Martinsburg weekly independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1873-1875, 1874-08-22
CAPITAL AND LABOR.
HEDGEsvILLE, August II.

dEDGESVILLE, August ~.
Eds. Independent:
| While the Grange party, buoy
ant with radiant hopes of roseate
hue, redolent of virtue, and ra-
diant with the inspiration of their
professed noble and patriotic aims
to correct all disorders in the body
politic,and accomplish thorough
political reform, are now directing
their organized efforts to secure
the adoption of pacific measures
through the ordeal of special legis-
lation, for the redress of alledged
wrongs inflicted by railroad corpo-
rations, from which they have so
long and patiently suffered, and
against which their herculean eff
forts are mainly directed, with
the very flattering promise of great
results, by way of protecting COM
munities against the ONE evil of
exhorbitant charges by railroads
in the transportation of freights !;
a subject in which they are ali
largely interested, and by the con-
troll of which, as a class, they are
chiefly benefited, in having the
maximum sum of railroad charges
fixed by law. Against all this we
have no word of objection; but
while farmers all over the land
have organized and imperatively
demanded legislation in their own
behalf, to cure the evil of which
they complain, no special efforts
seem to be made, or concern man.
ifested, for the correction of her
abuses and Irregularities, which, if
any species of class legislation may
be tolerated. are quite as suscepti-
Die of adjustment as the one men
toned. Wrongs, which are known
to eXistto the serious detriment ola
scarcely les simportant class of in
dividuals than the Z. OF II.
For instance, the labor;r, the
artizan, the mechanic; not mid
dlenae,a, but suffering men, from the
aggressions and expressions of
greedy corporations, moneyed
rings and grasping capitalists; the
laborer, at the expense of whose
sinew and sweat, gloated and
bloated monopolies, corporations
and moneyed rings exist, and are
enriched whilst the employees,
in many classes, and the laboring
class generally, receive as remu-
neration for their labors pittance
so scanty as scarcely suffices to keep
soul and body united.
Now is it not equally prudent,
or any less practicable to adopt
measures ostensibly, to protect the
| rights of free labor against the i'm
positions and encroachments of
organized capital? Is it not
crying evil, and equally reprehen-
sible too, whether perpetrated by
a railroad company, corporation or
money association of any class p
And cannot some one of the army
of modern political reformers, who
! seek to renOvate vitiated public
sentiment, and to purify corrupt
body polite, suggest some wise and
humane system of legislation in
behalf Of these poorly paid labor
ers and employees, as remedy
for their wrongs?
While fully of opinion that no
unnecessary restrictions should be
imposed by the law upon the free
dom of capital, trammeling its
free investment and proper use, /
do at the same time fully recognize
the rightful authority of legisla-
tive interference, which in common
with many of our fellow citizens,
we should be ever ready and will
ing to invoke, should its exercise
be deemed necessary for the pro-
lection of the rights of employ
ees, mechanics and common Ia
borers, no less than in behalf. of
the lords Of tie soil, against the inn
positions and cncroachments of
capital in any form, and ofadjust-
ing fairly, so far as legislative ac-
ton may consistently be made to
apply, in any given case, provid-
ing for a fair and equitable distri-
button of the profits resulting from
the combination and cooperative
agencies of capital and labor, in
fair and just proportion to the rel
alive value of each.
The relation of capital and labor
OF employee and employer, are not
very we'll settled, nor perhaps very
well understood. At first view, it
WOuld seem that q man havino,