The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1890-07-04
is called the hereditary nobility
that no further divisions are posi-

The bars are up, and mo trespass-
ing" is everywhere. On the top OF
the American News Company's build
ing in New York. there stands news
boy, carved in marble, an illustra-
ton OF the way in which the mana
ger OF the great combine won his sue
cess, but no news boy can succeed
to that extent nowadays. Neither
Greeley nor Bennett could start a
great leading paper in New York to-
day without a Jay Gould to back
him, because where ''competition is
the life of business" only the strong
estattain success. The toughest sur
vive. The weakest go under.
1t is a great mistake to think that
the condition of the toiling masses
can be materially improved by
preaching religious dogmas to them.
| say this as a christian minister
with a full understanding OF what l
am saying So long as the existing
industrial order is perpetuated no
amount of such preaching will spread
the butter any thicker on the crusts
OF the laboring poor 1t will not
clothe naked backs, or put shoes on
little shoeless feet. What the toiling
masses need is a change of environ
ment, such a change as will give them
rights and privileges now withheld
by the greedy oppression in our
wage system. The capitalists are
the fellows who need the preaching.
They need straight gospel, with
lots of law along with it.
Every industry and employment
in the land is so under the power OF
capitalism that one cannot work un-
less his labor results in more profit
to another than himself. But who
has the right to say that the exer-
else of my powers shall be more prof
liable to him than to me? Practi-
cally the only or chief interest your
employer has in you is to make
money out OF you. That is to say,
he wants to use your talents, your
powers of hand and brain for his adj
vantage. While in this he is selfish
and sordidly SO, he wants you, by
the expenditures of your own life en-
ergies, to make sacrifices to his SELF
ishness-to help him, in fact, add
more and more to ''his pile" Your
enjoyment OF your own powers and
talents, in their legitimate exercise,
your personal good and happiness
are nothing to him. All must be
prostituted to his service and for his
gain. A recent writer says: 81 never
met a man who felt bound by the
curse of labor pronounced on Adam
to earn his bread by the sweat Of his
own face, if he could induce some one
else to do the sweating for him."
In 1856 the Baptist Association of
Charleston, S. c., passed a resolution
to the effect that slavery was after
all, an economic question, and
should be considered thus: "Wheth-
er it is better for us, the slave own
ers. to have all the time and all the
strength of the laborer, with the re-
sponsibility of feeding, clothing, and
caring for him in sickness and old
age, or to buy a part OF his time and
strength, with no such responsible
ties"
What is the inevitable tendency OF
this state of things? What but to
make men sordid, mean, selfish, des-
perate?
More than thirty years ago
Thoreau, the Concord philosopher,
wrote: 1.-THE masses OF men lead
lives of quiet desperation. What is
called resignation, is confirmed des-
peration." With how much more
truth OF application can this be said
now.
A system that places before men
women and children, temptations to
dishonesty, and crime, is a deplorable
system.
A temptation to dishonesty arises,
under the present system, at the
point where restitution contrasts it.
self with plenty, pinching want, with
,extravagant luxury, -unremunera-
tive toll, with fat pursed idleness.
For example. what should you
think would be the effect on hard
working, insuficiently paid laborer,
with wife and children to support,
and who can barely support them, at
reading such a statement as this
from the pen OF a late correspondent
to the Brooklyn Eagle: "The widow
OF the late Moses T. has $4,000
900. She is a Presbyterian. Church
going is one of her favorite pursuits.
She has also a private chaplain. F"
(The writer did not say what the
chaplain cost.)
You cannot make an intelligent la
boring man, who thinks, believe that
a system that admits of such enor-
nous inequality of condition between
one member OF society and another is
the best system.
Society to-day tempts the poor
man to dishonesty by withholding
from him his rights. Under the goad
of pressing needs, which society will
not recognize, he steals. Society
IL L l.: -,