The Labor enquirer., 1884-04-12
Labor,
LAbOr
Editor Labor Enquirer.

Editor Labor Enquirer.
DENVER, April 10.-What are you; a
laborerP Then you are king If life has
been successful one, if it has been happy
one, if it has been satisfactory one, it has
been one of toll and labor. Do you wish to
exchange your existence with the men who
labor not? No, emphatically no. For they
are never happy, they can not be happy, for
they reap not, nor do they SOW. Whoever
labors, is independent The independent
man is his own lord and master, and need
not acknowledge an obligation. Such would
be the status of mankind If every man would
honestly, faithfully and truly labor. But
there is the rub. This world of human
beings is corrupt 50 corrupt, that labor has
become stigma and a blemish to millions,
and is stunned instead of sought for. 1t is
wrongly looked upon almost as degrade
ton. Millions are sought for, millions are
longed for, millions are demanded, and
millions are obtained right or wrong, labor or
none. Millions are the curses of the world.
They are the fends who despoil truth, worth,
love, morality, honesty and virtue. Curses
only follow them, curses only precede them
and curses are their reward.
When labor was born 1t was an homes
child which came Of honest wedloek, and
never was destined to become the producer
Of an ogre, giant, a adevouring beast. Labor
pure and honest should produce competency,
plenty, happiness and contentment. And
there it should rest. But it has become the
prey of the vulture, the wolf and the hyena,
and it has fallen from its high estate and to-
day is groveling in the muck and dirt of deg
radiation. Labor has become loathsome
thing, which, instead of being honorable is
simply tolerated Why? Because the la
borer has lost his high independence, his
moral courage, his inert superiority. Why /?
Because he has become mere tool in the
hands of capital, a flunkey before the lords of
the manor, a cringing slave in the claws of
monopoly.
will paint you pen picture, laboring
men, which 1 have seen painted upon the
canvass of reality, and which 1 would like
to hang up in the halls of congress, at the
door of every cathedral of the land, upon
every transom of the palaces of the rich and
mighty, at every factory entrance, in every
parlor of the merchants of America, aye,
upon every threshold of every citizen of
this great land. A pen picture so vivid and
real that but scoundrel will not read it and
profit by it.
There is great establishment in little
beautiful valley of the Necka, which to-day
employs about 900 men. Is makes cloth;
cloth of every kind in woolen textures.
When the workingman who started this es-
tablishment began it, he was so years of age.
Since his eleventh year he worked at.the
loom and shuttle. In misery and want, In
rags and dirt, hungry and tired, weary of
limb and soul, he had worked on for nine
teen years, without ray of hope for better
and brighter days, without an encouragement
for happier times, without a stimulant for
greater exertions, he had toiled on in dark
and unwholesome back-alleys and places,
pale, unhealthy looking thing. whom nobody
honored or loved, whom nobody caressed or
cared for, whom nobody considered or re-
spected. One day his Boss came and told
him, that he must work for three-fourths of
his present wages. he had received 16 cents
Think of it men, and clutch your fists, and
grit your teeth; 16 cents day and paralytic
mother to maintain and two little sisters to
feed! He should work on for only IL cents
a day! Think men, and feel your hearts stop
in your bosom! Why? Because as his
'boss" said, wool had risen Accents per pound.
Think men, and curse the speculator, the
broker, the rich capitalist, who caused the
wages of this poor boy to be taken from him
so frivolously. Our poor maciated weaver
sat down by his loom and put his head into
his hands and both his hands upon his knees
and wept; wept bitterly; wept long. His