The Labor enquirer., 1885-03-28
What is the Ultimate !

For The Enquirer.
Comrade Labadie, in a recent issue of The
| ENQUIRER, alludes to my demand for some
ultimate or end of the great labor agitation.
What are we striving for? Brother Labadie
is growing weary of agitating for ameliora-
tiyes of our present condition, and l wish all
labor reformers felt as he does. We are
fighting men of straw, and denouncing ef-
fects, iAstead Of going to causes.
| And he wonder. The search for reform is
at first cropping in the dark, and it is only
by constantly testing our remedies by inquiry
and experiaace that we discover their inetfi-
cheney, and are compelled to move forward
and occupy higher ground.
No man in this age can COMPASS the ulti-
mate of human progression. All we can do
is to lay a foundation broad enough to hold
us all, and reformers are now coming to the
conclusion that some form of cooperative
! union between capital and labor is indispens-
able; and as society is divided into workers
and capitalists, therefore society as whole,
| and its capital exclusively, shall control all
! the productive and diStrbutiVe agencies, such
| as mills, mines, machinery, railroads, and
other essentials.
Capital will bIindly fight against change
like this, which some reformers hope to ac-
complish through political action, while
others depend ON revolution. Political ac-
ton is useless, not because the control of
government by labor is useless, but because
of the impOssiblity of all enSlaved labor OBJ
tanning this control; while revolution is un-
necessary.
Let us look at the underlying facts of the
case, and the wrong to be remeded. From
the remotest times, society has been divided
into two classes, one of which consisted OF
slaves or wage-wOrkerS, and the other of
owners or employers. The last class reveled
IN all the good things Of life, while the work
ers were always on the verge of beggary
The conditions of society render these
classes hereditary. They occupy the same
position age after age, under all forms of
government. This is the great wrong that
requires remedy.
We have republic, and declarations of
equal liberties, and so forth, but it has no eff
feet on the hereditary seryttude of the wages
class, because this servitude Is not govern
mental but social. The remedy must there
fore be found in social changes that Will OBJ
literate these class distinctions into wage
workers and wage-payers, and unite the two
classes comparatively into one body
1t is these class divisions that must be at
tackled, and universal demand made for
partnership of some kind between labor and
capital. Capital must yield to this, or stand
upon the ground that these class divisions
are necessary, and that hereditary working
class must be maintained at all hazards, in
order to furnish support for rich and arls-
tocratic employing class. If capital shall Oc-
cCpy this ground, then an industrial revolu-
ton becomes necessary to perfect the liberty
and equality which our political revolution
failed in.
The first step in labor reform is therefore
to denounce these social inequalities and
their outrageous plunder of labor, coupled
with demand for partnership, and the ele-
vation of labor from its servile and dependent
COnQlLlOIlS. Ills Is Iuo great issue. w
waste time petitioning legislatures for this
or that beggarly measure of justice. Labor,
through partnership with capital must have
power to control its wages and hours of labor,
and enjoy its whole earnings.
Labor and capital are both blind. The one
thinks that fair wages" are all that it is en-
titled to, while the other contends that the
market price" gives labor all that it earns.
Both are great delusiOns, shattered to pieces
by the great facts visible everywhere, The
one fact is that all our great cities, our mills,
factories, railroads, machinery, and all visible
forms of wealth come from the tolls of the
farmer and wage-worker. The other fact is
that all these cities, railroads, factories anG
machinery are owned by the wage-payer. L
labor has been paid all that it earned, how
happens it that all its creations are owned b.
! those who created nothing!