Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1889-07-20

hyDflu, pregnant with economic anar-
chy and political despotism.
Let us contemplate here the practical
results of such an unnatural union
Every ten years the census returns
show that under capitalist management
the expanding use and power of ma.
chinery instead of tightening the toll Of
human beings, increases the proportion
OF wage workers without correspond
ingy enlarging the field of employ
ment, and lowers the age at which they
must begin to labor. For instance, in
1880, 344 persons in every 1000 of popu-
latiOn, as against 324 in 1870, were en-.
gagged in occupations. Nearly one half
of this increase of twenty workers in
every thousand of population was made
up of women and Children.
From what we know of later facts
and tendencies it is safe to assert that
the next census will show further step
in the same direction. Not that there is
a demand for labor which the available
force of men cannot supply; but that
some work can every day be done at
less cost to the capitalist by women and
children than it was done by men the
day before; i'll consequence of which
the latter are thrown into compulsory
idleness for a more or less extended
period of days, or of weeks, or of
months; until finally, by competition
among themselves in fields of industry
where manly skill or strength are still
required, they are compelled to accept
lower rate of wages. And so the eXer-
tions of the weaker members, instead of
increasing the familys income to the
full amount of their earnings, prove the
means of curtailing that income by re-
ducing to a greater amount the earnings
of the stronger.
But, as already stated, the employ
ment of women and children accounts
for less than one-half OF the increase in
the proportion of wage workers. Where,
then, does the remainder come from?
We need not look far for an answer.
appropriated farmers turned into labor
ers, bankrupt traders turned into clerks
unsuccessful manufacturers turned into
mechanics, all by competition with
greater capitalists, must now compete
with their former employees and, for the
most part, receive lower wages than
they ever paid. Such are the gentry
whO to the number of six hundred
thousand, swelled our great army of
prOletaires i'll the ten years named.
How far we may 60 in that direction
cannot be determined with accuracy.
But there is limit beyond which
further advance is plainly impossible,
and we are fast nearing It, The above
statement of the proportion that the
number of people in occupations bears
to the total population, startling as 1t
may seem, does not convey sufficient
idea of actual conditions. 1t is gen
eral average, and embraces both en-
ployers and employees-capitalists and
proletaires. By making the necessary
discrimination, it will be found that in
1880 only one person in fre of the capt.
alist class was engaged in some occupa-
ton, whereas tlcO persons in three of
the wage class had to work or to seek
work.
Although this last statement is borne
out by the census returns from which
it is deduced), it might d pri0ri be dis
puted upon the ground that onethird of
the population of the United States in
1880 consisted of children eleven years
old and under, and therefore that the
stated proportion of two workers in
three of the total population supported
by wages would necessarily imply the
pursuit of some gainful avocation by
every person of that class above the age
of eleven; which, as we know, is not
yet the general fact, whatever may be
the number OF particular cases in which
it is So and even worse. Upon further
investigation, however, it would be
found that, contrary to the popular no.
ton, the proportion of children is con-
siderably less i'll the wage class than in
the capitalist class: G) because of the
much higher rate of mortality, and (2)
because of the much less proportion of
marriages, in the former than in the lat
ter. OF the thirteen million wage
workers, farm tenants, and other men,
bers of the American proletariat in 1880,
six and a quarter million or nearly one
half-consisted of unskilled laborers
and domestic servants, among whom
celibacy prevails of necessity to con-
siderable extent.
And here let it be observed that the
family is the root of the social organism;
that any improvement of the root will
improve the organism, whereas de-
struction at the root is destruc-
ton throughout the organism. In an
tiquity the slave was unnamed by be-
ing deprived of the right to ever have a
family that he could call his own. He
thus ceased to be a social being. He
evolved downward instead of evolving
upward We boast of having to-day no
such form of servitude among us, and
we are therefore prone to believe that,
however low some of our disinherited
may be in the social scale, nothing can
now prevent their evolution upward.
But what are the facts? What of the
growing number of domestic servants
and unskilled labOrers among whom il,
literacy and other forms of Ignorance