The workingman's advocate., 1871-01-21

10 warehouses, and the lifts in hotels anC
public buildings moved here by means ol
compressed air.
The Labor Question
A fortnight ago we urged the Republi-
can party to seek its allies among the work
ingmen, North and South, white and black
1t seems to US sad descent for a great
party which has risen to power and gained
laurelS by long years Of service to a moral
principle, humane revolution, to sink
down to mere huckstering about finance OF
squabbles over land grabbing. Tue-in
some aspects finance has close relation to
morals and education and to that leisure,
means,opPortunity for culture and improve
ment. Cheating man of dollar is often
starving soul as we'll as body. But,
there are better ways to prevent the cheat,
-lnere efficient and surer ways,-than to
quarrel over Tariffs or fight with Banks.
In these matters the workingman's crusade
does not seek to mend an cid method. 1t
supercedes il by one wholly different in
principle. 1t does not busy itself to bet
ter turnpike roads it supercedes them by
railways. 1t does not waste time in trying
how much canvas certain hull will bear.
1t replaces sails by steam engines. Laws
to protect labor from Capita, and employ
er from his workmen, will be needless when
each man is both capitalist and workman,
equally interested as employer and en-
plOyed.
For the Republican party to lose itself in
these superficial and temporary make shifts
seems like the Mississippi disappearing in
mud at its mouth. Let it grappIe with the
great underlying principle and undertake
that radical change which will bring our So
cial system ir+o harmony With Christianity
and true civilization. This is what the
hour Graves. The party that seeks to rem
der this service will crowd all others out
Of sight. Its red will swallow up those OF
all the pretenders- This way sets the food
tide. 1t will lift and float into safe harbor
all that obeys its current; and sink out of
sight whatever can not or will not yield.
In saying this we do not forget the wo-
man question, We count on its aid. This
Labor Reform plows deep. In the struggle
we expect to see the great forces and the
classes of society crash and jestls against
each other like frigates in a storm. We
shall need all the Intellectual and all the
moral strength within our reach to ride
out the storm. Woman holds half the
brain and nall tile heart OF the Nation !;
ard at such time we cannot afford to ex-
euse her from her civil responsibilities. Be-
side, the woman claim can hardly succeed
until the great working class is conciliated
toward Il. In fact, the Labor nDvsnsnt
prO-suppesaa II ii does not incl1ae, the Y.
Ior f5f %n,r3e- e-------------E----I
Some critics suppose that our claiR for
the workingmen is only an appeal Or a
less number Of hours in a mill; or q cry
which comes up only from the mines Of
Pennsylvania and the different operatives
on the seaboard They ask, derisively,
where is the loothold for your Labor party
on the prairies? I?
Now no doubt primary step is lessen
ing the hours of labor in nils and mines
and workshops generally. You cannot
trust ballot in the hands Of men who
watch spindles, pick coal, or cut leather
fifteen hours a day. Theywill inevitably
vote not singly, but by regiments as the
French did. But though this is a step
toward our goal, it is not our goal.
Others ask whether we expect every man
to have a brown stone front and yacht,
or ten thousand dollar trotters
We do rot expect ever to see mems pos
sessions exactly equal. Neither do we be-
leve that real christianity and true civ
ilization permit ten men in hundred to be
rich and forty others, thrifty, sober and
vigilant, to stand Just this side Of want. A
Just finance never resulted in having two
thirds of our rich men come from those who
trade in money and swap stocks, and only
one-third from those who trade in things
God created Every fair-minled Capitalist
will allow that our money system and our
laws give him great and unfair advantages
in his dealings with those who have only
time to sell Now we believe IN God, and
defy the Devil and all his works. Hence
we are persuaded this injustice will cease in
time, and that probably half century
hence men will wonder why our blindness
did not see the cause of this, and why our
justice did not fling it Indignantly away.
We take our illustrations from wealth
not because money is everything, but be-
cause it gives, at present, so much :-leis-
ure opportunity, influence, selfrespect Of
ten, Independence, and all that grows from
it.
But while our claim for workingmen in
cludes the lessening Of hours in counting
days sf toll and the peril to our govern
nent Of letting class grow up IN any sec
ton whose whole talk is Of spindles and
cold dinners and the awful cost of children 4
shoes and also includes that truck sys-
tenn in Pennsylvania which pays man in
orders for food and clothes, and never
trusts him with an actual dollar lest he
mount 1t and ride away still our crusade
has wider reach and far more extensive
purpose.
We don't believe in the wages system
1t never got out of man more than hal
the work he could really do, and it demor
allied his nature, at the same time, by tempt
ing him to skulk and cheat. It never re-
suited IN any fair division of the joint prof
its, of labor and capital. We grant tha
trained and active brains have right to ;
larger share than mere average capacity
average interest in ones work or mere bodi
y service. But capitalist worth forty mil
lions, accumulated in one mans life time
and many of his wOrkmen, Of difercn
grades, living in humble rooms, anxiously
chasing each hour to wrench from it th'
bread or the necessary which that hour mus
{ furnish, or they 90 without it obliged t,
, give nine-tcnths Of their waking hours fo
comfortable food and clothes humbly, a