Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1888-10-13
GOTHAM'S POLITICS
QUEER HABITS AND NOTIONS
OF THE PEOPLE.
How the WOrkingmen Produce Com.
mOdities and Then Buy Them Of
Their EmplOyers-The Ef.
feet of Organization
and Politics.

The city Of New York is one of
the busiest spots on the face of this
broad continent Just now among
the poor folks. Once every four
years at least they have a season of
chances for drinks and dollars which
seems to make up for the interval of
three years and nine months Of idle,
ness, or what is worse, labor that
brings no exhilarating excitement
and no more wages than is abso-
lutely needed to keep little blood
in the veins.
1t is the season of politics, and
the market is well stocked with
cattle, and dealers in election live
stock seem to be well supplied with
money.
One of the curious things about it
all is the way in which the funds are
created which 60 to suppl y the peo-
pie of this great city and country
with faithful public servants. 1t
happens in this way; Thousands of
working people are permitted to
create all sorts of va luable articles
for their employers. We won't Ego
behind the returns" to find out how
these employers came to be employ
ers, but 1t is limited that they are the
exemplltication Of the theory of the
survival of the fttest. These en-
ployers, after receiving the finished
commodities, pay the working peo-
pie wnaJ is called wages--tnaJ is,
they give them the wherewithal
to purchase the food necessary to
keep them in working order. Then
the employers exchange the com
moditles for money, but not for the
same amount they paid for the
goods; they usually get twice as
much as they cost them. The people
who buy Of the employers of the
workingmen are called wholesale
merchants, and they have great
stores where they keep the goods
for sale, but they don't sell their
goods to consumers; they sell them
to other merchants, and get even
more for the goods than they paid
for them. The last buyers then take
the goods to their houses and adver-
tise by signs and newspaper notices
that they have goods on hand which
they are willing to sell to the people.
And the working people who made
the goods actually 60 to these sales
houses and pay three and four times
as much for the goods as they re-
ceived for making them. This may
seem rather singular, but we are
drawing it mild, we assure our read
ers.
Well, it is not everybody that
knows enough to employ laborers
and buy and sell their product and
at the same time keep enough of the
medium of exchange" in their own
possession to feed themselves and
sustain government by paying part
of the surplus into the public treas
ury in the shape of taxes.
Some oversharp reader may think
that the working people of New
York are not as sophisticated as they
are credited with being, but he must
remember that the wor king people
are too busy to trouble themselves
about the manner in which their
products are distributed or to spend
much time in useless haggling over
the price they pay for their own
productions. They have all they
can do to come up to the require e.
ments of their employers and they
prevent themselves from being con-
sidered impertinent by acknowledge
ing the correctness of the peculiar
arrangement that permits them to
sustain the employing and trading
class as the expense Of their labor
and that of their children, not for.
getting the luxuries they are able tC
furnish their friends, the employers,
in the shape of maiden tributes.