thank God that the sap is wasting out OF New
England aud there comes daily evidence that
Puritanica Babylon is falling. Twenty years
from now New England will lie rusty and
powerless at the feet of the West, and her
name will be accursed Of the entire nation
She destroyed that market for her wares
which gave labor and profits to her workmen.
The ones who employed New England work
men to n great extent, now live on Govern
ment securities, while the wOrkmen may
starve.
We have had enough of New England
The nation feels it. The workingmen there
who would SO pcrsistently vote blindly against
the interests of tomorrow to benefit to-day,
have bitter cud to chew. The South aud
West will soon do their own manufacturing,
and then the New England people may eat
rust from their machinery, onions from their
patches or move away aud wait their turn.
The unsettling national affairs will not help
New England. She was better off than any
other portion of the country before the war
she was we'll, wanted to be better, took her
own physic, and may now die,
Westward lines the footsteps of generations
coming. The young men of the West will,
in tme tie New England hand and foot for
the South to scourge. The water-powers of
the West and South will TEEN with enter
prise and hum with echoes Of whrrihg
chinery in less than twenty years, and home
labor will be protected.
The locking up the wealth of the nation
where taxation cannot get at it, makes money
worth more than ever before, and labor less.
The blacks of the South will fade before Chi.
nese laborsrs, and the avenues now open to
educated and honorable labor will be closed
in a great measure.
The time was when New England working
men might have aycrted the evils they now
must meet and We wait to see if they will
Join other workingmen for mutual protection
or give up like cringing slaves.