Workmen's advocate., 1888-11-10
SOClALlSM'S RAlSON O'ETRE

If we had waited for moral develop mrut to wipe out the foul stain of human slavery, we would still be waiting, and helpless victims to mans scliishncss and ignorance would still be suffering The competitive wage system is nurtured in the same rank soil that gave birth to slavery, and it can only be met and overcome through the organized power of labor # Shall the wOrkmen sit suplnoly down while trailickers in human labor buy 1t m the cheapest market and sell its product in the dear
 est, or shall he confront this great and growing evil and drive il from its high place in the markets of the world
 Those who support and maintain by their approval and action the competi- ton of workmen in the midst of a gutted labor market are sO greatly wanting in moral strength that they need the stern logic of combined action on the part of wOrkmcn tO arouse their dormant moral faculties into hcalthful action. The in- dustrial struggle now going on k not, on the part of the people, based on force or numbers, but on everlasting moral | principles and these, whatever may be the forces arrayrd against them, will finally gain the day.
 The charge made, not only by social lstH but by competent statistclans, that the rich are growing richer and the poor poorer, is true. If there were no statls- ticians in the world, the inevitable logic of facts would demonstrate the truth of the assertion. When we consider that the machinery of this country does the work, according to Mir. Carroll J Wright, l of more than quarter of million of | men, and that women and children are constantly entering the ranks of labor, | that the consolidation of industries into great corporations increases the number of hirelings, that immigration floods our shores with cheap labor, and that the abundance or scarcity of labor deter mines its market value, it is perfectly plain that, given such conditions, wealth must go on concentrating in Il few hands and poverty must increase. To show how rapidly the wealth of the country has increased during the last twenty years. we have only to turn to the census of 1880 From 1860 to 1870 the national wealth increased from Sl8, ,000, ,000, ,00O to S24 ,OO0, GOO ,0u0, and in 1880 1t amounted to $43, $40, O00,0 The same census tells Us that while in ten years the wealth of the country nearly doubled, the rate of wages decreased from an average of little more than S4OO to an average of little mor1 than $500 per annum. During the five years between 1875 and 1880, there was fall in the remuneration of labor. Mr Wright shows that while the number of workers in Massachusetts
 and this is considered indicative of the general condition of the Country) h. creased by upwards of 43,OO0, and the
 capital employed by Sl6, ,OOO ,0OO, yet the amounts paid III wages renamed nearly
 stationery. Commissioner lladley re- ports that dollar day Is about the , average wage in Connecticut to q mil
 hand, if no special skill is required ol him. There are ten thousand operatives in Massachusetts alone who earn les than $500 a year. Mir. Peck reports thai
 in the city of New York 200 GOO womet
 are working sixteen hours for fifty ol 1, sixty cents day, and that i'll some branches of industry so keen s the com petition, labor may be obtained al any } price the employer may offer The chic . of the Ohio labor bureau states that "th, . present amount of wages paid annually 2 does not give the Wage-wOrkers comtor table means of support, and enable hin to lay by even moderate sum for tht eNigenCies he Is sure to encounter; tha
 an evil growing out of his condition i
 the increase of child labor, and this can
 not be prevented until the head of tht
 family, hy his own eNcrti0us, is able tt
 earn an adequate support" Betweer ? five and six millions of our people over
 ten years of age can neither read nol write. The monthly statistical circu lator of the Agricultural Bureau fol May, 1885, has a table of the wages o farm laborers in all parts of the country , from 1875 to lSS5. Here are the rates
 Eastern States -- 1875. 2S. 96; 1879
 S20.2l; 1882, S26.6l; 1885, $25.30,
 Middle States-1s1l, S9G.02; 1878 $l9.69; 1sS2. S22. ?4; 1885, S23.l9.
 Southern States-1SiJ, Sl6.22: 1879
 $13.3l; 1SS2. Sl5.S0; 1885, S1421,
 Western States-lS15, S23. 50; 1879
 SEQ. 3S; 1882, $23. 63; 1885, S22.26.
 California-1S75-S4450; 1879, HOO
 1882, S3s. 25; 1885, S3S,75.
 In lSSo we had S,OOO,OOO of farmers and farm hands, and they received fol their labor the average of S2s9-less thar so cents a day It Is not necessary IL go back fifty, forty or thirty years {,
 come to a clear understanding ul of what
 is transpiring in the industrial world to day. It is the last decade with which
 We are chiefly concerned, and during
 that decade the wealth of the country has nearly doubled, population Ina, ! largely increased, and the rate of wage,
 has almost universally decreased.
 , The assumptions on which moder socialism builds are not airy and unsub stantial. They are based on facts. ant