Weekly Chillicothe crisis. (Chillicothe, Livingston Co., Mo.) 1878-19??, 1882-05-11

the country by precipitating the labo
excitement before there was suficien
cause for it.. The evils under which
labor is suffering did not exist a
That time, except, perhaps in California
as they are now coming to life owe
the breadth of the country. Look a
ireland, and see how a people accus
toned to submission for centuries hay,
brought about changes the government
is powerless to improve. There is
hardly any rent being paid in Ireland
There is next to no safety. The
landed class would listen to nothing
though several issues were presented
to them, all preparatory to this present
agitation. They would not be warned
could see nothing but what was under
their noses. And now it will be long
time before they derive any further
benefit from their Irish lands, while
meantime the agitation is spreading
from Ireland to other parts of the
British kingdom, and leading to bitter
feelings which may result in conse-
quences Great Britain herself does not
apprehend. In America, where the
people think quickly and act not only
with decision, but with right, we are
liable any time within the next year,
the next two years, or the next four
years, to see the entire basis of the
present politics and system of wealth
wiped out.
"ln 1877 the large carrying corpora
tions, smarting under the decline of
their business, and desirous to keep up
their dividends, began to take away
from the laborer his modicum of pay !;
and l remarked to some of my business
friends that they would presently cut
too low, and too near the heart. / had
hardly made the prediction when the
railroads broke out into flame in three
places in this country, and, except for
modifying conditions, we might have
had a terrible situation at that time.
But the laboring class saw that their
employers were pressed from natural
causes-real poverty. They know at
the present day that they are being
sacrificed not necessarily, but from
avarice; that the speculative passion to
put another million on the top of the
last million is grinding them between
the upper and the neither millstones."
"Do you seriously suggest that con-
gress and the legislature ought to take
in hand the management of these
speculative properties?'
"Not exactly the management, but
the correction of their abuses 1t is
indispensable, in my judgment, to pre-.
vent another kind of excitement, which
is far harder to suppress-the rising
of labor Snder the control of its own
demagogues and lield-marshals. The
fact is that these operations of 'specu.
lative character are generally wrong in
morals and regardless Cf the proper
liberties of the people. The American
people have forgotten in twenty years
all their forefathers ever taught them. |
The founders of the government under
took to construct labOring citizen, de.
pending upon the lands, embosomed
in his family, respecting his own cline.
country and government, and the law
Of reciprocity was encouraged every
where. Even the slaves in the
most cases were the subjects of
humane consideration by their mas
.ers. Apprentices lived in the fam.
lies of their masters a d the wife of
heir master was practical mother
% them. Now you see the speculative
class aping everything in Europe; and
iespising everything at home. You
zee men in this country gainiNg their
,nly reputation by the kind of
clothes they wear or the way they
walk. Efeminacy has crept into not
)nly our cities, but our towns. The
'ich people are no happier than they
lsed to be, and not as happy. You
Zee man in cur day living in splendid
ityle, and the watchman going up and
lown his house, cold, barely recog.
lized as an employe, and if he sleeps
IN hour on the watch he is discharged,
md another man at the same or less
wages procured. You see a man sit,
ing out on wharf Or pier watching
bale of goods with the weather so
odd that his clothes as he sits down
reeze to the bale; but he is nothing
,ut a mere uni5 in the scheme of the
ich man, and will be discharged in
moment and forgotten as quick"
"What is the basis of these ideas of
ours? On what fact do you pred
cate these thirgst"
"On the general fact that we are
lot running our railroad properties to
,eep up their condition, and there
must be time when money will have
o be spent to maintain their char.
cter, and then dividends will have to
top, or many of them, and then there
will be want of confidence, followed
y a discharge of labor; and then
he touch of hunger and then
urniDg to wealth and politics, and
aging, What were you doing all those
ears when it was your duty to look
g.,