New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-06-22
THE SOUL or THE COMMUNE

survives. That Commune was q local ouJpiedh
or manifestation of an extensively cherished
msconceptiOn. Had it triumphed in France,
the Paris instruction would have been widely
if not generally initiated. Its ruling impulse
was a sedulously inculcated and extensively
cherished conviction that Hired Labor is not
adequately recOmpensed-t the sellers OF
Labor are not fairly dealt with by its buyers.
Hence the sympathy evinced for the Paris
madmen in Lcndon and other capitals. That
their means were ill-chosen is (since their
falure) generally confessed still, thousands
sympathize with their avowed ends. They
meant, it is believed, to redress the wrongs
of the Oppressed-to reverse the misjudg-
ments Of fortune-to take from the rich their
superhuity in order to tighten the burdens of
misery. Hence the widespread compassion
for their suneyings and their fate.
In orr Judgment, the fundamental assump-
ton of the Commune was an error. We be-
lieve that those who work for wages are as
fairly and fully recOmpensed as those who
work for themselves, or (more accurately sell
the exchangeable products of their labor rather
than the labor itself. According to our OBJ
servation, those who work for wages obtain,
in the average, IA liberal compensation as
those who grow food, or make shoes, or catch
fish, with no "bOss" to fix their wages and
exact profit on their products. Doubtless,
he whose father left him 100000, $4,000, or
even 81 900, can earn more by the help of his
capital, than his cOmpeer who did not inherit
one red cent but this is not i'll point. If the
Commune had proclaimed IN equal division or
common ownership of all property, that would
have been quite another affair In combining
it's crusade against Property to landlords and
owners of workshops, it betrayed cowardice or
lack of faith in its guiding principle.
We have many in this country who insist
that Hired Labor is inadequately paid; but
they act as though they did not believe one
word of it, since they cling to the status OF
those they proclaim so exceptionally NAL
treated. There is not conceivable reason
why men who make shoes QOr instance)
should make them for "bosses" rather than
for those who wear them, except the very sat
isfactory consideration that the "bOsses" pay
them more than they can obtain by working
directly for the shoe-wearing public Half the
working shoemakers in this country might
tomorrow combine to employ and direct their
own labor if they only would. They individ-
ually possess all the capital they would jointly
need; they need only put it together, just as
the stockholders in a bank, railroad, or insur-
ance company do, make shoes Herewith direct
for customers, and thus intercept and divide
the profits now conceded to employers and
dealers Why don't theyi They have the
means lying in the savings banks to their
credit respectively; they are not as class too
idiotic to direct their own labor nor too rascally
to be trusted with the custody and management
of their own means. They have no possible
motive for persisting in jOurneywork, save the
very practical one that they believe they can
thus make more than by working for them
selves.
Herein, we hold them in error. If we re-
garded merely the sum of their wages or
earnings we might agree that they can do no
better than as journeymen; but there are even
higher considerations than that of wages. We
are confident that the shOemakers, ceasing to
be iourneymen and working instead for them
selves, would inevitably be trained to fore
cast, frugality, sobrety and thrift, now foreign
TO the thoughts and lives of most of them.
They might or might not earn more, but they
would surely sape more in the average than
they now do, and would thus be gradually
transformed into better husbands and fathers
and better citizens.
The demagogues of this as of other lands
fish for party capital in the muddy pool OF
Social Anarchy. They play upon the Ignorance
and prejudices of workers for wages, with no
desire that they should become directors of
their own labor, but in the hope of binding
their Judgment and so securing their votes.
Thus The World, always hostile to Co
operation, continually harps upon the cOndi-
tons of Factory Labor in New-England-
its long hours, excessive fatigue, mea-
ger recOmpense, &C., &c. Yet nearly every
one of these oppressed victims chose to
leave the farms whereon they were born, many
of which they might ere this have owned as
well as worked, in order to betake themselves
to this factory life. which their elder brothers
and sisters had tried before them. They are
in the factories to-day because they prefer the
work and wages there prOffeTed them to those
they left behind them. Not one Yankee girl
in twenty will do homework, or anything
equivalent, so long as she can obtain factory
work at factory wages. The hours of factory
labor may be too long; but she finds those of
the household no shorter. and she chooses to
work where each days work has a prescribed
and definite end. If she thus proves herself
blind or besotted, what are you going to do
about it 7
POLICY CLIMBING.
Superintendent KelsO's successive raids on
the understanding of our City have thus far