The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-09-07
HORACE GREELEY,S WISDOM.

the common school. graduate OF the
printers case; his heart was warm and be-
nevolent; his hand was always as gener-
ons as It was honest and clean; his SYM
pathies were democratic; his thoughts
were always with the people; his pen was
never weary of work in their defense and
instruction.; he was never ambitious for
wealth; he never kissed the feet Of its
slaves and tools, excused its crimes or
truckled to its power. The voice OF
such q man ought to be respected
by every working man who knows the
difference between an ignorant and
artful demagogue and a high-minded
statesman who sprang from the ranks of
rural poverty and never deserted the
cause Of American labor. Here is pas
sage from Horace Greeley that is timely
reading in these days, when We hear the
shrill voice of rsnting Incidence and can't
ing discomfort declaiming against capital
and N favor Of communism:
Civilization Is founded on accumulated cap
ftai and systematic labor. Il cannot dispense
with either. Though all men work diligently
and efficiently through each day, yet, II they
spout dc IdSt as tney earned, ciFlIiIeN eoClSty
must perish, and human existence De main
tanned with difficulty, if at all. The barroom
loafer who decries capital could not survive the
next hard winter without its AID. He lives
through the Indictment season on that which
others more proyident have saved ana stored
against a time of need. He may or may not
render an equivalent but in the absence
OF capitalists opportunity to make the
indispensable trade would be wanting.
There is none 50 poor or Wretchec that
capital earned and owned by others
has not already saved him from perishing of
want as it will do again and again Capital
justly acquired and wisely employed is every
ones friend, smoothing the ruggedness and les
ening the discomfort of even the most forlorn
and hapless career
To the race generally, to smaller communi-
ties, and TO individuals, God proffers the stern
alternative-work OF perish. 1dlers and profit
gates are constantly dying out, leaving the earth
popped mainly by the offspring of the relatively
industrious and frugal. Even II all things were
made common and the idle welcomed to a per-
petual feast upon the products of the toll of the
diligent, still the former would rapidly pass
away, leaving few descendants, and the children
OF the latter would ultimately inherit the earth.
These words of an illustrious child of
labor point out the shortest road of pro-
gress from poverty TO competence to the
yancement were always nearer this great
mans heart than his own worldly we'll
being through the accumulation of super
auous wealth. The philosophy of Greeley
rested on the homely maxims Of Ben
Franklin, another great child of poverty
and graduate of the printers case. when
he said mo gains without pains; diligence
is the mother of good luck; what main
tains one vice would bring up two chill
dren." Opposed to this sound industrial
philosophy and economic morality Of
Greeley is the sophistry of the modern
labor demagogue, instinct with the envy
which Incidence and incapacity feel at the
progress which industry and capacity
make in their energetic efforts to
leave poverty behind it. This is the philoso-
ply which would exact the practice of
self-sacrifice always by capital and never
yield it on the part oflabor; would trample
under foot all those virtues of mutual con-
cession and forbearance that are indispens-
able to all stability of government, to all
social safety and prosperity, and in place
of the existing order of things would sub
stitute situation whose ultimate is an
archy; whose ceaseless threat TO capital is,
''If labor can not rule capital, then labor
will ruin it, proceeding that is about as
sensible as it would be for the stomach
to revolt against the limbs or the
limbs against the stomach, since the mo-
ment the revolt was successful the death
by paralysis OF the whole body would
follow.
This stupid philosophy has been period
ically tried over and over again; it is the
subject Of an immortal satire in Shakes
peare's picture of Jack Cade; and it has
been tried since in both Europe and
America. When transiently triumphant
it has produced a social and industrial
hell so repulsive that the very persons
who created it at last refused TO inhabit it
and were glad 10 abandon it for respons-
ible government by the people, the
common sense of mutual concession
and forbearance-the craftsmanship of
compromise through which all real human
progress has been made that has secured a
decent degree of social and civil safety,
comfort, prosperity and happiness for all
men of peace and good will. The doctrine
of social and industrial equality. as distin-
guished from civic equality under law, is
immoral envy initiating the accents of
philanthropy and incorporating in her
stolen robes. If this doctrine should ever
obtain enactment it would sink our coun-
try down to the level of the paternal gov
eminent of Moses. Joshua and Samuel.
where the people were the helpless pupils
of a priesthood, who were the governors.
lawmakers. policeman, sheriff, Judge and
executioner, even as Brigham Young and
his bishops were TO the Mormons. whose
healthy ihdividualism was extinguished
in the paternal government of a despotic
priesthood.
Against this substitution of the tyranny
Of socialism for the rule of individualisxn
the pope of Rome protested in his last
encyclical letter, pointing out that under
it the Goulds and the Vanderbilts would
have far greater opportunity to run the
state than at present, for under it few
men of this quality of brain and ambition
could surely make themselves masters and
the people slaves.
The community that yields up its in.
dividual possessions will surely ultimately
find out that it has yielded them IN 10
individuals; that has been the outcome
&c