The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-05-05

bitter on the part of the laborer, brutal
on the part of the corporations. The
New York Central Railroad, with it's
prestige, it's superb organization, its
millions and it's influence with other
corporations, succeeded in crushing
the Knights of Labor in a deliberately
planned and brutally led assault.
When the job was complete, Mr. Webb,
with perfectly fiendish delight, pro-
ceeded to dance a jig on their CULVER
ing hide. The whole performance,
from beginning to end, while it was
legitimate war, was inhuman and
brutal, and only made the gulf that
separates organized capital from the
toiling millions wider, deeper and more
utterly impossible. In the recent con
fict at Norwood between the miners
and the capitalists, dozens of men were
shoI down in cold blood. The accounts
we read were evidently all sent out
from sources friendly to the owners of
the mines who were responsible Orthis
butchery. We are told these men
were rioting. If so, they were guilty
of a serious crime, for which they
should have been punished by process
of law. Instead of this, they were shot
down with Winchesters in the hands
Of hired assassins who were experts at
the business and liked the pastime.
They tell us that these men were de-
stroying property and doing much
damage, and yet when the smoke of
the battle clears away we find that the
only serious damage done is in the
broken heads, broken legs and riddled
bodies Of the men shot to pieces by
those so-calIed guards. 1t was a sad
day for the owners of mines in America
when the command was given to fire
at Norwood. 1t will be a long, long
while before the echo of these guns will
die away. The Central Labor Fedora
ton, at it's meeting at No. 1856 Bowery
on last Sunday, in issuing it's call for a
mass meeting in Cooper Union, speaks
as follows:
FELLOW TOILERs These are critical
times. All public means of protection
have been turned into agencies of op-
preston; constitution, law and hui
mainly are trampled under foot in the
very halls of justice. Grimes against
life and liberty of workingmen are re-
peatedly committed, not only by
ruf1ans in the pay of p~lutocrats, but
by the judges the people have elected.
Labor is on the verge of complete en-
slavement. Shall our criminal plutoc-
racy be stopped short in it's mad career,
or shall it be permitted to tear down
the Republic9 This is the question
that you must consider here and now.
Let your voice be heard. Let the mil
lions unite again the millionaires. Let
them proclaim their uncOnquerable
determination to live or die free men.
This language is not the raving of a
fool. There is a ring Of earnestness
and sullen determination, an accent of
bitterness and despair that BODIES no
good to the peace Of the industrial
world.
3. This problem has already become
the great moral problem of the age. It
has been transferred from the realm of
the purely economic and secular to the
moral. The Pope at Rome cannot issue
an e~ncyclical and not give large space
to the question. 1t has alienated mil
lions of working people from the
church, so that in Protestant churches
to-day organized capital and organized
labor cannot dwell beneath the same
roof. The churches of the rich are be-
coming more and more exclusively So
cial clubs. The laboring men are
therefore curSing the whole church
and forming churches outside the
church. y
4. The masses of. the people are be-
coming more and more restless, dis
contented and open to new and COM
bined economic and social propaganda.
The two great historic political par
ties of America are apparently on the
eve of disintegration.
No man can forecast the result of the
next national contest. 1t seems i'm
possible that a few months of our po-
litical history could have brought us
to such a condition of chaos. Yet it is
so. The cause of this is not far to seek.
It is the confusion incident to the mar
shalling of the hosts for the battle with
private corporate powers. A new po-
litical party is to be organized at Gin
cinnati in May that is almost sure to
throw the election of the next Presi-
dent into the House of REPRESENTATIVES,.