The Labor enquirer., 1886-09-25

small manufacturer, the small trader
being driven to the wall !? Can the cap,
ital of few hundred dollars compete
with that of millions Is not your daily
routine becoming fixed oneP You
feel the lines drawing yearly closet
which hold you in the rut of wage labor;
you realize more and more the lack of
opportunity to escape by raising YOUR
self above your fellows; you look ahead
to old age and can see no relief unless it
be seat beside sons or daughters
hearth to eat the crumb of dependence,
while they are following the same weary
round where your strength was worn
out. On every hand you find gigantic
changes going on in production, as in
the stsrtliGg fact that in the past fifteen
years the whole power of mechanism in
our country has doubled, having risen
from 100000 horse power in 1870, to
100000 in 1885.
AS an American, you of course read
the papers. You read of strikes and
lockouts of suffering communities
struggling for better remuneration. In
your walks you meet with idle men who
would work as gladly as yourself If the
law of demand would permit, and you
read with pang the statement of the
national labor commissioner that over
100000 men are in enforced idleness.
You are familiar with the tenement
house quarters of our cities, perhaps nee
essarily so. You know Its influence on
health, on the morals of your children,
on the happiness of,your' family circle.
AS an American, ask you is this con-
tinued discomfort the necessary outcome
of our republican institutions? Is there
virtue in the constitution to heal the ex-
isting antagonism between the repre-
sentatlves of capital and labor Is there
power in political legislation to remove
the economic caus which compels you
to bring up your children in human
beehive? Will the ballot restore the
faded cheek of your wife or preserve
the bloom of health on the faces of
children doomed to factory toll? In
other words how can political remedies
secure economic results
Let US weigh existing remedies before
considering new ones. Was your father
wage worker b fore GU in this land
of the free? Is your condition better
than his was? If 30, has it been ac-
quired by reason of your political free
dom? You may attend church. What
ever religion may have done for your
moral nature, has it done aught for your
economic condition, other than too often
intoxicating contentment and submls-
sion? Whatever may be the love and
veneration You entertain for the church
of your fathers for spiritual consolation,
you know better than to look there for
this relief. Is it not equally true that
political freedom has done absolutely
nothing to better your economic COndi-
ton? You feel that neither the realm
of religion nor politics intersect that of
economy under our present industrial
system.
You have N 4ntal freedom, but long
wears of conflict and blOodshed were
necessary to establish it. You fully rec
ognize the right of every one to the free
use of his reason; that there can be no
greater basphemY than the denial of
freedom of thought that what was once
deemed the sacred Drerogative Of God
is now the treasured right Of self. In
the realm of mental relations you deny
coercive authority and proclaim liberty.
You also inherit political freedom. Oar
fathers achieved 1t with their swords.
1t is legacy of which We are proud,
nor would undervalue it; nor, on the
other hand. should we overvaIue it.
Mental freedom political freedom !.
These are acquired. We need not en-.
tend for these; they are ours. But eco
nomic freedom All! here we attain to
a glimpse of the lines Of progress Since
the sixteenth century humanity has
been tending to wider personal freedom.
1t is the trend of progress, and there has
been consequent restriction of author
ity of man over man. Since then pollt-
ical questions have largely replaced re.
ligious ones in the governments of the
world until the present century. 10 he
men of the seventeenth century religious
freedom seemed all that could be de-
sired. and that the line of progress must
henceforth be towards its greater exten.
sion, by extorting new safeguarde, estab-
fishing new guarantees. So thought
men; not so Humanity, liberation once
secured, the logic of events would pre-
vent reactive measures from being sue
cessful. A principle once victorious, the
standard is ever pushed on to new fields
of conflict.
The eighteenth century presented DO
litical questions for consideration, free,
largely, from the religious phase in
which they had been clothed questions
not to be settled by religious methods.
Men read Junius, Rosseau, Paine. Polit-
ical freedom was the spirit of the age,
and the great thinkers of the times were
those who best caught its meaning and
translated Into intelligent speech, rem