The Labor enquirer., 1883-11-05
One Of the Worlds Unddrpaid
Workers Weary Of Lifs's
Burdens.
A slavish Toll Of Ninety-Eight
Hours ID Every Seven
Days.
Not Enough Given for a Family's
Support to Make Wander
bilt a Lunch.

Il am tired of this world and ready to
go at any time-the sooner the better
said the driver on Fifth avenue car last
night man of fifty years of age.
1t seemed to the listener that this was a
strange remark from one of that class
which is supposed to have no human feel
ings and to be worthless to society except
as machine wearing itself away without
oil for the benefit of the privileged few.
But moment of conversation revealed
the curious fact that this man had feelings
like unto other men, and that the hopeless
ness of his life made death seem to him a
boon
For more than ten years he had been a
driver on Vanderbilt's street cars, and to-
day his wages buy him less of lifes neces-
sities comforts he dare not think of than
when he first began this daily round of
! toll. ---
! He has wife and three children, the
fourth was mercifully removed by disease
which poverty breeds With this little
| family he lives in one room in tenement
house, for which he pays $11 per month
for rent. To meet this rent and buy his
family food, he works six days in the week
from eleven in the morning till twelve at
night-thirteen dreary hours. and on the
seventh he-rests? No! On the seventh
he works from $50 in the morning until
after IL at night-nearly eighteen hours.
But of course he gets ample pay for all
of this labor?
Yes, what the Tribune, or the Times, or
the Commercial (which thinks fifty cents
a day more than a workingman earns, or
the Herald considers ample pay.
What the whole band of American aris-
tocrats and their selfish, heartless organs
consider ample pay.
He gets s1.6O day six days in the week
and forty cents more ON Sunday.
IlchoH uoliaiS aiu oiAby Cculo loI
tninety-six hours work. Twelve cents and
eight ninety-sixths of cent an hour.
Of this munifcent weekly sum the
wages of one week in four must 60 for
rent. Clothing, food, furniture, medicine,
everything must come out of the remain
der not large enough to buy Vanderbilt's
cheapest lunches.
Think of it you heartless fools, who
talk fiippantly of the laziness and unthrift
of workingmen. We call you heartless,
because that is what you are, and fools be-
cause you are inviting the bloodiest war of
the poor against the rich that ever swept
over a nation.
Think of
Behold this man toiing incessantly 96
hours out of 168, leaving him but p to eat
and sleep, like the animal to which you
have reduced him Is that an evidence of
lazmess?
Behold him supporting wife and three
small children for a week on s11.6O. Is
that unthrift?
And for what
Does the future hold outa hope for him
No! The past proves to his sorrowful sat
isfsction that the longer he lives and works
the lower will be his wages and the higher
will be his rent.
Is there hope for his children? None !!
The thorny path that he treads spreads
out before them.
He works for Vanderbilt and landlord.
Vanderbilt presses down his wages and
erects costly buildings, buys magnificent
paintings and tightens his grip on honest
capital and sweating labor; while the land
lord raises his rent and with the proceeds
buys more Land with which, like q sponge,
to soak more and ever more of the earn
! ings of the industrious.
Is it any wonder that this overworked
and underpaid man is tired of life? Is it
any wonder if he wishes he and his whole
family might 20 through the Valley of the
Shadow of Death together?
But there are hundreds like him, and
thousands in worse condition Would it
be any wonder if in their desperation they
reyolted against the authors of their mis-
cry? What may not men with families
to support and rec kless of life be expected
to do?
We warn the thoughtless revelers on the
earnings of the poor that the days of their
heartless jollity are approaching an end.
Whether that end shall be in peace or in
| blood must depend upon them.
! The poor are too poor to battle for them
selves except as brutes battle; their pov-
erty has almost deprived them of the in
telligenee to ever think for themselves.
Unless the middle class, recognizing
its own tendency to degenerate under the
! influence of the same conditions which are
reducing the lower order to a state of ami
malism, shall interpose and discretely di-
rect peaceable movement to elevate the
condition of all, by securing to each the
fruits of his labor, secret assassination.
arson and violent crime of every form will
mark the beginning of another century as
the bloodiest epoch in the history of the
| world.
Grimes Ike these from such cause can
not be prevented by law. When men re-
duced by want to the level of beasts, for
get the fear of death, no human penalty
can stay their destructive hands or control
th cir blood th irStu nasSions