Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1890-04-05
THE WAGE SYSTEM
APPALLED, BY ITS INlQUITIES,
BEECHER'S SUCCESSOR
REPUDIATES 1T.

City Of Grinnell, Garry and Old
Hutch A More Conservative
Preacher, John II. BarrOws, Ac-
knOwledges the Irresistible Power
of the New Forces.
CHICAGO, March 26.-It was remark
able lecture that Lyman Abbott, the
successor of Henry Ward Beecher in the
Plymouth Church pulpit, delivered in
this city yesterday evening. Central
Music Hall was packed with fashion
able audience who had paid from so
cents to one dollar per seat for the priv
lege of hearing a minister of high
repute preach 1.-THE Industrial Revolu-
tion." Would he, l wonder, repeat such
a lecture before the Central Labor
Unions of Brooklyn and New York
This he should by all means offer to do
gratuitously if he is in earnest; for the
peaceful accomplishment of the revolu-
tion which his evident study and onder-
standing of Karl Marx enable him to
now foresee depends on the enlighten-
ment of the working masses.
DR.. Abbott was introduced by DR..
Hugh M. Scott, Professor of Church
History in the Chicago Theological
Seminary-a fact quite suggestive in it.
self of the moral revolution which is
taking place in quarters where capital
ism has been accustomed to look for in
tellectual supporters. l can only give
you, as follows, the
SUBSTANCE OF HIS ADDRESS.
He had not come to amuse his audi
ence, nor to appeal to their passions, nor
to reflect their opinions. Such were
the functions of the theatre, the dema-
gogue, the preacher, or the press. He
had come simply to tell what he per-
sonally believed. He asserted that there
was labor problem, and referred to the
great railroad strikes in the Northwest,
the coal strikes in Pennsylvania, and the
London dock and Liverpool strikes, all
of them demoralizing and paralyzing
business, travel, the movements and
functions of the whole civilized world.
This labor problem affects commerce,
politics, religion, the press. 1t interests
every one. 1t is profound and far-reach-
ing, and underlies all other problems of
the nineteenth century.
He might fail to read Alright, but If he
did his best to read and understand at
least he could not be called coward.
Originally capital owned labor; that was
slavery. Next came feudalism, when
men owned not labor, but the land, and
had lien on the laborer. Out of this
grew individualism. when the laborer
was neither owned nor did any man
have lien on him. Each man bad the
right to seek the most productive mar
ket for his labor. Its principle was,
''the struggle for existence, the survival
of the fittest." and its motto, Every
man for himself and -" This was
the Manchester School of Philosophy.
1t was long thought to be the final and
perfect solution of the great problem,
but the discovery of steam power, the
invention of labor saving machinery in
troduced new elements, made necessary
the organization of labor, and made i'm
possible the competition of individual
labor in open market.
Therefore came next the present sys-
tenn, the wages system. In this system
all the tools and implements are sned
by single and very small class, and the
labor is done by another and very large
class. These tools-the spade, plow,
loom, locomotive, the land itself are
all owned by one class. The laborer
uses these, but does not own them. The
world has made progress, not regress.
The worst paid workman would not be
willing to go back to slavery, TO feudal-
ism, or even to individualism. But while
an improvement on the past. the sy ystem
is full of evils now, evils that are inher-
ent TO and essential in the structure, not
to be ameliorated or gotten rid of except
by a revolution.
LOOK AT THESE EVILS
from the wage-worker's standpoint. All
the profits are for capital DIR. Abbott
then gave many statistics sho wing the
wretched conditions of the laborer, both
in Europe and America. He asked the
question, What would it be if 7ou bad
to support yourself, your wife, and your
family on "a week" Carlyle had said
that enforced idleness Was the English
mans he'll, and yet in America, the
workingmans Eldorado, there were a
million men eager for woik in that hell.
MANKIND ROBBED OF NATURES FREE
GIFTS.
There are four gifts which are free to
all men, air, water, sunlight, and the