The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-04-19
SOBER FACTS ABOUT LABOR.
The Country's Production Only Allows
Average Annual Salaries of $3.50,
And Man Who Receives More Than That, or
Who Has 81, 500 Worth of Property, Is a
Bloated Aristocrat-Rights of Labor.
Special to the Indianapolis Journal


Christianity and Modern Socialism in the
Central Congregational Church, this evening
The ediice was completely filled, and the ad-
dress was listened to with the closest attention.
The topic of discussion was ''The Rights of La
bor." DR.. Behrends said:
There are no rights which are not grounded
on reason, and which cannot be justified by
appeal to sober fact Firmness Is indispensable
in the prosecution of every just claim, but when
frmness breaks with intelligence 1t degenerates
into sullen obstnacy and invites defeat In the
debate that labor conducts, there are some
things that no combinations can alter, and that
must be accepted as entering into the great IN
dustral controversy. There is. first OF all, the
fact that inequality in physical and mental en-
dowment is original, ultimate and unalterable
1t can no more be ignored in the economic life
of man than can the force of gravity in mechan-
les. There is q good deal of nonsense about
what is called the accident Of birth. Nothing is
less accidental than ancestry and blood; and all
social improvement to be radical and perma-
nent, must begin with the habits OF parents,
and the earliest care Of the new born babe. A
vigorous infancy and childhood are the best fort
une parents give to their children. There
is an inequality for which the state is RESPONSE
BILE, so long as under its guardianship any child
Is born in den where pure air is unknown
and impossible There is an inequality which
the state cannot remove, but whose guilt must
be charged against careless fathers and mothsrs,
who spend in the saloons what is needed at
home and who doom their children to industrial
servitude. There is an inequality, too. that is
inherent and permanent Neither public
statute nor private virtue can do away with it.
He who fights it fights against nature and God.
All that any man can claim and all that public
justice can secure to him is a fair opportunity.
And there never can be equality in the possession
of material goods SO long as there is inequality
in human nature. Another equally prosaic fact
Is that there is no way Of annulling the neces-
sity OF hard work. 1t Is sheer folly to deceive
the poor with the notion that play can over take
IT'S place. Leisure must always remain luxury,
however widely its enjoyment may be ex-
tended. It may be true that every human being
needs only about three pounds OF food per day,
few yards Of cotton or WOODEN cloth year, two
or three tons of coal and a given num-
Der of cubic feet of space, sheltered by
roof But scanty as such provision may seem
to be- there never has been a time when
patient and persistent toll. Savagery Is a per.
petual struggle for existence. Farming Is not
life OF ease, where the hours of labor can be re-
duced at will Agriculture is the most exacting
of pursuits. The world actually lives from
hand to mouth; is always within a year from
the brink of starvation, and the universal fail
ure of single harvest would produce wide
spread famine and disaster. There is still an
other dream that rules much of existing discon-
tent-the notion that vast stores of grain and
prompt distribution would make want unknown
and measurably increase average comfort A
sober study of the actual facts dissipates the
illusion. The total wealth of our country, now
the richest in the world, is reported at $43 $780,
600, 900, in q population of so, 600, 600, with q
total Of 17.5O0OOO producers. An enormous
sum in the aggregate. representing however.
the Accommodations Of 250 years, much of it IL
land. buildings and machinery An equal division
would give to each man. woman and child CAPT.
oil oS ,1xy lott
to the individual owner, or of So, 500 to each
producer. The latter sum represents the limit
of average wealth attainable. There is no more
to be bad. The same result is emphasized by
analvzng the annual production. The most
careful estimates place this at $40 1000 900. 900
annually. From this must be deducted
800 000 600 paid in taxes. 81 300 600 900 to make
good the annual wear and tear of the means of
production, leaving $s,0OO 900. to be divided
among 100000 consumers, without allowing
anything for interest on invested capital or for
its increase. Allowing per cent. for these the
net production is reduced to So 725. 600, 900.
Throwing capital out of the account,
tnsss is Or only ss9 Sis zsA eap f9s each sn tn
tied to dividepd-an average of from 81 to
a. cents day. Forty cents a day must suffice,
on the average. to feed. clothe and shelter
the pc ople of this country. Or, dividing the an
average income will be between 1927 and $457
year Three hundred and fifty dollars year
must buy bread, ralment pay house rent. and
provide margin for saving in every family of
three persons. Two dollars day is far above
the average income that the productive energy
Of the country can pay. He who it be-
longs to the privileged classes, with many, per-
haps, above him, but with many more below
him; and every man belongs to the bloated
plutocracy, against whom Socialism urges its
crusade, who owns S., 500 worth of property, or
who receives more than $500 year for his work
If such commonplace things were only generally
understood, the classes that now are most rest
less and disconnected would be deaf to all insur-
rectionarv appeals, and modify very materially
their traditional conceptions about the tyranny
of capital Contentment with food and raiment
is not only the recommendation of religion
that discounts material treasure, but no less tine
Injunction of a hard common sense, which en-
courages every man to secure all he can,
In the contest which labor wages with capital
there can be no safe disregard Of the old fash.
Toned virtues of intelligent industry and thrift
Labor becomes independent and secures increas
ing reward only in proportion to its intelligence
and conscientious skill knowledge will always
be power and pair of keen eyes will double and
treble the productive energy of the hands,
Slave labor is the most expensive and the least
remunerative. The ignorant and the inefficient
are always poorly paid, and this must always be
80, for as the Germans say every laborer is
also head laborer." No single force, outside
Of religion, will do so much for the Improvement
Of the toiling classes as sensible system of COM
mon schools and industrial education Hardly
less important is the habit of saving. Next to
ignorance it is waste that is the poor mans
greatest enemy. tits estimated that efourth
of an English workingman's income is spent for
tobacco and liquor, an amount which, if care.
fully husbanded would make him the owner
in thirty years of fl,000 or $5,000 and in this
country, the waste cannot be less. Wage earn
ers are often reckless in their expenditures l
have known iron worker, who for years
earned from thirty to thirty-fv dollars week,
who, when the mills closed, was brought in a
few weeks to the verge of starvation without q
decent blanket on his bed. Mr.. Mallock cites
cases OF English operatives, who, with an income
of 81, 500 in their families, live in squaid cottages
while they spend their money on grapes. and on
beefsteaks to feed bulldogs. The poor have
their extravagant habits, as we'll as the rich,
while the former cripple their future by the in
diligence For one of the best ways of resisting
the encroachments of the great capitalists is a
few hundred dollars in savings bank. enabling