The Labor enquirer., 1884-02-23
Argument for the Adoption of
Merritt H. Dement'S
Proposition
To Pass a Law Abelishing the
Practice of Money Earn.
ing Money.
The Rich are Really Kept in a
Degraded Position by Pres
ent Systems.
Workers and Idlers.


5F TX. 80
The effect of the abolition of money
earning money, or income without work
could not but be beneficial to the COM
munity. In 10 respect could it be harm.
full. It,would be simply saying to the
rich:
"You have your money and property
You may keep 1t, because we have nc
right nor wish to take it from you. But
you shall not make your neighbor pay
for the privilege of living in house, mol
for tilling the soil. Whatever you want
you may spend of your hoard to Sbuy.
But you shall not keep your money and
draw immense sums from those who
work, and who would have TO work
doubly hard in order to support you
Spend your money when and how you
will. And when it is all gone, 60 to
work and earn more, like man, and
don't ask society to support syou like a
pauper."
Is there anything unfair or unjust in
that? We are not rash nor sudden
about it. We give them FIVE years no
tice in respect to money loaned out, and
twenty in respect to real property. The
present generation of the rich will prob
ably not be able to spend what they
have; but as sure as the sun shines, they
or their. descendants, must sooner OF
later, "doff the sparkling cloak and fall
to work with peasant heart and arm"
And how much more real happiness
there will be in life for them when they
sweeten their pleasures by earning
them! How much more contented they
will be in knowing that they are hon
estly earning what they get
The rich are really in degraded po-
sition to-day. A man who lives by rents
and mortgages and bonds, cannot have
the generous impulses, the liberality and
true nobility, nor the appetite, nor the
conscience, of the man who has honestly
earned every dollar he has received.
The rich need to be elevated from their
debasement as paupers, supported at the
public expense, to position OF honest
independence, to know the sweetness OF
the bread that is earned by work.
The prohibition of money earning
money would giving the working man a
chance for civilization chance for ed
ucation; chance to have better man
ners, better tastes and better nature ;
a chance to dress respectfully chance
to be fit companion for any other man;
which he is not to-day. And when the
present bondholder and rent-eater shall
have spent his CAPITAL, and begun to earn
his bread, he will be given chance for
an appetite and conscience chance
for physical and mental vigor; a chance
for better manners, better tastes and a
better nature chance to become tit
companion for any other man; which he
is not to-day.
Another effect will be the equal distri-
button of labor. No man being able to
make other people earn his bread, will,
perforce, have to earn it himself. And
as every man in society will be doing a
part of the labor which is necessary to
support society, the work will necessarily
be more generally distributed. And II
every man shall work, no one man need
work more than five or six hours day.
The remainder of his time may then be
devoted, as it should be, to such uses as
will add happiness and peace, not only
to his life, but to all society.
Work is not a terror, except to those
who have been educated to fear it. Take
a young man brought up with no other
prospect than to earn by work the bread
he eats and the clothes he wears, and he
will be man who loves to work, and
who loves to live, because he has a right
to live. He feels conscious that he has
a right to what he eats and what he
wears that that right came by having
earned it. Such a man is proud, not
only of living, but of working
But take the man who is overworked
who works every day but Sunday, from
seven in the morning till six or eight OF
ten at night; and goes home with barely
enough money to buy bread and pay
rent for that day, and labor does indeed
seem hard to him. But it is because he
is doing somebody else's work as we'll al
his own; and his holidays and his hour
Of rest are monopolized by that some
body else.
To, that somebody else labor seem;
positively dreadful To work, with thai
somebody else, would be to die. An in
dolent dandy, who sleeps all day and
carouses or dawdles all night; who has
every convenience and luxury that
money can buy, and cannot enjoy them
who grows to despise life, and is tired Of
everything, and incapable of enjoyment
because he has never earned ito him
work is a terror. He has that poor la
borers holidays and hours of rest. Oh
how the laborer would enjoy them And
how the dandy despises theml The la
borer does his work. He does the la.