The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1877-09-13

eording to law, or to establish special
boards of arbitration to which labor
must submit it's demands for the fu-
ture, as vel; as its complaints for the
past, it requires no prophet to f0resee
that labor will be enveloped in meshes
through which capital will easily es-
capes Capital will control the Gov
ernment; capital will make the laws !;
capital will interpret them; capital
will select the arbitratOrs capital will
enforce their award.
If any interest should dread a pa
rental Government; if any interest
should dread 'entangling alliances.
and demand a fair field, it is labor.
And say this with an anxiety greater
than I care to express tonight, that
labor should be relieved of its care
and suffering with heart touched to
the quick by the misery and wretch
edness, the weary life. the breaking
human hearts, which see around me,
and the heroic fortitude with which
men and women, and children encoun
ter them. If these weary ones-some
struggling for bread alone, some
straining every aching nerve for a
higher moral and mental life-could
be lifted up, and every obstacle to
their progress removed; if every hu-
man being could be elevated and made
to take his proper station as man,
above forms, above property, above
capital, would welcome the means,
whatever they might be; revolution
in Government, revolution in society,
the subversion of every cherished the
ory, the abasement of every cherished
idol-and thank God that I had lived
to see them successfully employed.
This question has been brought into
special prominence just now by the
strikes and subsequent riots. No man
approves, every right thinking man
condemns and deprecates lawless vio-
lence toward person or property, and
believes it should be restrained and
punished by the strong arm of the
law. Few believe that strikes accom-
plish any immediate good. They agree
with the platform of the Working
mems party adopted at Cincinnati,
that they are the fruitless efforts of
workingmen to secure their economic
al emancipation by guerrilla warfare
against individual employers. Yet
let us not deceive ourselves or do
wrong to others. Strikes are the loud
mutterings, the open acts which suf-
ferings produce. Strikes are the pro-
test which scant food and scant cloth
ing and poor homes make against
greater reduction. Strikes are the
voice of discomfort, and discomfort,
restless as it is, tor long time, aye SO
long as possible, bears the ills we
have Happy men do not strike.
Prosperous men do not strike. The
smiling faces of well-fed wife and
children do not permit men to strike.
There wero bad men and wicked
men, and ill advised men, who will
fully did wrong and committed crime
but at the bottom Of this great up
heayal there was q cause, and that
cause was the inability of willing, hon
est, industrious men to obtain work
and earn wages for wife and children.
Wages were low men were working
on short time; wages were long un-
paid; families were buying on credit
at the retail shops. Wages were to
be reduced still lower, and no pros
pect of fprompter payment. You might |
as well try to check the thunder in the |
sky as to suppress the wall of human |
anguish extorted by these conditions. |
Until the cause shall be removed,
strikes will be made, and violence and |
crimes will ensue.
We have heard much in this con-
nection, and at this time of the conflict
Of labor and capital. But down at
the bottom, underlying this conflict
which is but an incident and symptom
here is graver conflict and a might
er struggle, arraying greater forces,
md stimulating more gigantic efforts.
It is the conflict between that capital
which employs no human labor,
which works with no human hands,
which never pauses by night or by
Jay, in winter snows, or summer
neat, or autumn rains, which never
wearies, never rests, never loses, but
sver gathers in Its increase and it's in
erest-and that capital which employs
abor, feeds enterprise, stimulates in
lustry, and brings into activity and
the hand, the head, the
busy brain, the cunning ingenuity, the
energies of all the forces
,f accumulated wealth and human
7igor. 1t is the conflict between that
,ower which seizes the production of
others, and that power which itself
PRODUCES. 1t is the conflict between
he money power and the industries
u JIG COuhtTys
The Democratic party demands the
epeal of the Resumption act, the res
Grafton of the old silver dollar, the
etention of greenbacks, the cessation
# their contraction, and finally the
ssue of all circulating medium by the
making all legal ten
Ter. and the paper and the coin inter-
at par. This will soon
i've us stable currency, sound cur
ercy, and safe currency. This will
tart the wheels of industry, give sails
o our commerce, and labor to our ar
isans. This will lift from our enter
rise and energy the weight which
as long oppressed them. This will '