The Labor enquirer., 1884-10-18

10 plunge u6 lnCO evcIiaoeiAS AuAus wi
your attention now to the study and
promulgation of PRINCIPLES that underlie
the interests of labor the wide world
over!
This is our only hope.
JOSEPH A. LABADIE :
/ Capftalism's Power and tho Power Of
the Proletariat,
LONDON, Eng, IA Paternoster Row.
September %, 1884. {
Editor LABOR ENoUIRER:
/ Money, to possess it. to have your
bloated vanities fostered into monstrosity
by it, your foul passions blown into ex-
plosion by it, your heart and perhaps
your very stomach ruined with intoxica-
ton by it; your poor life and all it's
manifold activities stunned into frenzy
and comatose sleep by lin one word,
as the old prophet said, your soul forever
lost by it. You wretched NOR
tai, stumbling about in Gods temple,
and thinking it brutal cookery shop
Nature, when her scorn of slave Is di-
yinest, and plays like the binding light
ming against his slavehood, often enough
filings him a bag of money, silently
saying "That away, thy doom is that r
Thomas Carlyle.
Money is the representative of wealth
and the whip ofthe modern slave-driver.
Our capitalist-dominated aciyilization"
has fixed money in the society sky as a
star to which the eyes and yearnings of
all men should be directed. 1t is the
glittering mark behind which the COM
mercial princes cheat and squInt at the
laborer. Strip commercial transactions
of money, let the hideous form of f"profit"
and "interest" stand forth naked before
the world, and there would be a leaning
towardp Socialism, such as would con-
found political economists, hush the up
roarious opposition of Bradlaugh's, and
perchance, even still the Smithite squeak
ings. <
When the worker hears of a gentle
man who owns few thousands or q
million of pounds, he at once feels very
great. respect for the possessor offs much
wealth" IF the worker would only re-
| fleet that the said "wealth" is in reality
a bond upon his own labor, he would
change his admiration into meditation
imagine the nature of such a meditation.
The worker ceases his toll for awhile,
his eyes wander up among the maze of
whirling wheels which have enslaved
him, when they ought to have ensured
him rest for thought and increased
wealth for comfort: II have beenttaught
and have believed that these pounds
were saved up wealth, which their
owners, or their forefathers had abstained
from using at the time they
earned it. But I can now see that this
money is not wealth, but some internal
bond on my labor. How came Roths-
child and crew to own promlssory notes
which compel me and thousands of my
mates to toll tor their benefit for years,
nay, forever curious that no matter how
hard we work the bond is never paid off.
And there is no way can get out of this
bargain which l never contracted. Let
me see, now. 1 must have food-which
I found out with little study of physiol-
ogy; | and my mates made all the food,
but somehow the traders have got it.
can only get food if I can give money
to one capitalist, and can only get
money if work for another. The money
I get from the second capitalist is equal
to only one fourth of the wealth I Gre
! ated while for the money give to the
first get less value than it represents.
Damn this money! 1t is queer thing,
Then the first capitalist makes fortune
by collecting ali. the small profits, and
goes about idle or begins to cheat on a
larger scale. He says that's his wages
for distributing wealth, but 1t is precious
strange how he gets more wages for dis
tributing wealth than I get for making it.
Then the, capitalist who employees me
makes big fortune by keeping three
fourths of my wages, he rolls about in a
carriage when I must walk with sore
feet; he goes abroad for his health and
takes his wife with him.; and my wife
can never get away, she never gets any
holidays, and the only ones Igetis when
! 1 am idle. Sometimes I go to the thea
ter-with my master, but then I'm up in
the gallery among foul air, and on a
hand-rest, he is in a private box which is
nicely cushioned and beautifully scented
If he wants drink he gets good wine,
splendid champagne or fine favored
whisky, and he needn't rise early the
next morning, but l can only afford a
cheap drink, which is always fiery, gives
me thirst for more until l get fuddled,
it also gives me a headache days after,
which often keeps me from listening to
the masters lecture on temperance.
Money seems to be the almighty power
here. Master gets degraded because he
has too much, and get DEGRADED because