The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1878-12-12
LABOR'S ENEMY.

In every country that authorizer
usury, and tolerates funded debt,
there are two marked and distinct
classes.
/. The rich and the idle aristocrat-
ic few, who are neither taxed to sup
port the government that protects
them, nor are required to labor for the
luxuries they revel in.
2. The poor, toiling, many, who
pay all the taxes, produce all the
wealth, and bear all the burdens of So
ciety, while they are permitted to en-
joy but few, if any of its blessings.
These two classes are always found
side by side. In fact, one cannot ex-
ist without the other. They are con-
ditions which result from the unjust
and inequitable distribution of the pro-
ceeds of labor.
Were the wealth-producers protec.
ted by the law in the possession and
enjoyment of the fruits of their labor,
an idle aristocracy could not exist.
A wicked, and barbarous finance
system, which enables an aristocratic
few to rob and rule the laboring mass
es, has become popular in the monar-
cies of the old world. Popular be.
cause of its brilliant and dazzling sue
cess; and not unpopular because of the
legal gag which is forced into every
complaining mouth, and protecting
muzzle that smothers every sigh for
relief.
That element of society called the
money power is the bane of civiliza-
ton.
1t seizes power that it may rob, and
robs and impoverishes labor, that it
may retain power to subsist in regale
splendor in its ill-gotton accumulations.
Speaking of this power as a writer
in Blackwood some years since said:
eve behold in tangible form pow
er so terribly strong that with a touch
it can paralyze armies. We behold it
gradually weaving around us a net
from which it is impossible to escape,
and claiming, with stern accent which
brooks ne denial, right of property
In ourselves, our soil, our earnings, our
industry and our children. To its in
huence we can trace most of the polti-
cal changes which perplex mankind,
and which battle explanation. The
wisest OF our statesmen have tried to
check its advance, and failed"
That power which has dominated
in Europe so long, whose throne rests
on the the bended backs of poverty
and toll, is seeking to establish its au-
thority in the United States.
Like the church of Rome, it seeks
protection through an alliance with
the state.
For fifteen years it has labored dill
gently to fortify itself within the walls
of federal legislation, while not one
act of congress has been passed to pro-
tect the people against its arrogant
demands.
Its secretary, James Buell., in a COM
munication to Hon. r. Morrison,
March 81, 1877, used the following in
sulting language, which should cause
every congressional cheek to burn with
patriotic indignation.
Speaking of the American Banking
Association, he said:
"This association is young and un-
known to public men, but we will as
sure them it is lusty infant, and has
been from the start and is growing
finely. Its Developments astonish
even its progenitors.
1T has not a full setof teeth-even
its eye teeth are cut. IF any doubt
it, let them put their fingers in its
nlouth;-and as for muscle, it is able
to go alone and take care of itself. 1T
can give blows, as well as take
them. But its most remarkable feat
ure is its lungs. If any one wants to
hear it roar, let him stick IL pin in it
and echos will come back from nearly
every town i'll the land, remotest as
well as nearest!"
1t has but one or two more points
to make, and its throne will be as firm
ly established on Columbias soil as it
is in Europe.
1t aims to wrest from the govern
ment the monied prerogative, so as to