The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1878-07-24
CAPITAL AND LABOR COMMUNISM

Legislators aud statesmen, and men of
thought and close observation, regard the
present attitude OF labor and capital as one
of great gravity. The subject is being very
generally discussed, and it is a matter of
profound regret and of painful solicitude
that the tendency of these discussions is to
complicats rather than elucidate what some
people regard as the problem of the hour"
Some writer's and speakers seem to regard
their mission fulfilled when they denounce
laboring men who are associating together
for the purpose of improving their condition
as Communists" and this, to them. is all
the more satisfactory since they at
tach TO the term communism" ali
that is infamous in society, all that is venaI
in politics and all that is treacherous in pro-
fessions. They go to Europe, and in the ter
rible conflicts that stain the civilization of
France ask the people to declare that the
present arrangement of business and indus
tries should extort no complaints from those
who are suffering the pangs of hunger, ana
the slightest restlessness on the part of the
laboring classes is at once denounced as dan
gerous and as leading directly to ''commun-
'istic outrages," in which life and property
will be disregarded and anarchy will usurp
the place of order. 1t is safe to say that
such incendlary talk is not calculated to inn
prove the present situation or the
outlook for the immediate future.
writer in the New York Graphic estimates
the aggregate communistic force in the
II !.
trines preached by the leaders. The writer,
with far reaching vision (?), sees conflicts
that must inevitably arise if wrongs are not
righted. The use of machinery is regarded
as one of the chief causes of prevalent idle
ness, and the proposition is strengthened as
follows:
An illustration of this was given the writer
a short time ago, which tells its story more
forcibIy than any generaliZing words can. A
gentleman was speaking of his early memory
of a certain English town devoted 10 the man.
ufacture of cloth, in which there was hand
loom in every house. The hum of industry
was heard in every street, and prosperity
reigned everywhere. Twenty years later he
visited that same place, and the silence of
death brooded over1t. He inquired for his
former acquaintance, who were prosperous
and happy when he knew them-as he ex-
pressed il, the very salt of the earth-and some
were receiving aid from the parish, others
had overwhelmed them all. A few
miles away he visited great
factory containing 200 power looms, each loom
attended by a girl, except where one girl could
attend two looms. This factory was constantly
busy, but IL had taken the employment out of
the hands of 1900 men and reduced them and
their families To pauperage. IL has been so in
almost everything. In the country the ten
dency Is the same. The improved machinery
in use has thrown out OF empl0ymen t the men
that were formerly needed TO cultivate the
earth and harvest the crops: hence, obeying
pie thus displaced have gone to swell the popu-
lation of the cities and 10 share the miseries OF
their poor. Here, am persuaded, is the root
of the present evil; the use of machinery has
thrown the multitude out of employment and
destroyed the equilibrium OF the population.
Until redistribution shall take place prosper.
1ty is impossible
1t matters not what the effect of machin-
cry may have been upon the welfare OF work
ingmen labor saving machines will be
manufactured and sold, and it is not
necessary therefore to discuss that branch OF
the subject. Those who reflect upon the sub
jet will not forget that the labor difficulties
in this country began with the panic of
1873. The causes that led to the PANIC are
the same that have filed the country with
idleness, beggaTy, tramps and alarm. Every
body knows that the chief cause that led to
the panic of 1873 was the radical curse OF
contraction. In six years the radical man.
ipulators Of revenues, bonds. syndicates;