Workmen's advocate., 1889-05-25
SOCIAL REMEDIES AND SO-
 ClALlSM.
BY A. CAHAN.

\ century has passed since, having shaken off the yoke of the English crown and rescued their industries from under the foot of English capital, the people of the United States set out in unhampered, unremitting pursuit of happiness A century has passed and "The infant industries, which the first act of our first administration sought to encourage, now give remun- erative employment to more people than inhabited the republic at the beginning of WashingtOns presidency The grand total of their annual output of S1000,- GOO, GOO in value places the United States first among the manufacturing Coun- tries of the earth. One-half the total mileage of all the railroads and one quarter of all the telegraph lines of the world within our borders, testify to the volume, variety and value of an inter- nal commerce which makes these States, if need be, independent and self supporting. These hundred years of de- velOpment under favOring political con. dltlOns have brought the sum of our na- tiOnal wealth to a figure which has passed the results of thousand years for the motherland herself, otherwise the richest of modern empireG Twelve million children in the common schools, 345 universities and colleges for the higher education of men and 200 for women, 4j0 institutions of learning for science, law, medicine and theology, Cf f I,o demagogue, and the firm support of civilization and liberty"
 Imagine the delight it would have given the fathers of this republic to hear this statement from the lips of the Hon. Chauncey NJ. Depew, from the steps of the Sub-Treasury building, Wall street, Tn his capacity of orator of the centennial celebration of April 30th, 1 1889. Imagine the exultation of Wash ington or Jefferson at the sight of the dazzling pageant of which New York was the scene on the same day-at the sight of the marching hosts of the peaceful militia men, governors and their statfs on the one hand, and the l sublime towering editices of the Broad | way warehouses and the imposing cas- ties of Fifth avenue which the great cen ! tennial procession passed. on the other. l Could there be, in view of all this over whelming splendor, any doubt that the search of happiness inswhich the nation | has been engaged was crowned with l success?
 Unfortunately, however, there was another side to the medal, which Mr. | Depew and his "H0n." centennial con- rades carefully concealed from view. In collecting his material the orator of the great day shut his eyes to the sta tistics of unemployed labor; to the odd million of homeless, abandoned, sunken American citizens, who roam along the highways and byways of this happy land; to the cases of suicide in the la boring districts. What if, in eulogizing our schools, colleges and institutions of learning, the president of NanderbIlt's railroads had paused to touch upon the number of llliterate, weazen-faced, over- worked factory women and children What 1T the procession had turned from the princely palaces of Fifth avenue farther east or west, into the regions of the "Iower classes "' If, instead of glittering diamonds and self-satisfed, r0sy-Cheeked faces, the marching col umns had been greeted from the win dows by the inmates of the tenement cells? What would have been the de- spair of George Washington at the pie ture of squalor, penury and helpless ness. How shocked would he have been to compare the country as 1t is today with what it was when he had first set her free to pursue her happiness!
 There were no Nanderbilts in his time, but then there were hardly any cases of starvation. There was no ma tional wealth, neither was there any thing like the national misery of the United States of to-day. Women and children eagerly digging in ash-barrels ! for coal, and not unfrequently for food, winch nowadays attracts no notice, as a matter of common occurrence, was a l spectacle utterly unheard of in the United States which George Washing ton had snatched away from the iron hand of George III.
 Every step on the path of develop ment has widened the breach between the pursuers of happiness and their beaten rivals; every onward move of the liberated industries has added to the misery of the yanquished. while it in- creased the luxury and pOmp of their victorious fellow citizens; every year has swelled the ranks of the flower classes" and proportlonately narrowed down the number of good society,"" until to-day, after a lapse of over one hundred years, we see the people who, having abolished all rank and title, signed contract guaranteeing to each other the eqnal right of life, liberty and happiness, divided into millions of | (Contmned on fourth page.)