St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-09-12
THE LABOR QUESTION.

Some Criticisms Upon Prof. Fol-
WELLS Method OF Treating Ii.
To the Editor of the Globe:
The labor question is uppermoSt in all
minds, but the thoughts upon it are as
various as the minds. By the half Jocose
and flippant manner in which Prof. Folwell
in his address at the labor picnic treated the
subject, it shows that but very little thought
has been given to it by the professor, and
hence he can hardly rank among the thought
full men who are wrestling with it, although
he gently hints that he would like to be in
Guided among the number Nautilus is
quoted incorrectly as to what he said, aud
not US TO his apprehension. He said that
vice, veuerial diseases. etc, were the means
that Providence had selected to relieve the
world of an overburdened population. as well
as war, pestilence and famine. Nowhere,
unless by implication, does he condemn the
getting OF children, and it would lie just as
fair in me TO imply that MalthuS wrote to
please the rich and powerful, and not because
believed what he penned. The way he damns
Henry George with faint praise Is so
very faint that it is low
drawn sheer Will Mr.. Folwel
point out the plagairisms in Mr.. Georges
work, and also the passionate parts? Mr..
Folwel may be great enough to lampoon
man in this Pecksniffian way, but be shows
his :ncapacity to answer the arguments by
affecting contempt for book that has stirred
the world more than all other works on
political economy put together not even ex-
ceptlng Adam Smith, the greatest mind OF the
eighteenth century. Ii Henry George is not
original in his premises, he certainly is IN
the presentation of them; for the public read
and appreciate his work from the half-fed
and haif-clothed peasant on the queens own
holdings to the greatest thinkers OF the age.
Shakespeare is but old plays worked over
from beginning to end, yet they are said so
much better in Shakes peare that nobody
cares to read the old plays any more than
they do Folwel's nearly half-column of Fall
staf1ian nothings made before he asks
WHAT THE LABOR PROBLEM Is?
E Mr.. Folwell then very gravely assures
us from the most sublime heights of his own
egOtism that he can not 81 ATE it in brief words.
This is true. No one who has been afflicted
with his platitudes for the last twenty
years ever supposed he could, but
can point him to many q
laborer that heard him that day
who can. The labor problem can be no more
or less than the giving TO each laborer his
equity in whatever he produces The deter
mination Of this equity as the solution OF this
problem is what is really difficult, and before
this can be accomplished all the elements
which go to this determination must be care
fully computed. In state of anarchy its
solution would be simple, because every man
would be entitled to just what he produced
and no more. Anarchy, however, is incom-
patible with human existence. Mans exist
euce from the cradle to the grave compels
him to be gregarious or social to greater or
less degree, Tor the family is the first
naturally formed society Did society end
with the family, it would not be much harder
than in the anarchial state, because the pro-
ducers and consumers would be distinct; and
right here it would be apparent that all pro-
but that the consumers-the wife and mother
and the children would each have share in
what had been produced. What would be the
first legislative concern of that family? Mani
feStly sufficient production followed by an
equitable and economic consumption. Let
the doctor start out on this track.
LABORER.
Sent