Los Angeles daily herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1884-1890, 1886-05-05

mr. D. N. Rowe in the Santa Ana agent oil
the HERALD.
AT the bottom OF the Eight Hour
Demand.
Not since 1879 has there been such
a marked perturbation in the Eastern
States as during the current Spring
The discentent seems to be almost
universal amongst wage-earners'
There is not only, in general, de-
mand for increased pay, but there Is
also clamor for less hours of work,
in addition. The demand that eight
hours should constitute days work
is so respectable intrnsically that II
Shas already been enacted into law
of the United States as respects all
employees Of the government. While
there may ut times be u good deal oil
talk about demagogism, there are
such innumerable ways OF defeating
legislation between the two Houses
of Congress that, I'M less there il an
honest conviction or q job underlying
any given measure, it will never go
through and take the shape oil law.
When the Congress OF the United
States deliberately adopted an eight
hour law il was after careful consider
ation and on statesmanlike and,pat-
riotic impulse.
The truth is that the. unheard oil
multiplication Of machinery has made
it very hard for the countless millions
even of the United States to make a
good square living. While we have
taken great pride in the inventive
genius OF Americans, few OF us have
cared to remember that this splendid
inventive faculty has been employed
largely in the line Of labor-saving
implements. The avenues for the
employment of the working man are
not to-day, owing to this agency, as
great as they were ten or twenty years
ago. We take il that this clamor for
eight hours of labor arises not 80
much from the desire to economic
the Drawn and sinew of the work
man as from his loyal and fraternal
wish TO help his fellow wage-earner.
1t is not 30 much u petition for indi-
vidual ease as It is demand that the
working guild shall not be cast be-
tween the grinding action OF the up
per and the neither milestone.
After all, 1t should be remembered
that the modern appliances of steam,
electricity and mechanics are giving
to capital, and especially to organized
capital, an overwhelming advantage
in the struggle for life. The work
ingman feels that he has as much
right as his more fortunate fellow
man, the capitalist, TO benefit by the
great resultant good to humanity
arising from the genius of the invent
or. There is no law compelling him
to accept a Gradgrind view OF life,
which would convert him into the
Helot of old. He is right to revolt
against the task OF making bricks
without straw. In declining to DO
y mere newer of wood and drawer Of
water in the sense in which the Is
raslite was to the Egyptian and the
Saxon Thrall to the Norman, he will
have the sympathy not only OF all
just, but OF all sagaeious people. 1t
has long been apparent that the con-
ditions of labor must shortly be
modified to admit of its sharing in
the amelioration of the world which
has been brought about by the SUI
perb efforts and exploits OF the hui
man intellect. TO attempt to stem
this tendency is merely kicking
against the pricks.
One of the most ingenious chap
tiers of Henry Georges Progress
and Poverty" is that in which he
takes up and confutes the doctrines
of Nautilus. The concluding years
of the last and the opening years of
the present century We're signalized
by the writing of two remarkable
books on political economy, one Adj
am Smiths "Wealth OF Nations,'
and the other work in which Nal
thus tried to demonstrate the fact that
the world was then over-populated,
In the clearest way in which any
thing outside OF Euclid has ever been
demonstrated, Henry George has
shown that under the proper condi-
lions of cooperation the population
of the globe might be increased a
thousand fold without unduly taxing
its capacity for feeding mankind, and
without exceeding the ratio OF popu-
lation which now exists in Belgium.
1t is at such stage of the worlds de-
velopment that the practical prob
lens of life have been made so hard
for the poor that riot and disturbance,
as the preliminaries, let us hope, to a
brighter and better era, are the only
notes which now reach us from the
East. Happily for California we are
escaping these disasters. A condi-
fion OF exceptional prosperity exists
throughout all our bounds. Crops OF
unprecedented volume will have to
be harvested this year, and to garner
them will require every willing hand
in the State. But it is well to give in
felligent thought to the problems
which are ahead, and which will
doubtless have been settled satisfac-
torily long before California Will have
population enough to produce here
the conditions which now exist in
Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, New
York and other Eastern cities.
-
THERk is something very ugly