The Memphis appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1886-1890, 1886-03-24
ESTABLISHED 1910.
THE EHPENBING VAR BRrwKEN
CAPITAL hEO LABOR.

SoPieai Will hAASh tIe papers arc udll,
filled, without feeling Of apprehen
sion OF an impending crisis. No MAJ
can read the news of to-day without
feeling OF coming calamity worse than
civil war. One million Of working
men, according to the repor
of the United States Labor Blu
reau, are out Of employment anC
without the means of buyin.
bread. They have no funds TO draw
from for support, and are with
out hope destitute. Enforced beg
gary and restitution make desper
ate men. Beggary, enforced by Gu
pidity, makes despairing men. 1t il
hard to die of starvation in the midst
of plenty. 1t is hard to go hungry in
a country where wealth is Haunted as
an aggressive force by men whose ele.
walton on pedestals of gold is due to
questionable, many of them unlaw-
full, measures. Such man can have
no bowels of compassion, for no rob-
Der can sympathize with industrious
labor. What he has has come to him
without manual labor and by the sub
version of conscience, and he laughs
at the hard-working and honest toiler
as simpleton. If he is appealed to
for aid his answer is, "Let them 90
and make money as did," But a
poor man cannot buy railroads at
81, 200 mile and water them up to
$l2S,O0O per mile and compel the
farmers, the merchants and manufact-
urers to pay 6 per cent. per annum
on the water. Such wholesale rob-
berry, perpetrated in defiance of the
plainest and simplest dictates of fair
dealing, are not within the working
mans reach, even if he desired to be
dishonest, but he is within the reach
OF these, the most powerful combina-
tons OF modern times, to be ground
into subsection to a tyranny worse
than that of the robbing barons of
William the Conquerer's day. Re-
duccd to mere machine, imbruted
by continuous labor, extending, as in
the case OF street-car drivers, TO four
teen and sixteen hours in the twenty
four, the workingman asnot even time
for a moments serious thought for
his future or that of his chill
dren. Whatever of civilization he
may have had when he began
the race of life is thus being steadily
stamped out OF him, and he is gradual
" becoming asullen savage. Out of this |
slough of dependency a cry has gone |
up for cOunter-combination, and the
knights of Laborhave been organized |
o stem the broad, deep and sweeping
current OF degradation and slavery
md prepare for a contest that NAV
md in anarchy if a way is not found
o meet the honest, earnest appeal of
he worsingmen for a chance to i'm
'rove their condition by lessening the
lours of labor to eight per day, and
making such 2 standard of wages as
hall reduce the averages of beggary
o the lame, the halt and the blind.
Var in any guise is to be avoided,
at a war that would find the poor
rrayed against the rich is one that
nust be prevented, and it can be. All
ense of justice has not persisted out
t the country. The standards of fair
ealing have not been lost. Apply
nese, square the differences between
mployer and employed by the rule
hitch Christ said embraced "all the
wv and the prophets" and there can
ct be a moments doubt as to the
esult. Let the rich man, the railroad
)mbinationist, the monopolist and the
manufacturer put himself in the place
the workingman, if only for mo-
ent, and strikes will become impos- I
ble.' Let them remember that men, I
omen and children must live, and 7
at if they do not live by work they
i'll by beggary or by robbery. Let a
em remember that it is easier, as 8
ell as better, to support a poor man ?
work than in pauperism, and !
at by lifting him above the Y
the contingencies and the +,
igencies of life, they are increasing r
e ranks Of good citizenship, lessen y y
g the ranks of crime and making +,
civilization in its highest and best h
nse by raising the average of self "
liant, self-respecting and self-de- q Z;
ndent men. There are large bodies Il
intelligent workingmen who have Il
ling allies among the professions. re
lese have been discussing the dis =
rites between extreme indulgence, ::
lalor and wretchedness and the ex- u
nse OF indulgence, of palatial splen- a,
and plenty. They have been ask ~
J the question, how and by what ~
ANS can man in less than thirty r i
e years amass or acquire control OF ~
5000, 900 worth of property, sum ~ ~
eater by nearly $4,000 900 than " "
estimated true valuation of all a. a.
taxable property in each of the " "
ties OF Georgia, Kansas and Name, ~ ~
nearly as much as that of Tennes- az a.
!, OF Virginia and Minnesota. How a.
men have made 81 100000 even in az az
ong life time by their own un- "a "a
ed efforts? In a country whose ~
lstitution declares for the equality ~
all men, the means and measures ~ ~
I enable one man to absorb and ;sH
nopolize the wealth that belongs to III
lest industry to an extent like this :.
the agencies of wrong and of ~
ne. This it is that lies at the basis vi
Ill strikes; this it is that has put p ~!
or and capital at bay, confronting ~
h other as thew do to-day with an W.
wed purpose the one OF defense I Pe