The Labor enquirer., 1888-02-18


"age Of consent" when her young
daughters may be led to their own
ruin become victims to mems i'll
governed and debased passions.
When we realize that these are
facts, disgracing the boasted intel
ligenee of this latter half of the
nineteenth century. is it any won
der there are woman suffrage
cranks1 Is it strange that this
army of mothers. sisters, wives
and daughters cling with the
tenacity born of a noble purpose
to their one idea, self-government7
And when we are told-and
figures prove-that more money
is spent in this country for liquor
and tobacco than for all the neces-
saries of life combined, and that
more than sixty thousand of our
men and boys and not few
women and girls 60 down before
the whiskey traffic to dishonored
graves each year. despoiling our
homes and depriving the nation
of its brightest and best; in view
of these facts is it any wonder
there are prohibition cranks1
| And when the monstrous army
of wage-workers in mills and
mines and factories and in all me-
chanical and mercantile trades
and all farmers who wiring from
the soil the bread of the nation
cry out as with one voice I'VE are
robbed" with all the food, we
and our little ones are often hun
cry, with all our manufactures we
are often scantily clothed, with
all our labor in digging coal we
are without fires, and with all the
industry of ourselves, our wives
and our children we are poor. our
own earnings are swept away by
the few who with our own money
used as a mighty lever against US,
make unjust laws to govern us,
who tax us beyond the limits of
justice or forbearance and who in
vest vast sums in the products of
the soil to withhold them from US
at their own price, and who "regu-
late" the liquor traffic so that by
taking advantage of our poverty
and despair they may tempt us
to drink and to squander the pit
tance left us at their bars!"
What with the monopolies of
common carriers" who, though
making themselves irresponsible
for1oss, charge carrying rates ac-
cording to value of goods or favor
of persons; with trusts" invest
ony earnings in the necessaries of
life and place them out of our
reach; what with the national
banks who use On~ money by
license from government (com-
prised of the ffso who have
appropriated nine tenths of our
earnings and have assembled in
what they call a congress" to
make laws to govern "the
masses") to aggrandize them
selves and themselves untaxed, to
loan to the people at ruinous rates
the money of the people and
thus by loans and foreclosures Sc
curing their homes and evicting
them from what justice, equality
and common sense would declare
the just reward of their toll.
With all these glaring evidences
of most gigantic, bare-faced rob-
berry the people are awakening,
and is it any wonder there are
labor cranks1'
The greenbacker advocates
cheap money issued by the gov
ernment direct to the people good
for all debts public and private
and with it to wipe out at once
the national debt; the anti-monop-
olist wants the means of trans
portation, the food and all the
nations means kept in the hands
of the people for their use; the
prohibitionist wants the manu-
facture and sale of Intoxicating
liquors forever debarred; the
woman suffragist wants the mother
and the home represented in state
and national politics; the labor
reformcr wants the product of his