The Morning herald., 1875-08-24
LABoR THOUGHTS.

tempt to laugh away the seriousness Of
such discomfort as is now manifest among
the laboring people Of the United States,
are either fools, foolhardy, or knavee
whistline for their ewn deception or to de-
ceive others. Serious and thoughtful men
and women confess themselves unable to
reconcile the differences justly existing be-
tween capital and labor, under present
rulings confess to conviction of helpless
and hopeless pauperism 10 come upon the
laboring class, unless averted by speedy
and radical change. Confess, too, to a fear of
possible and probable recourse to violence,
as the natural outcome of continued exac-
tions upon class already overburdened.
A serious and thoughtful man said to
the writer: " / connot solve the problem
but unless it be solved speedily the labor
of this country must sink to pauperism."
Of what avail are beautiful essays upon po-
litical ecanomy volumes of statistics, or of
volumes proving increasing intelligence
and Of domestic comforts, compared with
that Of by-gone age to men who feel
these evidences Qhat has convinced my
friend), to be the history of their lives?
They know that increased intelligence, cul.
tured tastes, have not been met by the in
crease of so-called domestic comforts.
The philosophy Of the age, the history
Of human lives, written upon the faces of
our friends, in the memories that we cher
ish, that are never printed for public peru
sal, teach of mental and moral starvation.
The facts of history teach that men whose
intellects have been fostered, whose tastes
have been cultured, until the appliances of
art and the elegancies of civilization have
become the essentials Of life, cannot pa
tiently bear the restraints and burdens in
cident to poverty.
Add to intelligence love and devotion
to the teachings Of the Nazarene, whom the
Church deiies and worships, but will not
follow. Make them such Democrats as was
Thomas Jefferson; such patriots as were
Patric Henry and Thomas Paine; congre-
gate such men in community, in State or
nation; goad such to despair. and the
recklsssncss and cruelty Of the French
Commune is repeated.
The theory Of degeneracy, that there is
NO such men as these, gives the lie to
boasted progress, to statistics that prove in
creased intelligence, to scientific theses that
upset and refute accepted theories of the
past, to mechanical achievements that outdo
the worlds wonders, gives the lie to our
national history, to its story af heroism and
self-sacrifce. ,s.,.a,. >..t gsall
Freedom ofthought, free speech and lib
erty to act was the acme of liberty to the
early American settler. To preserve these
and apply them to nation, of rapid growth,
Of amazing wealth in resource and accumu-
lation, and consequently the goal of the
sordid money-lover; Of the ambitious as
we'll as to the liberty-loving of all nations
has been the work Of American statesmen.
How near to failure they come, and how
barely was success won, is attested in the
fact that hundred years of independent
nationality finds the nation PROSTATE under
the effects Of civil war, the object of
which was the extinction of human slavery.
The failure TO recognize the right univer-
sal to personol liberty;is not proof of in
sincerity in the American people. They,
maintained their right to it. The culture
needed for such recognition did not come
with the inspiration to be free, but is
evolved from the clash of interests, from
friction incident to the union of effort for
common defence. A union, not of harmo-
mics, but of antagonisms that produced a
truce, during which each sought it's own,
the law Of natural selection i'm pelling each.
That struggle for supremacy must come
from such conditions is reasonable /; that it
did come is history. Is it not a fair deduc-
tion to assume that like conditions exist
and like processes are in evolution in the
contest between labor and capital. ,.and will
produce like results? .u. ,..
A MECHANIC.