The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1871-04-25
Gpsniila State Sol.rnal
LABOR VS.. CAPITAL.


safety eternally hold the other like wolf
by the throat. They are in fact friends,
between whom there should be good un-
derstanding, and not enmity. They have,
however, been unnaturally arrayed against
each other, and put upon the footing at
best of armed neutrality if not of open
hostility. The cupidity which controls
capital starves, pinches and robs remorse-
lessly to make the rich richer and the poor
poorer while dull, listless and british
inertia, too lazy to work, bids labor scowl
and growl only at the hard lot which we'll
directed energy and healthy activity might
easily relieve of its hardness.
Simply scowling and growing, year
after year, is as fatal as the sudden raid
which burns, devastates and destroys; for
scowling and growing, in nine times out
of ten, brings bad temper, poverty,
squallid home, slovenly wife, ragged
children, and a drunken husband. Men
are not all bad-to regard them SO is as false
in theory as it is infamous in practice, but
all men are in fact liable to become bad,
brutal and savage, and it takes a mountain
of virtue, power Of will to be honest when
drunkenness, poverty and squallor at home
push man on to vice, and it is miracle
if such one does not finally come to steal
like born thief.
There are men who will read this
paper--and not workingmen alone-who
know what all this means; they have
seen in their own homes the fatal signs,
and felt in their own souls the horrible
warnings of ghastly ruin hanging over
them; they have seen other mems daugh-
| ters 90 on the streets--other mems sons
become besotted, drunken, knavish they
know that other mems wives are broken
hearted that, gashed with such wounds
and crushed under such loads, other men,
once honest, influential, respectable and
| respected have turned down the lane aud
gone to the slaughter house, stained with
every vice and inhdelity to which misfor-
tune, lust and rapacity can invite.
If man, not already utterly lost, asks
what the remedy Is, we say, speaking out
side of the religious view Of his case and
! not from the church steps, stop the whole
house, husband. wife and children where
they are. You may have seen fellow
workman caught between the belt and a
pulley, or perhaps you saw the poor fellow
whirling around helplessly among shafting
and columns, like crazy fy-wheel, posi-
bly, you felt all through the shop the dull
heavy thug when his neck was broken and
his brains scattered-what did you do then?
Stopped the machinery at once ! Do so
now Then talk the whole matter over
in family council let there be a full
frank, honest review OF the past, will
plenty of confessions, but no complaints
charges or examinations, and then for your.
selves and among yourselves make such
resolutions Of amendment as are born Of
the inspiration breathed there.
/ The man who works with his hands, il
more likely to be virtuous than any Other
man, has infinitely greater need of ths
sweet balm and triple shield which reli
gion, temperance and virtue bring; for
whilst station, birth and wealth can 70
their children SO gild over the rottenness
aud stencil of vice as to hide its presence
from human sight and sense, no sucl
labor will be performed by any good oil
bad angel for you. If you seek highe
life, you must seek it for yourself. Fash
ionable humanity can relieve the povert.
and distress which lays the other side @
the poor-house, but can do nothing fo
: you, for "it requires less moral courage t.
!, pick beggar out of the ditch than to b
seen on friendly terms with an honest mai
.. who earns weekly wages"
,. But even beyond this moral field ther
lies another, separated from it only by til
J most shadowy line of demarcation-w
. mean the broad field of physical prospari
ty. 1t is not enough that labor should b
!, honest and true: it mus. be prosperou
: also. Your hope then, we say in this di
!, ! rection, lies solely in confederation 'oit
capital for capital is like the heather her
. who made war on every people who's
4 shores he visited, not because they ha
!, violated treaties, but because they ha
, made no treaties with him.
So capital has done, aud will do; ant
r therefore, we say treat with capital o
terms desirable for both, but absolutel
3 indispensable for labor. Six men withol
I. capital, in combustion with a seventh
= who has it, are stronger than hundre
n who live only for day wages. Coop
10 rative societies and associations are IL
It great fraternizers between antagonize
:, s. capital and labor. They alone can gi,
a, the mortal blow to the fatal heresy th
ID capital must own labor, or that labor wi
N rob and pilldge capital
-vA----e<p <----
THE DEMOCRATIC ADDRESS to the peop