Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1872-12-17
Spirit Of gsfffrsolt.
chariestown, JEFFERSON County, West Va.
TUESDAY MORNING, DEoEMiBRlR,. n 1s72.
~ For tie spiri. OF Jstsrson.l
The Beginning of Labor Reforms,

seno you the following condensed history
OF labor reforms and of the necessity which
has has originated them, Every line, nay every
word, of. this Article, deserves to be .Stere-
otypea into every mind capable of thinking.
II will be seen that the whole profits Of the
varied labor Of the whole people are going
into the pockets Of rings and a.6a2po5es.
Wells, in his repottto Congress, shews that
the average net profit of the entire labor of
the country is only, 81 per cent, and here are
7"lumber firms" '.caryying ouer annual profits
OF sooo,ooO; here are salt s,aoorhs sohich
hare paid dioiaends of 1000 per cent ), here
ea sp:q aron g'v.ng gg an annual income of S45,-
600 to $50, 1000 on eoe,y $4,000 inyestcd;
ana here gre great firms and compam'es and
corporatifons lf buying ZIP and reseroin;y ard set
ting aparttAe peoples zand by millions IF
acres I"
Surely with such astounding facts before
the people; and while they are being impoy-
erlshed every day |; and held down to bare
subsistence, and with no;4oroffs or increase;
1t is time, and high time, they should form
clubs and labor unions, and unite to defend
themselves against such enormous expressions
and stnpendous robberies'! They could not
take place without the connivance and con,
splracy OF their, representatives They are
bought up, bribed. and in the ritigs: 1t NAV
be said of them with truth, as was said of the
mobiles of the Jews, in their universal corrup-
stion, "Her princes have become robbers and
companions of thievesi!" Incapacity and stu.
pidity cannot account for such palpable. fla
grant expressions and wrongs. 1T is snothins
short of wholesale conspiracy, robbery, and
viilainy; and should be denounced lin no
measured terms, and acted against. and as
saulted, with the united energy of the whole
people. 1t is nothing short of Iun,n,unv
HuN in the halls of Congress!
We must put down monopolies, We. mast
hayesd .cttrrency under the control of the peo.
pie, and not under the control of remorseless
and plundering nsonied aristocroty! NAM
;mon,-the "least erect of all the spirits who
tell"-must not control the destinies sof5the
American people -OBsERyER.e
Summit Point, Nov. 25, 1872.
Had any man in 1860 predicted that, il
less than fifteen years. soeialistic and conf
mupistic doctrines would take ian gerous roo,
In this country, with its xsmiliion,freehoders
and proprietors, and where good land was
plenty, and to be had for thelask 10 .she would
have been set down for visionary or a fana.
tic. Yet here it is the terrible Cyclops of
Europe, as wild in his ,a;ntissocial frenzy as
that Gyclops there, and likely to he as fero>
cious, if he encounters opposition here as he
does there. Happily We are not in the same
danger Of Socialism as Europe, because We
have the means of labor refnrm within our
reach. and are certain, sooner or later. to ems
ploy them.
"heantime. what has given rise to this
agitation here? What has enabled comn,u>
nlstIc principles TO obtain toleration at all in
people of propretors? We need not search
far for the cause; it is right before us. The
war was taken advantage of by capitalists to
control the. politicians, so as to effect redis-
tribution cf proft,.
"The share of the capitalist has been so ar.
ranged that it comnletelv swallows the share
Of the laborer. What is, profit? It is the
remainder of price after labor and cost of pro-
duction have been compensated. This being
so, when profits are exorbitant, tie costs Of
raw material being naturally nearly constant,
the price of labor must necessarily suffer-
This is the logical necessity of the case: tits
likewise the actual fact. 1t is boosted. rather
unw'sely, by protectonist papers, that our iron
and cotton mills yield incomes that far exceed
the resources ct European dukedoms aud
principailties: Here are men growing rapid
ly rich by silk mills here arc lumber firms
carrying over annual profits of $500 900:
here are salt works which have paid dividends
OF 1000 per cent; here is pig iron. giving
an annual income of s45 900 to $4,000 on
every 500, 900 invested; and here are grea.
firms and companies and corporations buying
up aEd reservins and setting apart the PEOPLES
land by the million acres. Right alongside
of this we see the body of the people growing
poorer and poorer every day the freeholder
forced to sell his homestead and become las
borer; the laborer able to purchase less and
less with days work, and forced to work
more hours every year.
=, ''These are ugly facts, and if they contiu-
ne to present themselves We shall soon see
labor politically arrayed against capital in
way that will ruin the Republic. Whatever
else happens in the United States. we shall
not behold ''the widow picking nettles for her
children S supper, and the perfumed seigneur
delicately louuging in the Gel du Boeuf; %
but it, in destroying aristocracy, we have to
take up with Communism. we shall be nearly
as badly off. 1t is time, then, to begin labor
reform, and to begin it in the right way-by
putting the CURRENCY and banking systems
upon natural basis, instead of their present
artificial one, and by cutting off the heads of
the hydra of Monopoly before it has crawled
all its dreadful length put of the dark delusive
of Protection. Washington Patriot
GEN. LEES RooM.-The Lexington Gas
zstfe sets at rest as follows, the story that has
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