Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1888-09-01
A HANDICAP RACE.
LABOR LOADED WITH INTER-
EST AND USURY.
Living Capital Value Established
by Courts at $4,000 per Man.
A Widows Investment.
Capital Unequally
Burdened.

Edward Kellogg, in his inyalu-
able work on "IAbor and Other
Capital" proves by the most unan-
swerable figures that capital, paying
, per cent. will increase faster than
Labor. This one argument alone is
sufficient to overthrow every argu-
ment for usury.
Year by year, as Bureaus of Labor
Statistics are being established in
various States, the figures verify Mr..
Kellogg's position with singular una
nimlty. The National Labor Bu-
reau in Washington, through re-
ports gathered from over one hun
dred cities in the United States, has
ascertained that the average yearly
earnings of workingmen is 5000.
Now, let us consider the body of a
workingman as capital, and after
stating its value as machine for
production, examine how it is paid
as compared with its value in money
put out at interest. No one will
deny that it is fair way of putting
the case. Waving the blasphemy Of
considering II human body and soul
in the light of capital, let us see if
even in that light Labor has q fair
chance with other capital.
The courts, in awarding damages
to widows whose husbands have
been killed on railroads through ne
glect of management, have, on an
average, placed the value of a hui
man body at $4,000. The law
takes the ground that had the widow
not lost her husband, his capacity
for production, which she would
have enjoyed, would have been valu-
able, rs estimated in products, to
the amount of $4,000, and that
She, having been cut off from the
benefit of these products, is entitled
to their value in money.
Now, $500, the average yearly
wages of worklngmen in this c0un-
try, Is two per cent. Of $4,000. /
ask any reasonable man, then, if
Labor is not doomed from the mo-
ment that $4,000, in the form Of
money, is paid a higher rate as
usury than $4,000 in the form of
bone, sinew and brain. Reader, do
you not see, as Mr.. kellogg proves
by an lndisputablc array Of figures,
that Labor under the Usury Sys-
TEN is hopelessly enslaved? As a
business speculation, no wife could
find 50 profitable use, even for an in
dustrious husband, as to lose him
through the carelessness of some
corporation. A woman in New
York, who had missed her worth
less husband for several weeks, when
told by the trembling coroner that
his body had been found on Jersey
flats, and that the ecls had made a
dwelling place in his ribs, replied:
Pat him back, Thank God, |
have at last found an investment for
him." She had evidently not stud
led the mysteries of Usury, or she
might have found some incorporated
man-trap for him, and by working
on the sympathles Of a jury have
got ten per cent. out of him.
Every workman who lives by the
labor of his hands alone, has but one
item of capital-his body. The
recognized capitalist, on the other
hand, has various forms of capital;
he has houses and lands, he has
stocks and bonds and money.
Whatever diversity of opinion there
may be as to the justice Of Usury, on
one thing all honest and fair-minded
men will agree, viz, that no one
form of capital should be privileged
by law above another. The State
which sGyo &C one citizen that he
can legally enforce the payment of
SIX per cent. on a loan in the form
of money should, in all justice and
consistency, endow anotno. with the
right to enforce the payment of six
per cent. on loan in The form of