Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1878-07-06
WHOLE NO. 2,245.

and subject to inspection by public
officers, show how difficult it is to
secure an administrator of funds
1 received in trust. But the contri-
buttons made by the laboring clases
to carry on an agitation ostensibly
in their interest are under no guardi-
anship of law; they are subject to
all the abuses practised in other
trusts, without any of the legal re-
straints. If they are not faithfully
administered there is no means Of
recalling the defaulters to account.
The leading agitators may therefore
| live upon the contributions of their
dupes without any danger of incur
ing the penalties which have over
taken the swindling officers of life
insurance companies and savings
banks. The Communist agitatOrs
know very well that the fleece ac-
companies the flock, and they are
the irresponsible shearers. Their
mode of getting a living is not n
whit more honest than of the
tramps. The tramps prey upon
people who have either inherited or
accumulated property and can
afford to lose what is taken from
them ; but the Communist agitators
prey upon laborers and subsist on
contributions from their scanty earn
ings. 1t is more heartless to dupe
and swindle the poor than it is to
steal from farmers in good circum-
stances, and in this view the tramps
are less blameworthy than the Com
munist agitators, who are rather to
be classed with the dishonest officers
of savings banks and life insurance
companies. But these agitatOrs re-
semble the tramps in their determi-
nation to live without honest work.
There are hosts of politicians who
pursue the same object by still other
means. The amusing and flippant !
Mrs. jerks may not be in all re- |
spects a type of this class, but some !
of her satiric touches paint lively |
picture of the class. She testified |
on Monday that she was at one time |
a clerk in the Treasury Department. |
"Did you render any service to the |
government ?" asked her examiner. |
"Oh, yes, sir was the quick reply,
81 did; l went up there very often |
until l got tired of it; / used to go |
into a room with lots of desks in it,
where l did some writing; / went |
there almost every day when / had |
nothing else to do" (Laughter.)
This was a clever hit at the class
of political hangers on who as a re-
ward for electioneering activity, get
offices which are little else than sim
ecureS. In what respect are these /
people better than that portion of
the fraternity of trainps who pilfer
without any resort to threats or viO-
lence? Like the tramps they eat
bread which they do not earn and
render society an honest equivalent
for their subsistence. Like the
tramps, they do not intrude their
into the labor market,
and to this extent they act on the
theory of the Communists, who
would Danish the Chinese, stop
labor in the prisons, limit appren-
and abridge the hours
which constitute days work. How
grateful the Communists ought to
be to the tramps and the sinecure
politicians for their withdrawal
from the labor market without
The idea that laborers can be
benefited by enforcing idleness
upon others is the absurdest of
WITNESSES. The greater the number
of people who are kept at work the
larger will be the abundance and
lower the prices of commodities, and
the whole laboring community is
benefited by the cheapness of the
things they have occasion to buy.
If all the classes of idlers were in
dustrious producers they would
have the means of purchasing COM
modities and thereby enlarge the
for the product of other la
Dor. The greater the number of
idlers many community thesmaller
will be the share of the laborers in
the things they produce, unless the
idlers can be made to stop eating
when they cease to work.