The Labor enquirer., 1884-04-05
What Cooperative Government Offer,

The Chessepots tore the stout young heart
And saved Society!
JOHN HAY.
What Co-Operattve Government Offers.
Before considering what cooperative
government offers, tits well to look at
what present society gives daily. At the
best. it gives US long hours of work and
scanty wages. 1t has nothing better to
offer to the wage-worker. Society dooms
him and the farmer to pay all the e1-
penses of state and federal governments,
fight all its battles on sea and land, to
be the hirelings and servants of its aris-
tocracies. The wage-worker has TO build
and defray the expense of every prison
and poor house.
All wealth comes from labor. The
millionaire may boast of his wealth but
it all came from labor. Every city, rail-
road, factory and manufactured article
comes from labor They are products of
the tolls of the wage-wOrkers and the
farmers. Always keep this in view. The
"boss" may tell you that you are depend
ent on him for work, and would starve
without him that the factory and ma
chinery are his Well, where did he get
them? From the profits on the labor of
the farmer and wage-worker, and came
from their labor.
What encouragement is there to work
Z under such circumstances You may
toll on for year after year, building cities,
factories and railroads, but you can
never possess them under the present
arrangement of society. Interest and
profit take them from you as fast as Gre
ated The division of society into en-
ployers and employed insure the serfdom
and poverty of the wage workers. There
is no help for them except in social re-
construction.
And what is social reconstruction ?
. Simply re-arrangement of all indus
tries on a cooperative basis, under the
control of the workers themselves. And
what would such change accomplish /?
1t would furnish constant work, with
short hours and liberal wages. 1t would
cut off the burden of the useless classes
1t would admit of vast accumulations of
wealth for the men who work. Itwould
put an end to tyranny and slavery. 1t
would give wage-workers palaces instead
of tenement houses and novels. 1t
would furnish influences for the enlight-
eminent and progress of the millions. 1t
would Danish crime and intemperance.
1t would place in the hands of labor the
control of all the CONDITIONS that effect it.
The offers of CO. perative govern
ment are not visionary, like the joys of
a Mahommedan parad se. Thew will be
realities, because based on the very fun
:damental principles of political economy
They will lead to the exaltation of the
masses instead of individuals. 1t is not
a fallacy invented by demagogues, like
political platforms, but it is living and
Vital principle. 1t rests on labor, e1-
change and accumulstions of wealth. 1t
does not offer everything for nothing,
but it insists that labor shall enjoy, in
one form or another, the whole fruits of
its toll.
Cooperative government outrages no
law or religion or morality. 1t is willing
to be done by just as it does to others.
1t exacts nothing without an equitable
equivalent. 1t is hated by social plum
derers, because it denounces their usuri a
and profits. All the appliances that
wealth can control are in hostility to it.
And for what? Because it would put an
end to the plunder and enslavement Of
labor.
Cooperation is the rising giant re-
former of the age. All the wrongs and
abuses that have cursed men for CEN
turies, will 60 down before its triumphal
progress-Evening Telegram.