The Wichita city eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1872-1883, 1877-10-11
Fer the Eagle.
a Letter on Labor and Capital By Hon. VIM.
Ross.

Ed. EAGLE:-It must be very en-
couraging to the people while being
addressed at their county fairs to be
told that il is not for them to trouble
themselves investigating the relations
existing between capital and labor.
That their mission is to go on raising
wheat, corn, pork and beef, and to
build railroads and improve and build
up the country. have always enter
tanned the (erroneous) idea that there
are at least two things essential to the
happiness aud prosperity of produc-
ing people, viz: to produce as much
as possible for the same. When this
is the case there is harmony of inter-
ests existing between labor and capital
| When this is not the case, their inter-
est conflict, and it is well enough for
those who suffer to devote q portion
of their time to investigate schy such
state of affairs exist.
1t must be evident to every observer
that in the last ten or fifteen years
there has been a growing desire OH ths
of the monied powers of the United
States, through trckery and vilainy
and the use of their wealth, that has
been wrung from the sweat and blood
of their fellow-m9n, to secure dishon-
est legislation, to control the markets
of the country, the gamble on the pro-
ducts, and by every possible means to
plumber the producers of the fruits OF
their toll.
When we see the toiling millions of
our land, both OH the farm and in the
workshop, supplied as they are with |
the most approved machinery that %
inventive genius of our time can :
wise, together with the improved skill
of the operatives, utterly failing to
satisfy the demands of idleness. When
we see idle living in palatial mansions
surrounded with every luxury and
comfort, and still accommodating wealth
by the million while the overworked
producers are scarcely able to main
tain q miserable existence, it requires
no argument to convince us tha; there
is an unequal distribution of the Ma
tion's wealth, and that the relations
existing between labor and capital re-
auire investigation. We are told that
a vast amount of capital is lying idle
in the East for want of profitable in
vestment. If those who have it lock-
ed up in their Golfers hadn't any more
than they had acquired honestly it
would be mighty easy TO invest, and
the balance would be where it right
fully belongs under the control of its i
Creator. | do not say that they have {
not acquired it lawfully, but there has {
been considerable capital used to pur- s
chase stoolsn to make laws which give ,
hem access to the peoples pockets.
It has been so with the burglar, he al
10 uses his tools to gain access to 9TH
II peoples funds. But society calls
he lawful thief gentleman, the bur-
.lar fellow. 1t is the same old prin-
,iple that "might is right" They are
the same object to-day '
With their wealth that the freebooter t
# the olden time accomplished with t
heir sword. We ought not to envy
hem their ill-gotten gain, there is no g
means by which it can be recovered. C
,ut we can and must devise means to C
revent its being used as a power to U
ppress the toilipg masses. We can t
ot shut our eyes to the fact that there S
xists and still increases conflict be- I
ween labor and capital, and the late b
demonstrations of the railroad en- Y
loyes and others is only the distant {,
luttering of the approaching storm, CT