St. Paul daily globe., 1885-12-27
AGAIN THE CAT.
A Minneapolis sWOrkingnian Replies
to the Rev. John L.. Scudder.

To the Editor of the Globe:
The Rev. John l.. Scudder thinks my
criticism of his fifth lecture on labor and
capital unfair. 1t might appear so to him,
but certainly did not mean to be unfair.
That was unusually hot l admit When
man hears words that make his blood
boil he is very apt to get hot. In his letter,
which appeared in the GLOBE last Sunday,
he said lit would be impossible for him to
hatter the labOrer all through systematic
course of lectures We did not expect it;
we do not want it; tiatterer is not our
friend. All we ask is justice at the hands
of any one who deals with this great ques-
ton. He SAYS we are not all angels. Alas,
1t is true. have often wondered that we
were not all devils. Is it any wonder that
we have many weaknesses, when
Hopeless and cowed from womb to grave,
As peasant, vasSal and wage-Slave,
Like groveling herds, snbdued by shams,
Work-begging, as tho craving aims;
Whose long hours toll for paltIy wage
Mammon rewards with pauper age.
Deformed in limb and marred in face,
Whose pleasures vice, whose thought is base,
Who by the force Of Mammon law
Must yield our grain and reap its straw
If intemperance is the cause of poverty.
why did not Mr.. Scudder tell us what
caused intemperance? l hold that poverty
is the result of the unjust oppression of the
products of labor by capitalists, and that
poverty on the one hand and extreme lux
ury on the other is the cause of crime
Here let me quote few sentences from
Sismondi in my support. he says: Labor
is. in fact, the creator of all the benefits
which man enjoys, the source of all his in
come" when one single man possesses
a territory Tor buSineSS) which would suf-
flee for hundred families, his luxury takes
the place of their comfort, and the revenues
which would have nourished their virtues
are dissipated by his follies." The love of
tht worker has no longer a future" 1T is
almost wise in them to degrade and brutal
iZe themselves to escape from the feeling of
their misery" 1T is doing little to teach
them some of the doctrines of religion and
some of its precepts; to speak to them of
God of goodness and love, if at the same
time we place under their eyes nothing but
suffering and acts of harshness, if their
fathers (who compel them to work at an
early age) and employers, the first repre-
SentativeS of God upon earth whom they
learn to know, never appear to them but as
covetous and threatening, vigilant to de-
prive them of all their pleasure, pitiless for
their sufferings which undermined their
health. The education of life lays hold
OF them, and it is more powerful than that
of their teachers; it destroys in them all
Yeneration, all affection, all gratitude; it
breaks the spring of their souls and leaves
them nothing but sensuality and seIishness.
They seek in the senses moment of pleas
ure which the intellect and the heart re-
fuse them; they strive by licentiousness and
drunkenness to relieve themselves for some
moments from the intolerable weight of
effort and privation."
Mr.. Scudder can see from the above that
''crankS'' on the labor question are not the
only ones who believed that this beautiful
system we have is the cause of much of
our poverty and crime.
Mr.. Scudder said l selected an extreme
case, where a laborer gets from SIS cents to
S1.25 day, and asked how such a man
could be improvident? No, sir, did not
refer to the man who works on railroad con-
struction or street grading particularly. I
was broader than that. l did not
single out one or two trades, as Mr..
Scudder did. l referred to the
great majority of workers. Skilled lie
chanics are almost out of date; boy and a
machine now can do as much in day as
twenty men could do thirty years ago. This
applies to nearly every trade to-day. Fac
tory operatives are in worse condition than
the slaves who toll on railroad construction
and street grading. am exceedingly sorry
that Mr.. Scudder does not see better rem
edy for the eighty-fve-cent laborer than
sitting down hard on pauper immigration
and convict labor" The abolishment of
these evils are among our demands. They
are, however, but slight evils, and if sup
pressed would benefit the eigty-five-cent
laborer but very little, as the continual in
vention of labor-saving machinery is max
ing eighty-five-cent laborers every day.
He says THE only way to raise wages is
to limit the supply of laborers." How
would he limit the supply of laborers in the
market? Again he said when two labor
ers are after the same boss wages will be
low, and when two bosses are after the
same laborer wages will be high" l would
like to ask Mr.. Scudder what will become of
the second man who applies to the boss for
job? Must he die refused? Only
the other day man was telling one that
he answered a newspaper advertisement
and there were at least fifty applicants for
the same situation. Must they who failed
to get the job starve?
Mr.. ScDdder said that ''only per cent
of those who enter business succeed" thus
admitting that business is as hazardous as
gambling; and yet he would encourage a
sharp, shrewd, industrious workingman,
one who understands how to manage the
balloon" to enter it.
l would like to inform Mr.. Scudder that
labor organizations, particularly the Knights
of Labor, have higher and nobler aim
than the mere ''sitting down" on unscrupu-
lous employers and plucking the ''pin-feath-
ers" of financial vultures." Our object is
to completely emancipate labor from the
competitive system by establishing ''our
own industries on our own lands protected
by home exchange through home money,
under associated home government" His
reference to cooperation was highly pleas
ing to me. In fact, it was about the only
bright spot IN the whole lecture in my Opin-
ion. But cooperation, he said, would not
free US from the wages system. Poor en-
eouragement that. While we may differ in
regard to the rights of labor and the meth
ods of obtaining those rights, we will not
quarrel. l hail with joy Mr.. Scudders
noble endeavor to better the condition of
the workers, and extend the right hand of
fellowship to him. His last lecture was
good, all things considered, still l have lots
of fault to find with it, but have not time
now to criticise. 7. W. B.
Minneapolis, Dec. &c.
BOYC0TTING.