New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1884-12-31
Letter from New York.

Letter from New York.
New York, Dec. 2lst, 1884.
EDITOR REVIEW:
Modern philosophy teaches that we
are the heirs of the eternity which is
past, and therein must we seek the
roots and origin of the present usages,
opinions and sentiments.
The picture presented of the pre-.
historic and the ancient world is that
of powerful commissions; mountain
ranges thrown NP, ooenn beds o1oopcu
out and continents raised and sub
merged. Later enormous beasts
swarmed over land and in the sea, Su-
arians hundred feet long, leviathans
that made the deep boil like pot,
and mammoths whose treads shook
the earth, each and all fighting for
life Then as now The dove snapped
up the insect, the hawk bounced upon
the dove and the eagle swooped down
upon the hawk.
Amid such conflicts man entered the
arena and fought with the beasts, but
little more than a beast himself.
NIGHT was the only known law, and
by it the strongest survived. In the
early history of mankind what bloody,
brutal, remoseless wars we're waged!
Man fought not only with beasts, but
with his fellowman, clan with clan,
tribe with tribe. Powerful nations
annihilated the weak or reduced them
to slavery-The strong man his weak.
er fellowman. BY some mode that
evolution does not well explain there
entered into human consciousness the
sentiment of RIGHT. A mysterious,
sweet voice was heard by man only;
the beasts never caught the Whisper of
spiritual power which entered the
lists against brutal might, whose es.
sence is selfshness.
Thence and forever is the contest
between might and right. All the
great moral revolutions ever wrought
have been for the supremacy of right
over might. Slavery went down with
a crash before this power. 1t will
shatter the thrones Of despotism more
surely than dynamite. In this sign
our revolutionary fathers conquered.
But, while they emancipated them.
selves from George H., they held ne
groes in bondage, women in subordi.
nation to man and the wage worker
slave.
Right, justice and equity, forms the
trinity of Christian graces. Love to
him who opposes might to right. The
brutal, selfish monopolistic element is
rampant yet in human nature, and
manifests itself in all tyranny, and
where even one subordinates anoth.
er's interest to lis own, be it a corpo-
ration or an individual, only as man
rises in spirituality and subdues his
brutality does right dominate him.
With the brutal principle that might
is right so firmly embedded in human
nature as to be taught by philosophers
as the devine order for securing the
survival of the 1ittest, what wonder
can there be that we find it underly.
ing our usages and institutions! Might
is the right by which the tyrant lords
it over his subject, the despot over his
slave, the bully over his victim, the
master over his servant, the mistress
over her maid, the employer over the
employed,
1t is said that wages must depend
upon Tie great law Of demand and
supply. Verify so; but the real de-
rnand is for bread and the supply is
just what the employer will give re-
gardless Of equity. 1t is the law Of
might, not right. Such IS indeed the
law of wages.
But Nature always avenges the vio-
lations of her laws, natural, social, or
economic, and wrings from the hand
of the oppressor nnequitable gains.
1t would be found on careful inquiry
that the shrinkage in the last three
years in values of real and personal
property Gland stocks. bonds and all
other investments) equals in amount
what was wrongfully withheld from
wage earners. Values appreciated by
large dividends from funds that should
have been paid az equitable wages,
the just balance was destroyed by the
wage earners not having enough to
buy the wares they produced, the cri-
sis was precipitated, and wrung, like
water from sponge, all the iniqui~
tous accumulations.
When will men know that the Uni.
verse is founded in equity, whose laws
we can no more circumvent than gray.
itation?
From so above zero to 8 below. The
thermometer went down with rush
the moment the cold wave struck it.,
and at ~ o'clock when the milkmen
ratified out in the windy street, it was
shiyering 8 degrees below zero, and
they had to crack out customers or