The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1891-09-25
MATTERS OF VITAL IMPORT.
The Bread Winners Are Somewhat to
Blame Also.

AVA - Enc Vt VI nj On
The Bread Winners Are Somewhat to
Blame Also.
It is unquestionably true that the
wage-workers of this country are, ow-
ing to the peculiar attitude of pluto
cracy towards the laboring masses, in
a condition of semi-serfdom. They
are suffering from economic, political
and social evils which are the result
of the aggressions of plutocracy. He
who doubts this is either stupid dolt
or bereft of his faculty of observation.
These evils from which the masses
of American working people, male
and female, suffer are the direat and
indirect imposition OF heartless and
indefensible greed, and they call very
loudly for redress.
While all this must be conceded, it
is no less true that part of the re-
sponsibility for the condition of our
workingmen and women rests upon
their own shoulders. To begin with,
they are responsible for allowing plu-
tocracy to weld the power it does.
They hold the balance of power-the
votes and are in a position, by virtue
OF their numerical strength, to deprive
this enemy Of its power. If they
would assert themselves. and through
organization rise in their might poll
tically we mean, they could do this.
They could in less than two years
crush the life out of this rapacious
monster.
They could elect their own repre-
sentatives to congress and to the state
legislatures and enact laws framed to
restrict, and by so much cut off the
top root of plutocracy. They could
surround corporations with safeguards
which would keep them within proper
bounds. They could make prohibitive
tariffs and trusts impossible They
could readjust upon the basis of equity
the relations of labor to capital, and
could make it impossible for a privil-
eyed few to usurp the prerogatives of
the masses of the people, All this
they could and should do; and until
they do these things, they must expect
to be preyed upon by plutocracy to
their serious injury. And, until they
thus assert and exert themselves, they
will. in measure, be themselves re-
sponsible for whatever they continue
to suffer from this source
In another respect are the laboring
masses OF this country themselves re-
sponsible for much of what they suffer.
They are responsible for the vices
which impoverish and cripple them,
not only financially. but physically and
morally.
1t is most astounding fact that the
drink bill of this land alone every year
aggregates several hundred million
dollars in direct expenditure, to say
nothing of the loss of time, work,
health, and all the other concomitant
ills of intemperance. If the money
spent every twelve months by the
wage carriers of the United States were
saved, and invested in homes and the
other necessaries and comforts of life,
instead of being poured in continu-
Gus stream into the Golfers of saloon
men, the condition of these people
would be amellorated beyond descrip-
oAOu e@AA III OEOU July ulGy per CeUU.
Comparatively small as the wages of
many of them are, if the money that
goes regularly for strong drink were
saved, that alone would greatly offset
and to that extent neutralize, what
they suffer from the dominance of plu-
tocracy.
American working people are to-day
the victims OF two gigantic curses
rlutocracy and intemperance-two
hydra-headed monsters, both of which
they have it in their power to destroy,
if they would. Why do they not do
this?
Every consideration of individual
and public welfare. every motive of
self-interest every reason that can ap-
peal to intelligence and self-preserva-
ton, to the love of peace, happiness
and well being, combines to urge upon
them the Importance and imperative
necessity of arousing themselves with
out delay to appropriate action along
the lines we have indicated. -Atchison
Champion.