The Labor enquirer., 1885-04-04

been made with the direct purpose OF
benefittina tho people e-but only for
profit and personal gam. And SO the
progress we boast of is inharmonious,
disorderly, artificial and makes people
live unnatural and unhappy lives. The
Inhabitants of new towns, isolated from
older societies, did not come together
because there was ANYTHING congenial
between them, or had any great love for
each other or would be happier living
together. They did not leave dear old
friends and associations to join q few
strangersin strange land because they
really wanted to. The terrible struggle,
societary arrangements make necessary.
compelled them to go. Our railroads
are not always laid because any one ac-
tually needs them, but because some-
body wants to make some money! and
so we have often three or four roads do-
ing q losing business between the same
points where one well-managed line
would answer every purpose. Roads
are pushed out where nobody wants to,
60 and then poor humanity is pushed
out after them, ostensibly to develop the
country, really to feed the parasites. No
class of slaves is more entirely hood
winked and defrauded than the "brave
pioneer farmer" he has been urged OF
fairly driven to try to better himself in
the far west. he has torn himself away
from everything that made life enjoy
le-friends, relatives, comforts and
advantages of civilization, his old home
and the surroundings and associations
that were part of his life, and travelled
over miles and miles of unused land to
some spot he may be permitted to settle
upon. He works early and late, lives in
little inconvenient house, knows no
relaxation or rest, forgets what literature,
arts, lectures, concerts mean. He mus
never give way to home sickness or any
other sickness and when he is old and
crippled with toll and his wornou It
spirit is incapable of enjoyment, he may
possibly have a home of his own and
something to leave his children. But
this is the unfortunate pioneer. What
with board of trade speculations at one
end, taxes at the other, and an Unsuitable
railroad corporation between, the poor
western farmer gets so literally squeezed,
often nothing is left at the end of life
of anxiety and struggle but morgaged
farm and a broken heart.
When it takes seventy-five bushels Of
western mans corn to buy ton of
coal mined in Ohio, and the miner has
to dig out twelve tons of coal to buy one
bushel of corn. we may we'll stand
1 aghast at our boasted systems of devel-
oping the country.
If all that has been done only serves
to make the masses more miserab lie
there can be nothing commendable in
the work. To place people where they
can be more easily robbed is not confer
ring a blessing on them I; miners and
farmers would be better off without
without railroads, since they serve to
separate them rather than unite them.
But, it is said if necessity had not
urged the people on they would not have
left their homes, there would have been
no enterprise, and the cities would be
more overcrowded than now and the
country left undeveloped. / answer
there must be right way to do every-
thing that is necessary to be done. This
haphazard way of dropping bit of hu-
manity here, there and anywhere, with
out any reference to their comfort or
happiness, or according to any syste M
lied plan of settling the country" can
not be natural or wise way.
Civilization should spread out natur-
ally and easily. 1t should be thorough
as far as it goes, and should not try to
extend over territory it cannot utilize
Every inch of ground should be put to
good use as it advances.
1t would not under a just system
where natural laws prevailed, jump over
millions of good acres to try spot of
development" in remote and unde-
sirable corner. People would keep to-
gether, not elbowing each other, but
within easy hailing distance.
Some one would always be going on
voyages of discovery; but they could
come back again without making it the
event of lifetime. Railroads could be
run out to coal fields, gold, silver and
iron mines, forests, etc., but nobody
need be forced by want to live there, or
even on the lines if they did not W ant
to. Farms could be extended as far as
advisable, but farmers need not neces-
sarily live at the extreme end in a
dreary, lonely home away from any one
else. .
Oh no, our grand achievements in de-
veleping the country are nothing to
boast of. An avowed enemy to civiliza-
ton, liberty and enlightenment, could
scarcely have wrought out more waste
full, irregular, slavish way than the pres
ent method of developing the country
| LIZZIE M. SwANK.
CHICAGO, March 80.
DYNAMITE AS AN INSTRUCTOR.