Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1872-01-31


CERTAIN restless spirits have champion
ed the cause of the working men, and seem
disposed to use the influence temporarily
acquired to array in opposition the two
great interests of society, labor and capital.
five come to examine their antecedents, it
will be found that they are not ecorEtng
men, but men who hope to live off of the
laboring classes. Every idle man is a tax
upon working men. Every man who
seeks to take from his race, money with
out giving an equivalent for it is drain
upon society-a leech upon the producing
class. Working men, therefore, find their
worst enemies i'll the idle class, no matter
though they be from their own number.
The working class, no matter whether
they labor with their hands or their
heads, are those who contribute to the
prosperity and happiness of the world.
The idle, vagrant class are those who live
off of the labor of others, and they may
be genteel loafers, professional politicians
who live at the public crib, or they may
be of the various other classes who ac-
cumulate without fair return in work.
We think working men sometimes mis-
take the tax of this class upon them for
the encroachments of capital. Laboring
men pay high rents and high insurance
and heavy taxes and call it the imposition
of capital. 1t may often happen that capt.
tai takes advantage of disorders in society
to levy new exactions, but it is not always
the primary cause.
1t seems to us if the working men traced
back the cause of their high taxes and
| rents, they might often track it to the drain
upon them of the idle classes we have
named. The young men who loaf about
the streets and hotels and saloons, too
proud to work, must live some way. They
want to make money without giving in
return what is always its price if honest
Iy Obtained-work in some form. They
have friends and family connection, and
their first recourse is to get some office to
live off of the public. They exert influence
directly or indirectly over Legislators,
perhaps, and positions are created
for them either by turning some one
else out or creating new place. They di-
vert legislation from its proper course, in
crease the public expense and tax the pub
lie for their support. This is the first stage.
Once in office, the claims of those who
helped them to position and those of their
own class, tempt them and they prove cor
rupt. They steal the peoples money and
add to their burdens. This is one way
taxes become high and can not the pro-
ducing classes, the working men, see who
bring such burdens upon them? High
taxes increase rents. High taxes increase
the price of food. High taxes follow cor
ruption and decentralization and are the
drain upon society of idlers, ignorance and
wickedness.
A working community is II happy and
prosperous one. Labor will overcome any
natural obstacle. Sterile rocks and desert
plains may he made TO bloom and yield
harVests, but the tax of genteel loating
and robbery under official license, indus
try can not we'll overcome. The conflict
between capital and labor, unembarrassed
by that between industry and idleness,
would be much easier reconcied. We sug-
gest, therefore, that men of work turn
their attention for partial remedy for
their evils, at least, to idleness and its at
tendant evils-plundering the public treas
ury, gambling, intemperance, &c. The
taxes of these wages of idleness are bearing
upon industry. They are the foes of the
working man, and should be overcome.
Honest public officers, men of industry
and energy, men who produce something,
either 10y the work of the hand or the
head, are all bound together by one COM
mon tie and all have common battle to
wage agains Incidence and ignorance.