Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1893-03-08


procure a livelihood by honest efforts,
eXerted in all legitimate channels of
toll and labor There may be those en-
gagged in the various professions and
employed in the more genteel (?) avoca-
tions and employments, who consider
themselves superior to those who
perform the more laborious and uupIas-
ant kinds of labor and who do not
classify themselves as belonging to the
''laboring class, but this does but en-
phasize the fact that there exists per-
verted and unnatural public sentiment,
which is dangerous to society and per-
yersive of democratic simplicity, in that
1t seeks to degrade and dishonor the
term labor" and tends to esta blish
the idea hat men can procure an hon
est living without the expenditure of
honest labor therefor. Indeed, the very
fact that such phrases are found in our
common language as ''the labor ques-
ton and ''iaboring classes" would
seem to indicate that portion of hu-
manity consider themselves exempt
from the natural condition of things,
wherein all who reap must SOW and all
who eat must earn their daily bread
Blind indeed is be who fails to ap-
prehend the fact that the next issue to
be permanently settled, the next prob
lem to be righteously solved is the old,
old controversy improperly character
lied in the past as the war between
capital and labor. The ''irrepressible
conflict" is waging and has ever been
waged between capitalists and laborers
between the labor which produces all
wealth and those who, without return
ing any equivalent, absorb the wealth
produced by labor, and, idly reveling
in luxurious splendor, teach that the
laws of God and man assign to laborers
humble sphere and that they should
be contented with bare subsistence
as the fruits of their toll and account
themselves fortunate indeed that
they are allowed the privilege
of even subsisting at all The
great civil war in the United States set
tied forever the question of chattel
slavery-the conflict fast approaching
will emancipate the laborer, white and
black, from industrial slavery; peacably,
it is to be hoped, but the day of eman-
cipatiOn must come. Not much longer
will the privileged few continue to
grow richer by the enforced impoverish-
ment of the toiling many Not much
longer will the system be permitted to
exist which makes it possible for a
small per cent. of the population to alb
sorb the total net results of a whole
nations energy and enterprise and ap-
pirate to themselves the total product
of nations toll and labor Soon must
4 z
CAPITALISTS under which the reward of
a lifetime spent in constant, arduous
toll for bare subsistence upon coarse
diet, is an old age of poverty and de-
spair and at last an unwept and union
ored burial in a pauper's grave, The
pilgrim fathers came to America to es-
cape persecution and tyranny and our
revolutionary forefathers fought and
bled to establish government of liber-
ty, equality and fraternity. The
worthy sons of revolutionary sires will
not tamely submit to the establishment
of plutocratic oligarchy upon the
ruins of the United States republic.
In proof that these assertions are not
the mere vaporings of a disgruntled
calamity hOwler," submit the follow
Ah5 SNthNAoOASo' L tlS NSdlIll III Ihc u nllSu
States January, 1891, expressed in
round numbers. was S62, 600, 900. 900
The population of the country was 63,-
600, 600; divided into families of five
each and we have $500 900 families.
Thomas G.. Shearman, the eminent
statistician, says that 40, 900 families"
had at that time secured one-half of
the wealth of the country, S31, 900, 0OO,-
600, an average of $755, 900 each. Again,
he says that fewer than $50, 900 fami-
lies had in their possession three
fourths of the wealth of the country
4G, 800, ,000,0 600, an average of S1S6 900
each. As a result, if 80, 900 families
have secured S4G, 500, 900, 900, there re-
mains So, 500, ,00), 900 for II, $50, 900 fami-
lies, which would give an average of
Sl,225 each. Ia abulated, the showing
is as follows:
250,0O0 families at s186 OOJ each $40 500 coo 600
l2.53D,0J0 families at 81, ,255. .... 15 500 O00 %
II, go 900 families Total. %. So, ,0Ol OOo, 900
That it is strictly true that the priv
ileged few have absorbed the total net
product Of the nations toilers is shown
by the following tabulation from the
United States census reports: