Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1892-10-17
THE PEOPLES RIGHTS
UNDER THE IRON HEEL OF A HEART
LESS PLUTocRAcY.

From a discourse delivered by the
Rev. Alexander Kent, of Washington,
the following burning words are ex-
tracted:
! The employed is man equally with his EN-
! ployer. As man he has every right that be-
longs TO the other. He has right TO all that
is needful in the way of opportunities and
prlvlleges-for growth in manly character, in
intelligence in culture, in all that carry him
toward his true goal as human being. Simply
as man he has "a right to all of opportunity
needed to the attainment of this end. Society,
as the guardian of his interests, the natural
guardian-and therefore the diynely ap-
pointed guardian in the only sense in which
anything ever is divinely appOinted-is bound
TO provide this opportunity and to keep the
door of it forever open. Surely the rights of
the workingman are not less Yet society
treats him as if they We're. Everywhere tho
rights of man as man are being asserted and
acknowledged. Even the criminal, who haI
arrayed himself against human society and
declared war against its laws and customs, as
soon arrested is treated as IA being for
whose improvement society is responsible. 1t
provides him with wholesome food, adequate
shelter, suitable clothing and such instruction
and moral influence as are supposed to have
humanzing tendency.
This is coming to be the demand everywhere
and the practice in many places. But the
wOrklnHInan Is never thought OF as one Tor
whom it should care. He may be starving or
freezing He may tramp from one end of the
country to the other in search of work, but so
long as he is thought to be industriously in
clined-and really anxious for work-so long
as he is believed to be honest and above all
burglary or theft he may tramp and freeze or
starve at will. Society will never interfere.
But the moment he is suspected Of vagrancy,
of unwillingness to work, of readiness to steal
or murder, society is all alert. 1t is ready then
to take hold of him and do for him something
that will help him to better, nobler manhood.
Our jails and penitentiaries are full because
society neglects its duties to the men and wom-
en-, the boys and girls, who without its aid are
powerless to keep the doors of opportunity
open. CnscrupulOus greed and ayarice on the
part of the great manpulators Of our indus
trial activities close these doors in their faces
and they cannot force them open.
The greatest labor saving inventions, which
ought to have lightened the burdens of the
masses and improved their conditions, have
all been turned to the advantage of the en-
ployer and often TO the injury of the workmen.
More and more machinery is doing the work
that formerly required skilled mechanics. As
skilled labor gives place to unskilled the aver
age wage is relatively lower, and the puIchas-
ing power of the average workman decreased.
This in turn diminishes the market for goods
and causes still others to be thrown out of en-
ployment. Add to these things the existence
of large class of shrewd, cunning, unscrupu-
lous gamblers in real estate, in grain and pork
in stocks, mines and railroads, who manipu-
late all these industries simply to make for
tunes for themselves, utterly regardless of the
interests of the people, and it is easy to see
why the progress of invention and discovery
has been more than outstripped by the prog
ress of poverty.
All of these classes who have proved upon
the people organized society has Willingly or
npvittiuo1U ni1a1 nd nIn aI In ,.,b
berries. These people, feeling that their inter-
ests were antagOnistic to those of their work
men, that their profits would be greatest when
the wages of their men We're least, have natlI-
rally sought by every means in their power 20
keep wages down and to break the power OF
all labor organizations through which work
ingmen have striven to force them up. In
this conflict the advantage has, in the very
nature of the case, been on the side of the
capitalist He has been able to command for
any use to which he desired to put it much of
the ablest legal talent of the country. Very
much of it, even in our national legislature,
has been ever ready to prostitute itself at his
call, and the result has been vast amount of
class legislation.
Doubtless much of this, owing to the bias
which men have in favor of their own class
has seemed to its advocates wholesome and
necessary.
Capitalists have such an exalted notion of
their Importance to the community, and men
generally so much inclined to their opinion,
that we need not suppose that all the legisla-
ton which favored them and robbed the people
was passed with any clear sense of its wrong
full character. But that legislation of this |
character abounds and disgraces the annals of |
our protessedly republican government needs |
no proof The laboring men of this country |
have an indisputable right to have all such |
legislation repealed. They have a right 10 |
more than this. They have right to such o
reconstruction of our industrial system as will
give every man and woman, regardless of abil-
ity, training, aptitude, an opportunity to earn
an honest and decent subsistence and to nut
themselves in respectable and wholesome sur
roundings. They have right to this, and
they have a right TO take whatever action is
necessary TO enable them to get it.
Have they, then, the right to prohibit other
men from working in shops from which they
have been locked out, or in which they have
struck, for wages they have declined to take?
This ] am well aware, is a grave question.
But II is the very question with which we are
brought face to face in the present trouble.
We must not dodgeit. My answer is: If such
action is necessary to secure for labor a Just
reward, and for all laborers those higher
rights Of justice and manhood, the securing
and maintaining of which is the one end or
business of all governments then they have
that right. If the intelligent, thoughtful hon
est laboring men, by careful study of this
only organized labor can protect itself from
ensavement by organized capital; If they
find that the policy of noninterference means
decrease of wages, a falling of in the power
of the wage Garner to purchase goods, and a
consequent falling OFF in the demand for goods.
with further additions to the army of the un
employed, then they will feel Obliged to use
every means in their power to strengthen their
organization, force every wageworker into
their ranks, and present n united and uu
broken front to the common foe.
This seems to be the growing conviction of
wageworking men. The general Endorsement
by them of the position taken by the men at
Homestead indicates that they are settling
down to this conclusion. They have reached
it, let me say, very reluctantly and only under
serious pressure from the logic of events. They
have sought very earnestly to reach their ends
by other and more generally approved meth
DDS, but the agencies through which they have
sought to work-the dominant political par
ties-have continually failed them. These par
ties are controlled by the money power Of the
country, which is every year growing more
concentrated and vigorous in its grip
But in my judgment there is hope for the
people yet, without resorting to the violence
threatened to nOnuniOn labor. 1t Is In the
power of the people still to secure all that they