The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-10-31

ISOLATION, at Munfordsville, KY, Oct.
II, 1873. After giving vivid pic
ture of the deep and widespread dis
content that pervades the working
classes in the United States, he states
the cause of it all as follows: Gao
cording to the report of our last CEN
sus, you will find that, in the year
1870, there were 1922, 741 persons
in the United States engaged in agri-
culture, while all varieties of manu-
features, of every kind and descrip-
ton, employed only 2,053, 1896; that
the capital invested in the former, in
Guiding value of farms, farming i'm
plements and live stock on hand,
amounted to 81, 124, 1858, 765, while
that invested in the latter was only
81, Ills, 2O8,796 Yet youwill be as
founded at the fact that, while the
gross products of all agricultural Ia
Dor for that year, including fencing,
clearing and other improvements
made on the farm, together with the
increase of live stock, amounted to
only 50, All, 53S,658 the gross value
of all manufactured products is esti-
mated at 1922, 325,442! You will
find, however, that there was paid
for materials the sum of 81, 4SS, 427, =
PAP, and, if you deduct that from the
gross value, it will leave S1,743, $685.
200, which represents the value of the
labor bestowed, and the interest on
the capital employed in creating those
values. Now, from these figures, it
appears-for any school-boy can
make the calculation for himself
that while each person engaged in ag-
riculture, on a capital of 81, S7S per
capita, produced only SAP SO in
gross values, each person employed in
manufacturing produced, on an aver
age capital of only 81, 211, net values
to the amount of $40 20, more than
twice as much as the gross values pro-
duced by the farmer. / am aware
that this statement will at first view
seem to defy all possibility of cOmpre-
hension. And l know you are al
most ready to exclaim that the figures
l have given you carry a lie on their
very face, for | know, as well as you
do, that it is simply impossible in the
very nature Of things for a given
amount of bone and muscle, simply
because it is expended in the facto-
ry, and at the forge, to produce more
than as much of value to mankind as
the same amount of tissues, equally as
good, that are wasted away under the
broiling sun ofsummer and the freez-
ing blasts of winter in producing not
only the very means Of sustaining our
lives but by far the greater portion Of
the materials upon which all other
industry is employed. But if you
will look little farther into the mat
ter you will fnd that, while the con-
sumner who used the product of the
manufacturer had actually to pay the
labOrer who did the work neither pro-
duced nor got pay for anything like
half that amount. Now this may
seem still more startling and ineXpi-
cable. But let us see how it Is.
While the whole number employed
in manufacturing was, as have stat
ed, 2,053, 1896, the report shows that
the aggregate amount of all the wages
paid them was only S775, 584, 343; so
that each laborer thus only received !
the average sum of 1917 50 for his
years work after all /! But what, |
you will ask, became of the remain |
ing $40 so of the net 1910 20 which |
the census report shows that he pro
duced? Aye! what has become of it |
sure enough? 1t did not 60 into the
pockets of the honest laborer. 1t
went to swell the Golfers of the CAPT
-alist who hired him! Three hun
1red and seventy-seven dollars and
sixty cents to the hard handed, simple
hearted child of poverty, who Won it
airlv, with many q sturdy stroke, |
through many painful hour of toll,
md $40 60 to the capitalist, who sat
n his counting-room by his burglar
proof safe and unused on-agrarian-
SIN !"