The Labor enquirer., 1884-03-29
The Closing Chapters of Merritt
H. Dement'S Workers
and Idlers. .
Give Us Back Again the Little VII
lagos and Vine Uncovered
Cottages.
Remove the shylooks, the Pawnbrok-
ers, the Tax Sharks, the Blood
Suckers Generally.
Workers and Idlers.

Xxx.
CAPITAL cannot exist without labor, the
political economists say. And they COM
PLEASANTLY add that labor cannot exist
without capital. Not slave labor, no
but the free labor..of Ia free man; the
farmer wrinkling mother earth with fur
rows; tempting by toll from her bosom
the carbon of life; the cobbler in his
little shop, working by his own sweet
will, and as his wants and wishes die
tate the tailor too, in his own shop, his
own lord and master the miller and his
water power mill, grinding the farmers
grain for a well-earned toll; the sons
helping their fathers, instead of being
the apprenticed slaves of the stranger |;
the rosy-cheeked, joyful daughters doing
the family weaving and sewing at home,
instead of being the sad-eyed, wan-faced
operatives in factory, dependent for
life upon the whims or needs of the
owner thig labor would be left. And
the fair land, the little shops and the
mills will feed and clothe people, and
are all the capital we need.
Let the sons and daughters, let the
fathers and mothers be not scattered,
like slave families were once scattered,
shattering every holy and sacred tie
drying up in the hearts tie well springs
of truth and justice, and making them
hard-hearted, desperate and ready for
any crime. Let them do at home the
labor they owe to society let the fireside
be preserved; let the independence of the
fathers, from the vindictiveness of a
landlord, or the icklenesss of an en-
ployer, be preserved. Give each family
a chance for home a hope for free
freside, in which no rent or interest or
tax collector shall ever penetrate, and on
which no mortgage can eyer rest.
Give US back again the little villages of
vine-embowered cottages, green-latticed
and white-walled with flowers and
trees in natural order and profusion coy-
ering spacious yards; healthy rosy
checked chi ldren at boisterous play, and
a contented and peaceful people. And
we will gladly give back every good the
rich have done US.
Let not home in all this fair land be
subject to seizure for either debt or taxes
When a man once obtains home, let
him and his family know that they are
in citadel from which no force can dis
lodge them. Surround home with a
safeguard like this, and how sacred, how
holy, how priced would be home !!
What an incentive to any man, poor and
depraved though he be, to lift up his
head and hope Great estates and mag
nifcent palaces may attract the greedy
and vain but the men and women who
constitute the sturdy strength upon
which the structure of every nation is
built, would prize far more than castled
crag or battlement, the security, the con-
tent and the peace of an impregnable
home.
In olden times the rich were robbers,
as they are to-day but they committed
their crimes in an honester, though a
more barbarous, manner. When they
wanted money they found it, and boldly
took it. To-day they steal it, The only
protection then was to build fortresses
on high crags, with tall battlements and
broad walls But through treachery or
force, even the strongest Of these would
sometimes fall.
To-day such protection is as much
needed as then. The world is full of
people who will not work but who per-
sist in appropriating the fruits Of other
peoples labor.
They commit robbery every moment
of their lives. They assault and ruin
our homes ;they take our goods; they
enslaye our sons and daughters; our
wives and ourselves; they drive us to
degradation deeper than that of the
black slaves of old. The mortgagor, the
shyloek, the home ruiner, the cupon-
cutter, all are on. the highway, we'll
armed and intent on robbery.
And we cry for protection. We ask to
be secured in our homes to have left to
us the fruits of our labors to be given
our freedom and native independence ,
to have removed the burdens of provid-
ing food and clothing for their idlers
and their horde of panderers; in word,
to be given a chance for life.
When the savage Indians captured a
man, they at least gave him chance for
life, even such a poor one as running
terrible gauntlet. But here the poor
have none. They are slavesl Doomed
to eternal and painful toll! To live
without hope to die without peace.
- XXI
The wrongs sought to be remedied
have existed ever since history began /;
and, probably, almost ever since life be-
gan. And the world seems to have made
no progress whatever in the matter Of
relieving them. In the civilized por-
tions of the world to-day, the social life
is an almost exact counterpart of the 80