The Monitor., 1885-01-09
A PHENOMENON.


over the strange year Of 1894. The worlC
never grew more prolific harvests. From
India to California, both ways round the
/ globe, magnificent crops kept laughing
steps with the circling suns. But in every
country thus blessed, hunger opens its
empty mouths like young black-birds in
| the nest, and cries for food. The belly OF
| humanity rattles like snare drum. from
/ sheer emptiness. Millions are forced to
take thought for what they eat and drink
and wherewithal they shall be clothed.
And this too, when the markets of the
world, in every land, are flooded and glut-
ted with productions of every kind, both
food and clothing and fuel and all the
etceteras of necessity and luxury.
Can there be over production 1t seems
so, tho many deny that possibility with
derisive laughter With miraculous ma
chinery the world can now make goods
enough in month to last throughout the
twelve. Mankind cannot or do not digest
the infinite spawn of the machines. Ac-
Hills shut tlpN IL VI run Dl tt
duced time; operatives are thrown out; for
if goods won't sell, why pile up more !?
And misery results from these stoppages
We are ill-adjusted to our machineries
The man of iron and steel puts out and has
advantage of the man of flesh and blood
Here is one item: A n Y. r. r. and
coal corporation discharged q 400 men a
few days ago; in Elizabeth, n j., 1000
men Were let go; in Trenton over 500: in
Camden 900. Like phenomena in Mas
sachusetts, in Pennsylvania, in England
and Scotland, ditto-shipyards deserted,
furnaces blowed out, factories silent. and
their windows amt doors smashed in by
desperate discharged men gnawed by
hunger. \ hundred steel steamers tied up
useless, on the Tyne, the sailors wandering
the streets in quest of food Paris is
threatened with bread riots, and the world
full of grain, In Sunderland Eng, 1.500
wedding rings pawned Spain. Italy,
Russia Belgium, Germany everywhere,
in all countries where various economic
policies prevail, the same cry is heard
there is plethora of goods and food, but
we can't get at them; work must stop.
yet hundreds Of thousands must have
work or starve And here is the glacier of
winter descending on the anxious hearts
and broken bodies of mankind. '.Woe is
mer'
s.Wa sra ora II, ,,,;sor,, T'l,;s eDoo
tacle is glaring proof of the doctrine of
the unity of the race. But the case is sin
gular, remarkable. Commonly, if one
country groans another is bettered: if one
land is palsied or paralyzed by loss of
harvests, another is galvanized into un-
wonted activity to supply the deficit, and
SO the principle of compensation comes in
to dress the balance and hold the scales
even. But we are all in the same boat
now; every land has been crowned with
hawests, but they will not sell; every land
is full of manufactured goods designed for
comfort, necessity or luxury but they are
drug, since there is nowhere a vacuum
or a demand; and so in every land we find
this contradiction of all previous expe-
rience-plenty and poverty jostle each
other; abundance and want stand glaring
at each other, both seeming to be enchant-
ed and each rooted by paralysis in its own
place, people starving beside granaries;
shivering within reach of clothing and fuel;
cotton and wool and spindles and looms
palsied ON this side, operatives palsied on
that. 1t is remarkable, exceptional, phe-
nomenal, portentious, ominous-add any
more adjectives of like import you like.
You can't pile an Ossa of adjectives higher
than the Pelion of the sad facts and the
dismal, stubborn nouns.
The Press goes on to give an account of
the demonstration of the Socialists of
Chicago on Thanksgiving day who hoisted
the black tiag-emblem of hunger, and de-
nounced the ''capitalistic mobiles, ''our
lords who feast on the blood of our
wives and children Five hundred of
these people marched behind black and
red flags, and their speeches declared they
must strike at property. 1t was most
remarkable demonstration. - Washington
Press