The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1893-07-21
John ]. Ingalls,.

papers shows that ingalls, is not blind
to the state of things as they now are:
practically the great mass of the
people are as much under the necessity
of compulsory daily toll as if they
were slaves. They are compelled by
self preservation, by love for wife and
children, to accept wages they do not
fix, in avocations they do not select.
Starvation or dependence upon the
will of an employer is the hard and
repulsiYe alternative presented to a
large if not greater part of the human
race.
''Ths home being an indispensable
factor in Christian civilization, the la
borer should receive compensation
sufficient for the support and nurture
of II family in comfort and respectable
lily, with intervals for rest, recreation,
intellectual improvement, religious in
struction. and social enjoyment. But
TO increasing multitudes a rayless and
wretched life of incessant toll in
squalid ignorance and degrad alton
ends in premature old age of mendi-
cancy and pauper's anonymous
grave.
Literature and art have idealized
labor and the toiler, but the halo be-
longs only to that labor which is vol
untary and of which the labor
receives the entire product The far
mer cultivating the acres he owns. the
fisherman in his craft on the deep, the
miner on his claim in the mountain
gulch, the artist at his easel, the sculp-
cor at his block, the savage in the
chase follow pursuits that uplift and
dignity, but there is no poetry in work
ing in a coal mine or cotton factory 10
hours every week day for $3.50. No
Anglo-Saxon does it if he can avoid it.
The instincts OF our race are towards
mastery and not towards servitude.
'.Self-respecting men and women do
many things for themselves that they
could not do for hire for others with
out humiliation. Wendell Phillips
polished his own shoes. Wellington
busted his own clothes, Napoleon
shaved himself, but no man of ambiti-
on. spirit and sensibIliLy would per-
form such services for Others for pay
voluntarily. Thousands of thoughtful,
intelligent. cultivated and graceful
American women sweep and dust and
cook in their own homes, but the re-
luctance TO do similar work for others
has become so peremptorY that domes
mestic life in the parts of the country
is becoming one of the lost arts. The
situation of the wage-woI ker is so
much like personal servitude that the
average American turns from it with
aversion.
'In the minute subdivision of labor
which machinery cOmpels, the work
man no longer completes with his en-
ployer nor with his fellows, but with
the pittiless and memorable energies
of nature. He becomes cramped and
dwarfed. He is like part of the ma
chine which he supplies with oil and
fuel or feeds with the metal that it
turns into utensils and implements
with almost human intelligence and
more than human uniformity. Sym
pathy between the employer and the
operative ceases. The divergence of
condition establishes social distinct |
ions and builds insuperable barriers |
between classes that are incompatible |
with freedom and equality in the state.
Society slowly becomes stratifled by |
the operation of these influence into |
the superfiuously rich and the hope |
plesslY poor. The prophecy of De
is being verified and the |
of democracy is towards
permanent social inequalities which |
must be resisted and eradicated if |
self government is to
''Were the laborers Ignorant, brutal
and contented the menace would be less
but they read, they think. They con-
trast their condition with the glitter
ing allurements surrounding those |
more highly favored by fortune and |
they mutter sullen protests against
the injustice of destiny. They see
capital formi6ly combining with rapa-
cious and selfish aggregation in corpor-
ations that never die; In pools that |
divide the emoluments of extortion; in
trusts that artiticially raise and depress
the necessarses of life. They have |
learned the dangerous precepts of
their antagonists and have organized |
in self-defelse to obtain In money OF |
time larger share of the profits from
the Industries of the country.
at is an ancient alteration. The
war between, employers and employed
in English history has been waged for
a thousand years. Social and indus
trial evolution is of slow growth, and
but little more than century and a
half ago workman conspiring to OBJ
tain greater wages than was fixed by
law was condemned to stand in the
pillory and have one of his ears cut off,
Labor organizations were forbidden
under the harshest penalties before
the battles of Poictiers and Crecy, and
able-bodied tramps where whipped,
branded with hot irons, and failing to
go to work, were hanged. 1t was not
till 1876 that in the courts of Great
Britain the employer and the employ
ed were made equal before the law,
though the judicial attitude toward
the labor organizations remains in
miciaI and resentful. Boycot5s aud
strikes are nomiually conspiracies in
restraint of trade and punishable as
offenses against the peace, prosperity,
and social order of the state, but no
act done by several is treated as Grim
NAL unless it would have been Grim