The Labor enquirer., 1884-03-15

ifeudal dignity, 'if I remain true, your
Ilordships, to my kingly prero4atiyes u Is
but my poor head goes off ! if subscribe
to the goddess lie that the people have 2
right to rule in this our realm, the head
of monarchy itself goes of. will die
! q king, as haye lived"
Now our present industrial system is
simply the absolute monarchy OF
Charles l., and Louis XIV. Politically
the world has outgrown monarchy IN
dustrially the monarchial idea refuses to
bulge in the slightest AS Charles /.
saw that in conceding his kingly prerog-
atiYes the whole system must tumble, 80
the corporate kings of to-day see that IN
lconceding either the right Of their oper-
atiyes or of the public to voice in their
affairs the whole system is imperilled. 1t
lis therefore that they pose with all the
dignity and contempt they can cop1-
mand when waited upon by reporters
and spinners' committees and indig-
nantly repel any assumption OF the
right by other people to meddle with
their affairs or to even put questions
| upon which they are sensitive.
Meanwhile,th the light is spreading and
public. opinion is waking up in these
matters. There is a widespread drlft,
even in conservative minds, towards re-
1publicanism in industry as against the
old monarchial idea which has formerly
prevailed. Some very influential men m
| in literature and politics seem to be just
waking up to the fact that the American
republic, with all its political liberty, has
not advanced whit in industry beyond
the absolute Stuarts in England, or the
despotic Bourbons of France. They be-
gin to see that we are political republl-
cans but industrial monarchists, and that
the two systems do not belong together.
A remarkable instance. of this new
awakening is evident in an article by
Carl Schurz in the February number OF
the North American Review. This emf
nent German, himself a refugee from
the political tyranny of the old world,
seems to have at last walked up to the
fact that when the peoples land, by leg
islative act, is donated to corporations
for the building of railroads and the lay
ing of telegraph poles, the people
thereby in law, equity, and natural JUS
tice, become partners to the given con-
Germ and its management. He therefore
claims that when the peoples interests
are damaged and disturbed by cut-downs
and other despotic acts of these corpora
tions towards their employees, it is the
legal right and moral duty of the gov
ernment to step in as court of arbitra-
ton and execute settlement. There,
then, is direct assault upon the old
monarchial idea from very influential
source. 1 care nothing for the opinions
of Carl Schurz, simply because he has
held high positions in literature and pol
itics. The gratifying point is that such
awakenings as his are every day becom-
ing more frequent in high places and
that in the near future the whole fortress
of industrial monarchy will be set upon
and carried by the combined artillery of
modern intelligence.
But the new light has hardly begun to
quicken the intellect of Mr.. Schurz and
1 doubt very much if he realizes where
his propositions must ultimately carry
him if he is brave man, and of that
there is little doubt. The question must
sooner or later force itself upon him :
Wherein is railroad corporation essen
TALLY different from factory corpora
ton so far as the right of government to
| intervene is concerned? If the land is
all the peoples, as Mr.. Schurz atfirms,
then do not the factory corporations OF
Fall River occupy the peoples land by
suffrance just as much as do the railroad
corporations If, then, the general
court of Massachusetts grants to the fac
tory corporations by act of incorpora-
ton rights and privileges which natur-
ally reside in all the people, does not
this vested monopoly make the people a
party to the concern as much as in the
case of a railroad? If the government
of the United States is legally and NOR
ally bound to step in between railroad
and telegraph corporations and their en-
ployes as an arbitrator, why is not the
state of Massachusett legally and NOR
ally bound to step in as an arbitrator be-
tween the factory corporations of Fall
River and their employees? Is not the
making of the shirts on our backs as
much public service" as the carrying
of those shirts across the continent by a
railroad corporation?
can easily foresee the outcome of
these propositions started by Mr.. Schurz.
Industrial monarchy must go! That
point is settled. Some of us may get at
it by one method and some by another.
but til -. men who persist in trampling
over the rights of labor in the bloody
shoes of absolute despotism will yet as
surely be brought to the block of public
opinion and executed as were their COM
peers in the old political world.
HoNoRIUs.
HOW TO ORGANIZE.