Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1876-03-01

NO SOCIAL system ana no government can pe
sustained upon any declaration Of rights that
does not include full recognition Of the
rights Of all parties. And the full conces-
sion of rights cannot be made practical with
out the recognition of the fact that every
right has its attendant duty
The workman has right to a fair share Of
the joint product of his labor and his en-
ployer's capital. On the other hand, the en-
ployer has right to his fair share Of the
same joint product. There should be a will
Ingness with each side to do its duty as well
as assert its rights. The workman has many
just claims upon the capitalist, and his eyes
are generally wide open TO see, and his
tongue ready TO assert them. The employer
has equally as many and equally as just
claims upon the workman, and his eyes see,
and his tongue emphasizes, these claims.
Now, in truth, capital has no more real
power Gas it has no more real rights or real
duties) than labor. But capital has always
had as an ally that neutral force which comes
ofeducation, which labor has heretofore failed
to avail itself of--the power Of knowledge.
1t is in fact, this want of education among the
laboring class which has resulted in the strong
line now drawn between labor and capital, be-
tween the laborer and the capitalist. Our
capitalists are, in fact, either educated labor
ers, or their descendants. just in proportion
to his natural ability and his education, is
any mans chance for becoming capitalist
Now what is the origin OF natural ability
and its accompanying power Of receiving
education Is it anything else than virtu-
Gus living in the individual or in his progeni-
tors This educated ability accumulates
wealth. If its successors forget or forsake
the source OF the power that won the wealth,
do they not lose and dissipate it? True,
they may enact laws and dispose circum-
stances so as to prevent this result to some
extent, but in time vice will forfeit wealth
and lapse from power.
The Bible is very instructive book. We
recently heard some people, coming from
religious meeting laughing over the expert
ence " of a bumptious brother who had been
telling them that he had always been a very
moral man, and was not conscious that he
had ever done anything very wrong lie said
that he had joined the church not so much
for his own sake, as because it had been sug
gested TO him that by not doing SO he might
stand in the way of others and he added
that In experiencing religion he had per-
ceived no change in himself, except that
whereas, for the past fifteen years, he had
never looked into the Bible, he now read it
daily, and with pleasure. Why" exclaimed
one of the party, abe as much as said that
he was so good that the religion of Jesus
Christ couldn't make him any better !"
1t would seem, indeed, as though the
brother had been unfortunate in his method
of expressing himself; but yet the gain
which he professed to have made was no
slight one, if he reads his Bible Alright
The Bible tells us that the Israelitish ma
ton, whenever they forsook their duties, fell
into misfortune, and were brought at last
into captivity. 1t may be that the bump
tious brother" and it is certain that many
of us, in reading this history, will say, each
to himself, that If he had been an Israelite
of those times, he never would have aban-
doned such manifest duties in the face Of
such awful admontions, and at such cost.
But, as matter of fact the sins Of the work.
Ing men of to-day, from which they suffer, and
which are sure to result in their captivity to
the crimson-clad Assyrians of wealth, unless
they forbear, are of a parallel nature.
Polonius, in Shakespeare's 4" Hamlet" in
giving advice TO his son, says
This above all TO thine own self be true.
And 1t must follow the night the day
Thou eanst no, then be false to any man"
1t would be exceedingly well for every
working man If he would take these lines
as life motto. If our working men and
women were true TO themselves, true to their
duties and their rights alike, it would never
be in the power of any other class to live
in idleness and luxury at their expense.
The three virtues of honesty, industry and
temperance, if generally praeticed among
the laboring people, would indeed, in one OF
two generations, unite capital with labor
throughout our country, For honest TEN.
perate and industrious American working
men would see 10 it that their children were
educated. The children of virtuous parents,
virtuously trained, would generally healthy
in body and mind, and each succeeding gem
Grafton from such parentage would surpass
in mental power and moral strength the gen
GRAFTON preceding. Such people as this could
not only never be made the slaves of capital
they would soon be its masters, aud co-opera.
tive labor would shortly own its own ma
chinery and control its benefits. The capi.
talist and the laborer would then be united
in the same person, and all strife between
them be necessarily at an end
Though labor suffers wrong it is the vices
Of the laborer that keeps him poor and en-.
able capital 10 wrong him. And these vices
are generally weak imitation of the vices
of the rich-the vices that are called pleas
ures-and are the temptations of all ill-regu-
lated minds. Dissipation with the men. and
vanity with the women, waste the capital OF
the poor, and keep them always dependent
There is general complaint that the
working classes in Europe, and TO a danger
GUS extent also in this country, are irrelgious
and often infdels. This, so far as il is true
can only be the fault Of the way In which
Christianity is preached The poor heard
the preaching of the Lord and His apostles
gladly. They will hear the same preaching
as gladly to-day, for the heart of the poor
man, when not soured by wrong, turns
easily to the teachings of truth. But when,
instead fhearing sin in high places arraigned
from the pulpits of the churches, he finds
that all the texts which enforce the duties
and denounee the sins of wealth are laid
away and forgotten-tha rich men rule in the
sanctuary as they rule in the mill and the
factory, the courts and the legislatures
then what wonder if he is hard to be led to
see the beauties of the gospel2
We have passed the time, indeed, when, in
the North as well as the South, from the text,
Cursed be Canaan" we could hear asserted
from the sacred desk the right Of capital, not
only 10 control labor, but 10 own the laborer
The shedding Of the blood Of half million Of
working men and the mortQapinp of all ths