Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1889-05-04

am perfOrce without bread ~ "Why
is it, asks the factory operative. that
|, who can weave more cloth in day
than can wear in years, am shivering
in rags "Why is it. asks the mason,
"that |, who can build palaces, have no
roof over my head
We must answer. Poverty can no
longer be justified, As "A social cundi,
ton, it has ceased to be misfortune;
it Is a crime. No one need be pauper
who can work, No one need be poor
who works.
To work is the natural law, and the
natural right also. Access to land, access,
also, to the Instruments Of production
through which natural forces are used
such is to-day the demand of labor.
Land and Machinery, say; for in the
present state of industry they cannot be
separated. Not only is the machinery
as necessary to the mechanic as the land
is to the ploughman, but in this age
of mechanical forces, the time is fast
coming when the land will be of no
more use without the most powerful
agricultural implements, than the raw
products Of land itself can be to-day
tic tools which it sets in motion.
1t is already SO, in fact, ON large areas
OF this continent Four hundred labor
ers in Dakota, harnesseh to the most inn
proved implements and driven by a
task-master with the whip of hun
ger, produce as many bushels of
cereals as do ten thousand hard
working French peasants in the
rich plains of Beauce and Brip. Not
only throughout the great wheat grow
ing regions of the Northwest and on the
"hOnanza farms of California. but in
the older States Of the East is machin.
cry used on the land to such an extent
as to produce upon the agricultural pop
ulatlOn effects in every respect similar
to those of the factory system upon the
mechanical and manufacturing occupa-
tiOns. The small farmer Is driven out
by competition, drops into the ranks of
the wage workers, and finally swells the
army of the unemployed.
Take, for instance, the New England
States, whose rocky and uneven soil
does not admit Of the use of machinery
to the same extent as in more favored
sections: We find that in the twenty
years, lS60-lSSO. the area of improved
land increased nearly 100000 acres,
| but the number of farmers decreased
%, 900, whereas the number of farm
| labOrers increased 1900.
Again. take the State of New York,
whose central plateauS are well adapted
| to the use of machinery; We find that in
the same period the area of improved
land increased nearly 3 400 900 acres, but
| the number Of farmers actually de-
creased 10000, whereas the number of
farm labOrers increased 10000.
Mark that in New York, as in the New
! England States, despite the increase in
the area improved, the land did not sus-
tain a greater agricultural population
i'll 1880 than in 1860, at least to any APP
preciable extent; but a comparatively
large number of farmers had disap-
peared, and had been supplanted by a
corresponding number of farm labOrers,
shall not tire you with needless
display of figures. Without, for the pres
ent, considering the Southern States,
which, for obvious reasons, require
special treatment, | shall merely say,
i'll brief, that every State III the North
Atlantic, Northern Central and Western
groups shows the same tendency, either
to an actual decrease in the number of
farmers, or to an increase of much less
proportion than the area improved,
bat in all cases tendency to a dispro
pOrtiOnate increase of the number of
agricultural laborers, rs compared with
| the number of farmers.
L., al - ,la - 1oJ IL. &
| the 4 ,0OS, 900 farms reported in the cen
sus of 1880, 1,024 900 were held by ten
ants.
Imagine, for a moment, in our highly
| developed system of production and ex-
change, farmer in Dakota, with no
| other implement than a spade, and a
| spinner in Massachusetts, with no other
machine than the distaif of her great
grandmother: Will either Of them earn
his salt; Will they live as well as their
ancestors did with those same primitive
tools? Of course not. And why? Sim
| ply because in the days of their ancestors
the product of the spade exchanged for
! the product Of the distatf, whereas in
our days, the product of the spade is too
| insignificant to be accounted of any
value in exchange for the product of
the power loom, and the product of the
dstatf is likewise too insignificant to be
accounted of any value in exchange for
the product of the steam plow.
Undoubtedly. in the chronological
order of requirements, land was the
| first; for the primitive man, for the say
age, and even for the masses of the peO-
pie up to comparatively recent epoch,
it was, indeed, the only requirement.
| To-day, however, thanks to invention
and commerce, machinery has become
another requirement. 1t is of no i'm
portance, except historically, that this
came last, or whence it came. 1t is
sufficient economically that both exist