St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-04-28

which tax amounts to nothing. Jim
Smith, poor devil, whose quarter section
lies alongside, is there. He is working
hard from sunrise to sunset. He gets
poor prices for his crops. He suffers
all manner of privatlonS. He and his
kind are making of thatSection all there
is of it. They, and they alone, are Civ
ing to the land owned by Mr.. Bonds
and Mr.. Banker and Sir Pounds very
handsome value. Smith works on and
hopes for ''better tines" He plows more
land each year. but every time the
plough goes round the field the assessor
makes note OF it. He builds barn
or granary, or better house, and up
60 the taxes, until, what with this di-
rect tax and the indirect tariff taxes, we
find that the average wage-earner-
which includes Smith the farmers
taxed 10 per cent of the average income
they receive, and the average wage
Garner has not The means left to buy
either farm in Dakota or
home in New York at the market
value which his own efforts have
given them. Less than twenty-five
per cent of the farming land of North
Dakota is occupied by owners, and
three-fOurths of all the cultivated farms
in every county of that state are heavi-
ly mOrtgaged in the favor of some East
ern land company or individual. To re-
turn to the other explanation offered.
Is it true that 81 per cent of the people
OF New York are so Incorporate and eX-
travagant that the labor of generations
is not sufficient to insure them against
nj n
fourth of their earnings for the privilege
of occupying some pent-up little place?
| entertain no such opinion of the peO-
pie of New York.
Again, from the coal and iron regions
of Pennsylvania and the coal regions of
Illinois we learn of dreadful strikes.
Tens of thousands of people on the
verge of starvation, and some of
them actually starving. but continuing
in superhuman effort to secure little
larger portion of what really belongs
to them or standing out against still
further reduction of their beggarly
wages. Pitiful sight; and in this land
of freedom and equality" Now, how
do you justify the position of the half
dozen or dozen persons who own
the mines, and each of whom
practically say to those miners,
get off my place." The average miner
does not possess country seat to which
he can repair when work is light. He
has not, in fact, square foot OF soil he
may call his own. TO "get OFF, this
mans "place' is but to get on some
other mans place." and, as landlords
are pretty generally constructed after
the same pattern, the poor miner, aided
to do so by Pinkerton men, SuccumbS
and returns to his illpaid drudgery.
But the injustice does not even stop
there. While the mine owner is i'll
dulging his employees in these little
pleasantrieS, does he while away the
time with pickaX getting out coal
for the world that must have 1T? Not
much. He calmly says TO you and me
and the rest of the world, 'aha, you
want coal do you? Well, what are you
going to do about it? L am busy with
some little differences with my men
any more of my coal you will probably
be ready to pay me higher price than
you have paid lately. I'll see that you
do anyway"
Sugar refineries are closed; hundreds
of men are thrown out of employment
fOr some mysterious reason the price OF
sugar greatly adVanceS.) am told that
oyer-production neceSSitateS the closing
down, but what arrant nonsense is that,
to be sure. AS if every family in the
world had been supplied with all the
sugar they need OF would like to have
for actual use, even at the pres
ent tarIff-bolStered prices. Over-pro-
duction is impossible, and can never
be until every individual in the world
surfeits in everything he OF she desires.
Very naturally some one remarks the
necessity of considering the ability to
pay for, as we'll as the mere desire to
have. Quite right. But the ability of
the people to "pay for' is matter, it
seems, left entirely in the hands of the
very people who control the production,
and shut down when they choose the
refinerieS and the coal mines, and the
factories and the mills, etc.
Out of our 60.000.000 of people there is
scarcely person in these United States
who would dare throw up his or her pO-
sition tomorrow morning, for they
would not know where to get another.
In these young cities of st. Paul and
Minneapolis there are actually thou
sands of able people anxious for bust
ness and employment, but they cannot
find it. In Chicago that pltiable class
now numbers, it is estimated, 4l,OOO
people, anu UedNcI Ouly hlONo HOW
many New York contains. The only |
persons who do not need, and may not |
perhaps even desire, anything that
that those unemployed people can
make are those who comprise |
the little 4 per cent class that |
has crowded them on beyond the range |
of a possible chance to secure even a |
living. In this broad land of ours there |
is an abundance OF room for all that |
great multitude. There are thousand |
places where each individual might use |
his or her ability to advantage, but they !
simply are not permitted to do so.
These particular instances OF wrong |
are not exceptional ones, but serve to |
convey an idea of the generally bad con- |
ditions, and from the similarity of tho |
character of the wrongs themselves ii |
seems to me there must be some general |
cause for them greater even than the |
oppression of the tariff.
| love this land of my nativity and |
the broad principles of freedom in its |
government. l enjoy life immensely, |
and would like to live thousand years, |
so am not pesSimiSt, but am certain |
there is very large screw loose in our |
social condition. 1t is so very obvious |
that [ would like to have it discovered |
to me. Very truly,
ROBERT S. DOUBLEDAY.