Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-03-27

they come, do you ever hear of their going back
The first earnings of the young foreigner who
comes 10 a Massachusetts manufacturing civ
are devoted TO bringing over the father, the
mother, the sister, the younger brother and the
friend. VINO ever goes back 10 a German, an
Irish, or an English town, after having once
tasted Of the poverty, the deStitution and the
distress which the gentleman from Missouri
would have us believe are suffered by the Massa-
chusetts operative?
One other thing is entirely left out in the mic
ture which the gentleman has painted. The in
telligent, honest, prudent American operative in
one of our factories does not remain permanent
ly in that position. The lowest class NAV have
poor wages; but the man who was in the lowest
class five or ten years ago is not found in that
class to-day | was in my youth a member of
a committee appointed by the churches of the
city where | live one of the most prosperous
manufacturing cities in New England We dis
tricted the town, and made il our business to be
informed OF the condition of every family in
that city, and to see that no person suffered
during our severe New England winter from
cold, hunger, or any other cause.
Sir, that committee maintained its functions
for few years, and then ended them because it
had nothing to do. Ii ended them because there
ceased 10 be any want of poverty which re-
quired the interpositon of the liberal charity Of
the community
Now, appeal TONY colleague, who is familiar
with the manufacturing towns of New England
| appeal to either of my colleagues, if it is not
true, as YOU pass around the outskirts of the
New England villages or manufacturing towns
TODAY, that you do not find any increase in the
number of novels, in the number of shanties, in
the number Of mean and cheap shelters such as
you see in Germany, or in ireland, or in En-
gland as you pass through those countries.
These are no more, in spite of increasing popu-
ration, than they were ten or fifteen or twenty
years ago; but the homes which are growing up
like mushrooms year by year all over that com
munity are the homes Of comfort, Of thrift, of
wealth, indicating increasing means of their oc-
cupants
The gentleman gives us two or three remarka-
BILE proofs of the perjury of the Massachusetts
workmen. He tells US the workngmen of Mas
sachusetts of the lowest class are getting into
the hands of their femploYers by mortgagng
their real estate. | should like to know what
the workingmen of Germany, of England, or of
Ireland, of the lowest class, have to mortgage?
| should like to hear the burst of laughter on
the part OF the working community of the low
est class in Germany or in Ireland if anybody
should inform them such was the deStitution of
the workingmen in New England that they
mortgaged their real estate to their employers !!
He says thar some of them do acquire proper
ty, and it is mostly by rise of their real estate
He cannot deny that they make large deposits
in savings banks, but he says it is by robbng
their stomachs. What picture of restitution
caused by rhis hated tariff The capitalist max
inc large dividends, the men of'the middle class
constantly lettering their condition, and the
poorer class Rocking from other countries to es-
cape starvation at home, but somehow or other
getting property to mortgage, making money
by rise in real estate, and laying up money in
savings banks by starving their Stomachs.
Now, MIR. Speaker, | desire to add another
word. These statistics of the gentleman from
Missouri are the statistics of discomfort. The
American workinoman of five or ten years ago
rises, becomes a foreman or an employer or
goes to the west and takes farm, and his place
is steadily supplied year by year by the En-
glshman, the lrishman, the German, or the Ca
madam who comes from starvation at homeand
takes the lowest position in our laboring com.
munity, far better than his position at home,
and thus constantly thrusts up to one higher
still the American abOrer, whose place he takes
| believe it is true of every class of men who
lived in Massachusetts and worked there ten
years that their position Is far better now than
it was then. Even if the class is not better paid
now than then, the men who then composed it
are now betteroff. The great problem of the re-
lation Of labor to capital is not yet solved. The
laborcr, nowhere better paid, nowhere urges
more sturdily his CLAIM TO better payment still
| do not claim that there is not much TO be i'm
proved in the condition of labor in my state.
The laborers of that state are taking that mat
ter in hand. One not inconsiderable aid 10
them in this effort is, in my Judgment, part
protection to the industries in which they are
engaged.