The Labor enquirer., 1888-04-21
or the Field Wherein Tolls
The Hopeless Wage
Slave.
WORK CATTLE BEGIN TO KICK
The Tramp Making Machines are Civ.
Ing the Cattle Leisure and Perhaps
They VIII Begin to Think.
Por the Enquirer.

Under our present system (tha,
of competition in labor and bust
ness enterprises) the toilers, the
producers, are wage slaves; they
must accept such wages for Their
labor as their masters, the en-
ployers, may choose to offer; they
must labor specified number oi
hours per day, the number being
regulated by their employers
they are frequently compelled to
follow their daily vocation in
buildings of faulty architecture,
imperfect ventilation, defective
sewerage, and are dark, damp
and unhealthful, filled with nex-
ious gases, vapors, smoke and
dust, and that lack all convent
ences for the comfort and safe
guards for the protection of the
employe; they must render i'm
plicit obedience to such arbitrary
rules and regulations as the en-
ployer may, from time TO time,
promulgate; besides all this they
are, on account oftheir dependent
positions, liable to all manner OF
insult and abuse, which their cir
cumstances will not permit them
to resent.
The competitive system is the
parent Of monopoly, usury, rack
rents and land-grabbing. To it
can be traced, step by step, but
none the less surely, all the great
crimes known to criminal juris-
prudence, to say nothing Of minor
crimes, misdemeanors and petty
offenses. To il also can be
charged the crime of gambling in
grain, produce. provisions and the
ordinary necessaries of life, that
too frequently causes so much
commercial distress. One OF the
most glaring evils to which it
gives existence is the corruption
of judges, boards of aldermen, po-
lice, legislatures and even congress
itself.
Hyndman uses the following
language: Whales eat big fish,
big FISH cat little fish, little fish
eat mud The idea the author
seeks to convey is that all classes
of people are engaged in contin-
uous struggle, not'merely for the
necessaries, comforts or luxuries
OF life, but for existence itself,
The result of this struggle is not
the survival Of the httest, the ex-
emplary, the representative, the
model man and citizen, but the re-
verse. Might triumphs overnight,
strength over weakness, and
seheming over honest endeavor
while the modern system OF capi-
talistic anarchy (the competitive
system) looks complacently on
and exults at the chaotic condi-
ton OF the social fabric. The
classes of society which have ex'
isted in the past, and with which
we become acquainted through
history. are three in number; the
eapitalistic or upper class, the
bourgeoisie or middle class, and
the proletarian or wage slave. A:
we trace history, age by age
epoch by epoch, and period by
period, down to the present time
we find them co-existent with al
varieties of government devised BY
man. Through all the ages OF the
past the tendency has been to es
tablish with a prominence thai
cannot be overlooked other ane
more oppressive boundaries sepa
rating the three classes from eacf
other, and rendering it the more
difficult for a member of one class
to secure admission to one that Il
higher in the scale of possibilities
To such point has this been car
ried that wealth, public Office, so
cial position and other exterio
conditions are the criteria tha
usually determine persons posi-
ton in society,"" so-called. Tot
rarely are such .'trihes' as mora
worth, a noble character, uprigh