The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1892-08-05
The Rights of the Citizen.

LIZ 1blSutS Vi tu0 NlIlHSAs
What the American public are at present
IN most need of is a course of free lectures
to teach them how 10 think. 1t would be a
difficult undertaking but it might be ac-
complished. The process would be tedious,
an A G process, line upon line, here a
little and there little They have been SO
persistently led astray by professional pol.
iticians and party newspapers, that they
are as men cropping among shadows; when
any seemingly new phase in public affairs
unfolds itself before them they are nom
plused The Homestead tragedy and its
numerous collateral results, has startled and
confused the large majority in an apparently
hopeless labyrinth.
The difficulty in the way of comprehend
ing the situation lies in confounding the
rights of the citizen with the rights of the
corporation. The rights before the law of
the two should be almost as wide apart as
the poles, but by a system of class legisia-
tion they have been placed on the same
plain, and there never can be peace till
they are separated and made to occupy,
each its own naturally appointed sphere.
The State has created an artificial person,
endowed with the might of ten thousand
citizens in many instances, and turned it
loose in the community with few or no
restraints upon the exercise Of its gigantic
powers. The corporation is competitor in
the field of labor with the citizen, with the
advantage of ahundred times a Hercules
over him. The domain of labor in every
department has been entered by this power
full rival, from the lowest drudgery to the
highest art. By monopolizing labor-saving
and wealth-multiplyin machinery the cit
izen has been crowded out of old lines of
employment, where he was master of his
own hands and brain with no more for
midable competitor than his brother man.
AS worker in the producing field he has
in large measure-in truth pretty nearly
wholly-become an employe and servant Of
the corporation, and to that extent has suf-
fered in his rights as citizen, and entered
the incipient stage of wage slavery. This
is the danger which has stealthily stolen on
the public unpreceived, SO silently and APP
parently natural has been its noiseess tread.
The labor unions which have kept up a
steady antagonism 10 the danger they feel
rather by instinct than through their rea-
soning faculties, have proceeded on the i'm
possible theory of opposing, by their unaided
personal power, the encroachments of the
ever sgrowing power of :he corporation in
Its many modern devices for increasing its
influence in the moral. political and labor
realms. While the corporation has stead
lily asked for special laws 10 secure the priv
ileges it wished to enjoy and exercise
regardless of the rights of the citizen; the
citizen has been careless of these rights, and
the labor unions have been led by false
teachers TO neglect their greatest power and
cast the weapon of their strength, the ballot,
in the dust.
Having voluntarily DISTINGUISHED them
selves to strengthen the corporation the lat
ter has grown fat and kicks labor into the
gutter, virtually telling it that it is the
purpose ofthe corporation 10 deprive it Of
the elective franchise in order that no dan
ger may be apprehended in its triumphant
march from that quarter in the future.
With this purpose in view the powerful
Carnegie combine proceeds to demolish the
instrument which labor has been placing so
much store by as its anchor of safety, and
the Almagamaed Association, the most
powerful in the country, is quickly demon
strated to be rope OF sand. That great
Association is told that it shall be known
no more forever as factor in the labor
world. When this assault is made on it by
the Carnegie company the Association finds
itself utterly powerless 10 resist except by
direct and violent breach ofthe law which
the State is prompt to resent with an army
and proceeds to arrest the strikers" who
attempted to oppose the rights claimed by
the corporation, as criminals. And this is
the pitlabie condition that every labor union
In the country now occupies. They are
without one shred of law with which to
defend themselves, while the corporations
are entrenched behind the law. They not
only claim full rights Of the citizen, but
they nave managed TO exempt themselves
from the responsibility of the citizen. With
their power they crush the citizen and in
yam he seeks for legal redress finding none.
The basic principle of our civilization is
that the creature is subject to the Creator
This is Numbered in the ears of the citizen
from every pulpit, impressed upon him
from every seat of justice, society hedges
him in by this principle and os,racises him
II he attempts to deny ii.
In face of this broad principle on which
the structure of our civilization is supposed
to be reared, we find the State creating ar
p fihcial persons 10 be the RIVALS and connect.
ltors OF The citizen in every branch of
industry. Turned loose without respon-
slbility to their creator, with their colossal
power they crowd the citizen TO the wall
and lrample on his rights with impunity.
The general public in its loose, disiointed
manner of reasoning, falls to comprehend
that this great principle has been wholly
neglected by the State in the creation of the
corporation, which has been left free TO
exercise Its powers without suneryisinn or