The examiner., 1886-01-02
SOME THOUGHTS ON SOCIAL PROBLEMS
By a K night of Labor.
XV.

By Knight of Labor.
 Although this is called an age of civiliza- tion, yet, in many respects, we are but slowly emerging from barbarism. It is true that in the care of the sick and help less, humanity has advanced. The time was when deformed children and the sick, were left to perish. Now the sick are gathered into hospitals, the dumb are taught to speak, the blind to read, the insane to reason, the idio's are welcomed into the human family. Once; whoever offended against the ''power that be- was instantly beaten, branded, maimed, killed, without o:her warrant than the temper of the tyrant. Little by little it was found necessary to make some show of proof, though it were only the .thumb-screw, pincers, and wheel. This would not do very long, and it W IS found that the man must. be tried before even the lord could mutilate or hang him. Soon it was found that only his peers cou'd judge of his guilty, and the juries were organized. The kind Of punishment, too, must be modified; a man must not be drawn and quartered, disemboweled, hung in chains, or even hung By rore like dog, but shut up in prison. But the D. ison, too, must be mod flied. At first they were common sewers, in which, if only out of sight, the poor and ignorant might br, ed mutual corruption. This could not be endured, and SO prisons oIo ous. The time will come when even prisons will be moral hospitals, when we shall strive to cure as well as punish cur brothers.
 Capital punishment is barbarian, and also our entire penal legislation, which is calculated with unseeing certainty, to in tensify the degreda'ion which it finds already existing with criminals, and after the government has gravely administered legal retaliation (not core c: ion) the sub ject of it is let loose upon the world, robbed of the possibility of self-respect, an irretrievable outcast, and an hundred-fold more brutish and dangerous than he was before.
 It is barbarian when men gather to- gether hundreds and thousands of men, women, and children, an:l matching their living muscles against his tire,ess machines, from the rising 10 the SC ting sun, and even far into the night, exacts of them an amount of physical labor, which, while it barely feeds and clothes their bodies, starves their souls.
 | Degradation and ignorance is the almost inevitable consequence of extreme poverty. Want is ever pressing so clearly at the heels of the poor, that their whole energies must be expended in keeping ahead of it. Scanty f..od, thin raiment, comfortless homes-these immediate effects of poverty are but the small dust of the balance, con- the development and exercise of the truly human part of our nature
 | The world is full of charitable institu- ty has brought to dependence; but the means are not yet found cut for the pre- ventation of pauperism. Our legislative action is brought to bear only upon limited questions. It does not undertake to organ ize labor. The wants and needs of the workingman, all have to give way to the silver question, the problem of our nation al banking system, taxation, our decayed shipping interests, raper money, the public lands, cts. Every advance on the part of the people, every reform in their interest has been resisted. Reform and revolution never begin with the rulers; they are con- tented and do not want change A few persons possessing enormous wealth and interruptions in action are allowed to seize and hold all the natural resources of the country, as we'll as the highways and means of travel and transportation throughout the country, so that no man can travel, or work, or eat, or sleep, with out paying tribute to the all-pervading tyranny of capital.
 Each centuly's experience is bringing home with ever increasing force the truth that society is unit. God willed that there should be community of interest among men, and all the efforts of the upper ten, or ten thousand, to walk over the heads of the multitude, are unavailing. There is not a spot on the globe where a man can find means to enjoy his riches and his culture beyond the reach of the trouble occasioned -by the ignorance and degrada- tion in which the mass of the people may be left.
 The lesson to be learned is that every man should learn to read for himself, and to think for himself and one more pillar is then struck from the stronghold of dark ness and despotism, one more stone fitted into the rising structure of progress and freedom. The first essential to success is self-reliance; and the cool, intelligent self reliance of experience is as far above the boastful and headlong confidence of ignor- ance, as the soul is above the body.
 When there exists in every man an in telligent resolution to achieve a certain end, and a clear perception of the means by which that end is to be attained, then the movement does indeed become irresis- tib;e. Mankind will never display hun dredth part of its vigor, It's goodness, it's capacity for almost indefinite improve ment, until the workingmen, which con- pose such an immence majority, is re- 1u:ed from the degrading thraldom under which it actually lies.
 Tho Hol1 fl :.