The Labor enquirer., 1886-05-29
Will Not be DoWned by the
Hangman, the Militia or the
Pinkerton Thugs.
Rent and Interest the Sluices
Through Which the Products
of Labor are Drained.
Modern Trades Unions as WOrrier
May Do Much
Good.
For the Enquirer.

what ls the LABOR problem BrlOre
the senate committee or labor Jay
Gould said there was no predetermined
the N after would settle itself, but for 6
few discontented foreigners who had got
strange notions in their heads about
rights of labor, etc. There may be
only one place to be FLIED, but there NAV
bo 500 nice, industrious fellows who are
all working for ii" and that keeps them
quiet"
Joseph Medill went all the wav to New
York to tell the same committee that il
the workinglnan spent less in beer and
cigars, ETC., he would have nothing to
complain about. But the problem does
not seem to settle itself and that there
is Danger Ahead" has made itself clear
to impartial and honest minds like Ly.
man Abbott.
At the time Of the execution Of the
Molly Maguires The Boston Herald said
$50 ends the only thoroughly organized
attempt to reproduce on American soil
the barbaritles of the English trades
unions"
But this labor question is not downed
vet and never will be downed by the
common haugm n, state militia or Pink
erton thugs; nor by the importation of
the foreign police spy system and their
game of setting up dynamite plots, as
has been attempted in St. Louis during
the street car strike, and in other places.
Neither will it be downed bv the artil-
lery of statistics as thev are marshalled
by that typical bourgeoisie, Edward At
kinson and his friend, Prof. Atwater,
can find better employment than con-
cocting diet-tables and having them
printed at the expense of the people,
showing the laborer how to support 4
family of five on a total of Is cents 8
day though he parades his chemistry
to prove that harvest beans boiled with
old ham bones, or Indian corn mixed
with cheese rinds, are more nourishing
than Joints and cuts, and pies and
custards, and gets his friend Atkinson TO
verify the hypothesis by pointing to the
Canadian French, who live 30 econom
ically" in Massachusetts, he makes but
little impression on the laborer-except
that it raises his Indignation at such
science"
AS CARLYLE wrote Of the Gironlins :
"One thing strikes US in those poor
Girondius, their fatal shortness of sight p;
nay, fatal poorness Of character. for t. at
is the root of it. They are as strangers
to the people they would govern, to the
thing they have come to work in.
Formulas, Philosophic Responsibilities,
what has been written in Books and ad
mitted by the Cultivated Glasses; this
inadequate scheme Of natures working
Is all that nature, work as she will, can
reveal to these men. So they perorate
and speculate, and call on the Friends o.
Law, hen the question is not Law OF
NC-Law, but Life or No-Life."
Are the rights Of capital the wrongs
of labor? Let US see. Here is coun-
try with all the wealth of the Indies
with population the most skillful, in
yenious, industrious-neVer eQuallec
since the birth of man. They have piled
up wealth and grown so fatNand rlct
that, as David Wells says, I'VE are IL
danger of choking in our own grease,
and there seems to be no limit to the
resources of science to further accumu
mulate wealth, The modern miracle
IS that 1000 barrels of -four, the annua
ration of 1000 people. can be placed II
the cltv of New York from point abou
1000 miles of, with the exertion Of hu
man labor equal to that Of four men
working one year in producing, milling
and moving the wheat. 1t can there
be baked and distributed by the worE
of three more people, 80 that seven per
sons can serve 1000 with bread" writes
Edward Atkinson in metaphysics
distribution"
He also says that one operator in
cotton factory makes cloth for 2oO per
Sons; in a woolen factory one make
enough for 800; and that one shoemake
furnishes 1000 men with all the boot
and shoes they require.
Lyon Play yfair, in his address to tn
British Association for the Advance
ment of Science, last year, said: "Hn
shoe factory in Boston, bv its machinery
does the work of 10000 shoemakers Il
Paris, who have still to 20 through tn
wearYsdrudgery of mechanical labor
The steam power Of the world. during
the past twenty years. has arisen from
ll,6OOOOOO to 100000 horse power, o
l52 per cent"
And yet alongside with this progres
We have tramp laws being passed IL
every state bridewells and penitentla
ries full to overfowing poor houses an
soup kitchens, where as in Pittsburt
25O,OOO are fed on charity in one yea
In every city a band of saunterers-
from sans terre-without land or hon'
as Thoreau tells us, wandering along tn
"MsrlborouQh road, !" that leads to n,
-. 4,