The Labor enquirer., 1883-01-20

crushed back as it is, it is smoulderlng
every day and hour to greater purpose,
gathering strength and intensity; and
presently it will burst with one glaring
upward fash into irresistible onnipo-
tence. Its flames shall span the seas at
q bound, to find every continent COM
bustible as summer chaff. For the days
of the peoples wrongs, are numbered,
and the traitors to the peoples hope are
doomed = -.. -.
This isl the Interpretation of that
mighty word we call anti-monopoly, and
this is the explanation of its unorganized
condition. The superficial bonds of a
forced organization will not compel the
adhesion of it's segregated parts until the
fire of a more intense suffering has fused
the workers and producersinto one great
earnest soul, animated by ONE thought
and purpose. Then there will be no
longer need to exhort the people to
action. Our eXhortations will be directed
rather to the curbing than augmentation
of that action for more than \one of US
who now call upon the people to arise, as
Ahasueras called upon the damned
spirits of Inferno, will recoil in horror
when our mandate is obeyed.
Two years will bring US to new START
ing point in our national history. The
manipulators of old corrupt conditions
are blind to the danger signals Haunting
from everv corner. They are rushing
darkly to their doom. They will not be
warned. "Though one should be sent
from heaven they will not hear" They
have dug the down grade of the peoples
ruin with swift rapacious hands; bnt the
people have recoiled from the fearful
brink, leaving their would-be murderers
aslant and hel pless upon the vortex, into
which they must surely fall.
And when they fall, it will be like Lu-
cifer, never to rise again.
have thought much of certain time
in San Francisco when women and men
walked the street hungry. They slept
on church porches, l have heard, and
never offered to smash the stained glass
windows that would have admitted them
to shelter within those sacred" portals.
had often wished that had been among
them. | have lain awake Of nights
picturing to myself the fierce delight |
should have had in defylng authority, in
making raids upon the baker shops in
standing upon the most populous streets
and crying aloud the wrongs of the class
represented, Ihave seen myself under
imaginary arrest, and making my own
defence with cIinched hands, and vim
dictive biting and fiery wrath.
1t seems to me that had such d glorious
opportunity fallen to my lot I would have
published the facts in a way to startle
the world out Of its damnable iniQuity,
and to have forced restitution from its
unwilling hands.
No such opportunity ever came to NE.
1t may be that am on the direct road to
it. The wrongs of the workers are bound
to culminate in actual hunger before
many years. There is every evidence of
this. Capital is not relaxing it's hold; IT
is grabbing more and more it will never
let up. Men and women abb driven to
despair and suicide. Humble homes are
filled with unwholesome children, gaunt
and unnourished with good blood-making
food. The position Of the workingmen
is wretched, and that Of the working
woven indescribably horrible. God
help them" !" say the Christians. Let
them help themselves, I say. They will
help themselves. There is no doubi at
all about it. They are on the direct road
to that point where they will ask no
helb but that which comes from them
selves. When that time comes, God
grant me the privilege Of being among
them, as hungry as the hungriest, as des-
perate as the most desperate. Then l
want the prlvileg Of helping to. unbottle
the tornado myself and of adding my
strength to that of others in rolling back
the tide OF despair and want now settling
down heavier and heavier upon the peo-
pie. l am tired of conditions solidifed
in justice. Rather than sit down in a
quiet corner content with my own safety
while my brothers and sisters are
wretched and in want, I will 60 through
life like comet-that monstrous vaga-
bond of intersteIlar spaca-and leave my