The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-04-05
WAGE SYSTEM ALL WRONG
According to Professor Garside 1t Gives
Too Much Power to the Employers.
He Saws 1t Leads to Concentration of Capital
In the Hands of the Few, and Will De-
stroy Present Business Methods.

Prof. T. Hamilton Garside, of Baltimore,
who is lecturing in the large cities on
socialistic questions, spoke again last night
at the Criminal Court room. the wage sys-
TEN from a Socialists standpoint being his
topic. He said that whenever men speak
of wages it is as if the wage or return paid
for labor by the employer to the employe is
the reasonable proportion of profit accruing
from any manufacture in which they may
be engaged; and it seldom occur to them
whether the payment of wages at all, high
or low, is wrong. Socialism claims not that
labor has a right to a higher proportion of
profit. or to any wages at all. but asserts
that the system of hiring a man and paying
any wage, whether in produce or currency,
is in itself bad, is productive of bad results,
and will lead inevitably to a thorough de-
~struction of the commercial system.
ANY man." said he, "who studies is
bound to acknowledge the fact that there
is a change taking place in the commercial
system. The business of twenty years ago
is not the system of to-day. By cOntin-
ually increasing machinery and increased
facilities labor has been lone away with al
together. Labor-saving machinery hascen-
tralized and revolutionized the whole
course of business transactions, and the
revolution has -concentred the control of
the laborer into the hands which control
the productive machinery. If there is any
possibility of an individual or a company
of individuals obtaining under their con-
troll the facilitating machinery, is it not
seH-evident that as that control c~oncentres
into the hands of a man calleda monopolist,
or into combinations of capital called
trusts, that man can also control that Dor
ton of profit which is supposed to be
cannot be far distant when the whole bust
ness of the Nation will be IN
the hands of one or two men.
The lumber business of America was widely
that business is absolutely under the con-
troll of five men, and the railroad system is
under the fingers and thumbs of two men.
The exchange reports of New York, for
1885. tell us that fifteen thousand millions
more of products passed through the stock
market than were actually in existence.
That means that the stock market controls
not only the natural production, but that
1t can raise prices. can lower prices, can buy
and sell that which was never in existence.
When any system permits such things, the
result, to my mind. is very clear. If that
system obtains and that power is used, the
mentality of a people may be dwarfed.
That being the case, there is more depend
9 49,
men will admit
He then proceeded to show that the wage
system was immoral and unjust to every
man in America. He held that there was q
possessing class and q non-pOssessing class,
n that the latter was In absolute bond
age to the former, and could Only live by
its favor. He insisted that it was always
the employer who fixed the price of labor,
and never the employed, and that idleness
M starvation are all the redress that can
come of refusing to take the price offered
by capital. IF you shoot a burglar" said
the speaker, 1.-The law says you have a right
to do so. He Is taking away your deeds, or
your clothing, or your food. But suppose
you come home to your family, and say to
your wife that employment has ceased.
that you cannot bring another loaf of bread
into the house, hat she and your children
must starve, that you cannot get any work
for some other man has placed his hands
upon the land, or upon the produce,
or upon the machinery requisite
your wife and children, the law will say
that such a proceeding, worse than burg
larry. is just and legal. But that system
which obtains the life-blood of the people
feed it-and after that men will live when
they are fit to live"
The speaker denounced the economic fig
ures of Mr.. Atkinson. of Boston, as being in
every way utterly false and misleading,
and spoke of q chemist named Atwater,
who had discovered that the laboring man
in America had too much fat in his food.
the standard of England being rated 80,
States at So. He held that whenever the
people learned to live on less, that en-
ployers would readily reduce the rate of
wages to correspond; beside, this would re-
the laborer. He said he did not denounce
Carnegie formaking q million and o quarter
dollars a year from one steel mill, for it was
the fault of a system which made it right
for man to do wrong.
There Is as much partnership" ex-
claimed the Professor, "between capital
and labor as there is between the leech
and its victim. 1t stays there just as long
as there is any blood to suck. In the days
block. What was sold' Not so much flesh,
not a hand or an arm no, he was sold for
the labor that it was possible to get out of
him. A man now is hired at the very same
wages at which a slave was put up. But
the black lave of thirty years ago had no
fear for the morrow. The difference is that
the laborer is in actual bondage for the
morrow. We do not complain so much
about the law or system taking away what
another man has produced, but about that
system giving 1T into the hands OF q man
not only to take away production, but to
control the possibility offurther production.
IL a power can take away a portion of the
product of labor, and by taking away that
portion can control a future production,
does not that power limit the life and the
necessities of the life which the producer
must haves That system places under the
capitalists not only the life but the future
possibilities of the Nation itself. Politicians
are complaining about our merchant navy;
that our commerce is under a foreign dag.
Who is to blame? Jay Cooke. as president
of the Northern Pacific railroad, sent out a
circular, saying that a grant of sixty mill
ions acres of land, together with bonds of
twenty-five millions, would enable that
company not only TO build that road, but to
construct a fleet of steam and sailing ves-
sells by which to control the China and Pa
clfic trade. To-day the Northern Pacific
practically controls all the shipping which
goes into Puget sound. That power was
obtained out of the land of the people who
are taxed for the commodities they need.
ANY laboring man, it is said, can get
sSeh by saving. Suppose you save a dollar
q day, how long will it be before you can be
amilliOnairef A fraction over three thou
sand years. No man can obtain any undue
proportion of wealth except by controlling
that which another man requires. and If he
does control it must it not place another
man under his control for the purpose of
living, and will he not pay him just what
he chooses to pay hima Let labor employ
itself by every possible means to bring
about reform. We must abolish the sys-
tenn. But somebody says. respect the di-
vine rights of property. the sacred inter