National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1875-10-26
UNITY OF INTERESTS.

IuSL1.
UNITY OF INTERESTS.
Always about election time there is
great deal said about the rights of the Ia
boring man, and great deal more about
his interests, and it is not infrequently in
timated that his rights are antagonistic to
those of the taxpayer. There is an in
sidious poison about this demagogical talk
from which we desire most emphatically to
dissent In the first place the laborer has
just as many rights as any one else in this
country, and in the second place his in
terests are identical with those of the CAPT
talist All laborers are taxpayers. They
are eminently so in this country where
everything which we eat, drink and wear
is taxed either directly or by indirection.
Labor creates wealth and owners or con-
trollers of the wealth are transformed by
legal enactments into channels or slulce-
ways, by which q certain portion of the
fruits of the labor of the country is con-
Quoted into the Treasury in the shape of
taxes. The capital of the country unaided
by labor could not long sustain the bur-
dens of taxation. A few years would re-
duce its grand proportions to a helpless
fraction. Capital is only remunerative
when it can obtain the cooperation Of Ia
Dor. 1t is only by this assistance that it
can accumulate and increase. Yet to hear
some people talk of the burdens Of the tax
payers, the exclusive rights of taxpayers
and the reasons why property-owners
should govern the country, one might be
led to believe that property paid all the
taxes and that the labor of the country was
only tolerated out Of feelings Of humanity
or sympathy for the poor laborer.
While we would not derogate anything
from the real importance Of capital or the
responsibility and proper influence of
wealth, we deprecate any and all action
which tends TO foster antagonism between
labor and capital. There is altogether too
much of this feeling already growing up
in this country. And the tendency of it is
evil. 1t is toward the degradation Of
honest toll and the admiration of wealth,
no matter how obtained. Encouragement
TO greater production is what is needed to
insure lasting prosperity. This cannot be
secured except by the elevation Of labor.
We already owe very largely of our pro-
ductiveness as nation to the employment
of labor saving machinery. This ma
chinery is the product of high degree of
intelligence among the laboring classes of
the North. By its aid we produce much
more per capita than any other country.
In order that We may continue to do so in
the same ratio in the future, it is necessary
that we should bear in mind the efficiency
of education as helpmeet. 1t is only
educated labor that is able to bring the ele-
ments to its aid. If the people of the
South would excel in production Of manu-
features and agriculture, so as to compete
with those Of the North, they must foster
their common schools. They must cherish
and encourage all their educational estab-
lisbments. They must elevate their labor
to degree of intelligence which will in.
sure successful competition in the field of
invention. 1t is only intelligent men who
comprehend how to take advantage of all
aids to labor, and enlist science and the
mechanic arts in the production of wealth.
1t must be obvious to all reflective minds
that the course now being pursued by the
Democrats of the South toward the labor
of that section is exactly the reverse of all
this. Do they seek to encourage and ele-
vate their labor to that degree of intelligence
which will make it attractive and honor
able2 On the contrary, are they not chang
ing their State constitutions in all the States
in which they have the control, so as to
place labor completely at the mercy of cap
ital, so that it may be oppressed and
crushed out2 Even the new constitution
of Alabama, which her people are about to
be called upon to ratify, is so constructed as
to admit of legislation that will bind labor
hand and foot, and reduce every man,
woman and child 10 state of peonage who
has not any means at command with which
to extricate themselves from a petty JUS
tees court by the payment of fine. If
the constitution shall be ratified, we pre-.
dict that its adoption will be the signal for
hegira of the negro labor from the State.
1t will also prove successful inhibition
of labor entering that State from abroad.
Land owners should be warned in time.
An absence Of labor is death to the land
holder. He cannot pay taxes upon his
plantation after production ceases. His
land will not produce crops without the
aid of labor. Then what will become of
his Wanted importance as q taxpayer The
truth Is that there is no independent class
in this land except that one which tills its
own soil with its own hands. "a little
farm well titled" is far superior in results
to the broad, barren acres Of immense plan
tations. The taxpaying capacity of all
property is measured by its production. If
intelligent labor is the most productive,
that is the kind which il is the interest of
landholders to have, and the amount of the
school tax which they pay will be returned
to them many fold each year in the i'm
proved quality of their labor. Mobbing
and lynching men and women for teaching
colored laborers and their families is the
worst possible investment that Southern
land owners can make. Selling the time
of men and women for alleged petty of.
fenses, with opportunity for indefinite pro-
longation of the peonage, is the next If
INDUCED with rigid perseverance in the
South they will prove to be mortgages on