The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1890-11-14

SO low has the landless and tool
less man fallen that work seems to
him the greatest boon in life. The
meanest and hardest drudgery is well
come as blessing. And with multi
tudes OF men falling over each other
IN the struggle for the opportunity of
working. There is no downward
limit to which wages may not be
pushed except that beyond which
they cannot 60 and maintain the
worker.
The iron law of wages is that
wages constantly tend to decrease
until they become SO small in amount
that the laborer can no longer sus-
tain his life upon them. Think of It'll
Our present industrial system is SO
cruel in it's results that it constantly
tends to push wages down to what ia
sometimes called the life line" by
which is meant the death line. that
is, to the point at which the laborer
may as well as not work as to work.
since in either case he will starye.
This law is not an economic fiction.
Tor there are women in this and
every large city in every Christian
country who are slowly starving to
death, because, although they work
early and late, the cannot earn
enough to keep roof over them. a
bed under them, clothes upon their
backs, fire in their stoves and snf-
tlcient food in their stomachs to sus-
tain themselves in health. And there
are men-coal miners-in Pennsyl-
vania who frequently carry empty
dlnner-pails into the mines, not be-
cause they do not deserve dinner.
but because the law of wages does
not permit them to have it; because
the law of wages determines that the
food that should have been in the
miners, dinner-pail shall be thrown
as waste, into the mine owners gar
bage can; it determines that the
mine-owner shall have more than he
can eat and that the miner shall 90
to his hard and dangerous work with
an empty stomach. Do you wonder
that the gorged mine owner has to
spend part of his ill-gotten gain in
hiring Pinkerton soldiers every once
In a while to shoot these hungry min
ers into submission?
Now, if you have followed me thus
lar, you will clearly understand how
all but the skillful workmen are
forced into poverty without regard
to their personal merits or dement's.
And when the industrial training
schools make all workmen skillful.
then what we now call skilled work
men will be as poorly paid as the
rest. The only point is how little
can the laborer live on? When that
is decided you will know what wages
will be. Anything, therefore, which
tends to reduce the price of living
tends to reduce wages.
Why have we shut the Chinese out
OF this country? A thing we should
not have done. Instead of shutting
out the Chinese we should have shut
out the land speculator! Then there
would have been room for the Chi
nese. AS things are, however, we
were obliged to violate our own old
time custom and slam our national
door in the face of our Eastern
neighbors, because the working peo-
pie OF the country, whether thew I'M
derstand political economy or not.
know that the Chinese can work for
less than the Americans, because they
can live on less. Rice is cheaper than
beef and single men who sleepin hunks
and do not try to make home. can
live on less than married men who
wish their wives and children to live
respectfully. Such is the law of wag-
es. 1t tends to crowd everybody's
wages down to the lowest point of
anybody's wages. 1t is not a ma
tural law. 1t can only operate where
men are landless and toolless; but
as the mass of men are landless and
tolless everywhere it operates every
where, in mOnarchies and republics.
in protected and free trade countries
alike. ~
The coming party will be satisfied
with nothing but fraternal basis of
industry and an equality of rights
and advantages. We are not at all
rabid. we are simply obeying a ma
tural law OF economics. We do not
want to hang monopolists and CAP
italists, but we simply desire to put
an end to the system which permits
them to exist.
The nationalists, democrats, and
republicans have selected their candi-
dates and made formal declarations
OF their principles, it is now the high
duty of every citizen of the twenty
first district to Judge between them,
and after careful inquiry into the
aims and purposes of each, determine
the organization with which duty
calls him to act.
Relying upon divine providence
and the justice of our cause, let us 90
forth in the great struggle for human
rights. With regard. L am vour