Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1891-01-28
CULLlNGS.


Choice Extracts From the journal OF the
Knights of Labor.
The walking delegate is to the labor
organization what the missionary is to
the church-he makes converts and he
propagates the good work of the organi-
Zation.
The beginning of the end of cruel,
crushing competition and the dawn Of
better day is at hand, for competition
itself is the most potent factor in its
own destruction
Shall we be brave and strong enough
to break down the barriers that
ignorance, selfishness and unholy ambi-
ton have exerted to keep the producing
masses from uniting for their own sal
vation.
Governor Hill is the Worlds choice
for Senator for the Empire State. 1t
thinks him the best and fttest man in
the State for the position. This may be
so, but it is a dreadful hard thing to
say of New York
A settled conviction has grown up in
the consciences of great men of all
schools that society in its present form
presses with terrible severity on the
whole body of those who toll in the
lowest ranks of labor.
1t is high time, indeed, that the
workers looked to wider and more for
midable combinations than any which
strikes will bring about, and set them
selves to organize for the attainment
of more important objects than a mere
temporary rise of wages.
Strikes occur here, there and every
where; but they do not, in the long run,
prevent the rate of wages going down
continually, as Shylock, by the aid of
the capitalistic system, is ever increas-
ing his rate of profit. There is no cure
but to abolish the present system.
One of the great dangers to the labor
movement is that men, either poorly
organized and still more poorly prepared
for a contest, should rush headlong into
one and become not only defeated and
routed themselves, but spread conster-
nation in the ranks of other organiza-
tions.
There is no homeless, poorly-paid.
unemployed, hungry workman in this
country but knows that his ill fortune
was brought upon him and perpetuated
by class legislation. The manufacture
CA anu CdplLdllSO ndN0 pTOSD6T6Q,
amassed fortune of billions and used
the laws of the land as a lever against
the poor.
There are going to be hard times
| among the rice growers of India; that
is, unless the believers in the notion
| that overproduction is an evil are away
off. The rice crop will be ten million
hundred weight in excess of the average.
And there are believers in the over
production theory, which is another
way of saying that the fools are not all
| dead yet.
The antagonism of interest between
the working class and the capitalists
is the foundation on which the labor
movement rests, from which it draws
its strength, unconquerable, in spite Of
the bitterest attacks and temporary de-
feats. The movement will grow with
| irresistible force until the Industrial
anarchy of to-day has given way to q
new system, in which the antagonism
of interest shall have no room.
Powderly is right. The ballst-box is
the enginery of revolution, and, until
the wage-earners of the country recog-
nize the fact and govern themselves ac-
OOAu1hSAy, IlCy Will accomplish no re-
| suits whatever. We should like to see
a compact and powerful workingman's
party. 1t could do deal of good. But
there is no such thing row, and will not
be until laborers get sense enough to
use the right to accomplish a really
good purpose.
Plutocrats of all shades of political
opinion and of every creed are combin-
ing to protect their precious right of
free contract, and are calling upon the
State to provide them with free wage
slaves at the lowest competitive rate of
wages. But when the slaves combine
for their own protection, asserting their
intention that they will assume the
powers of the State themselves, the cry
goes up that ''paternalism" must not
be tolerated in ''a free country"
Gradually it seems to be dawning up-
on the minds of our Democratic friends
that the late earthquake wasn't quite so
much of a Democratic victory as it was
of Republican defeat. The more in
delibly they get this fact engraved upon
the tablets of their memory, and the
more closely they square their conduct
with it, the greater will be their chances
OF future success. Let every Democrat
paste it in his hat that the people, hay
ing become tired of being hum bugged
and misgoverned by one party, and
are In no humor to be fooled and mis-
ruled by another.