The Labor enquirer., 1886-05-08
Address to the GudgeonS who
Sneeze When Politicians
Take Snuff.
The Beauties of "Free American
Institutions" Under
Party Rule.
Ye Of the Torch and Cape, Read and
Ponder Over Your Pen
Portrait.

Ho there my young friend, you of
the odoriferous torch and oleaginous
cape.
Come hither, and behold yourself, as
reflected in the mirror of common
sense.
You are valiant member of one of
the political parties.
You imagine the country will go to
the devil unless your party wins.
The bosses have told you 80 and you
believe it.
Poor gudgeon.
The puppets on the other side believe
the same of their great purity.
Poor puppets.
And between the both of you the
country has gone to the devil anyway.
Poor puppets. Poor gudgeons.
What are you going to do about it ?
Will you continue forever to array
yourselves one against the other to
|
You.certainlv must be aware, by this
time, that the bosses phil the wires for
the capitalists, and that you are their
tools.
No?
Well, then, let me ask how is itthat a
few loafers have got so rich ami you and
your comrades who toll are so poor?
Did you voluntarily and knowingly
vote the wealth vour toll has created
into the hands Of these, Ioafers
Or, did you foollshIv allow yourself to
be harnessed up, and whipped into the
traces, bv these crafty agents of capital ,
and to he voted in herd like so many
sheep driven to the slanghte,?
Come, now, own up. How was it?
Did it never occur to you, my fine
friend, in the many weary marches you
have made over the unyielding cobbIe-
stones, that vou we're making an unmit-
tied ass of yonr elf?
And that the bosses we're laughing up
their sleeves at YOU all the time2
When, after one of these nocturnal
piIgrimages, you have torn yourself out
of b d, unrecuperated, at or o'clock
a. No., to 90 to your twelve, fourteen or
sixteen hours Of toll, your head befud-
died with the fumes of ker5sene, beer
and whisky, have you not been afraid
that the fool-killer would glide out from
some dark alley and chokeyou to death ?
And wouldn't vo1 have richly de-
served it if he had ?
And now you learn, after all your
hootlng. yelling and parading, that the
country has gone to the devil notwith-
standing.
That Pinkerton thugs stand ready to
shoot you down in cold blood, if Won in
sist upon demanding an extra 25 cents
per day.
That, in sO-called free America, work
ing men and women have been shot
down by the hired assasslns of capital
lists on the slightest pretense.
You have learned that, in the eyes of
the law, property is more sacred than
human life, /. e., the life of a working
man.
You have seen the land, the source of
all wealth, drift into the hands OF
wealthy capitalists, foreign syndicates,
and railroad cornorations.
You have read the long list of deaths
! from starvation and dfstitution in the
midst of our go called over-production.
You have built magnificent mansions
for the men who never did stroke of
work in their lives, and have been salts
| fed to live in hovel yourself.
You have built elegant carriages for
the same class of useless loafers to ride
IN while YOU are content to go afoot.
Mt few of your sisters and wives
especially the good-looking ones, in this,
as in everything else, they take the hest
have been ensnared and tempted to
prostitution by these sleek and well-fed
libertines.
And YOU, poor gudgeons and cuckolds.
have put up tie money for them to do it
with.
You make for them tie choicest cigars
while Won smoke thA cheapest trash.
Thew select the tenderloin while you
take the scraggv pieces or go without.
They rrgale themselves upon SIS cham
payne while you Quaf the scent lager.
And not stroke of useful work do
they do.
Their hardest task is to keep tally of
what they steal from labor,
They lounge in their elegant club
rooms and speak with contempt of YOU
among their kind.
But they give you taffy in public.
And they lay 1t on thick.
They hire, with money stolen from
you, silver-tongued orators who stu Fl
you as full of lies as an egg is full of
meat
And you swallow it all down.
And you open your mouth for more,
while they rob you with your eyes wide
o! en-.
/ After election, they don't know YOU
| until they want to use you again.