The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1894-02-13
LAHORE [OULD ORGANIZE.
A College :; lent Gives Words of En-
: luragement.
IL GDcON OOTTuCu NJ n

ing their strength. We hold that there
is great advantage to the laborers by
united efforts. and we propose to give
few simple reasons why every farmer
and laborer in the United States ought
to stand shoulder to shoulder and help
bear one another's burdens.
We know that from the earliest times
up to the present the laboring classes
have always been poor and oppressed.
Go back, if you please, down through
the cycles of antiquity to 1885, B. O.,
and in the land of Egypt. There you
find the Israelite5 under the King of
Egypt compelled to make brick and
mortar and to serve in the field, with
| all manner of rigorous service, while
the ruler and the lords of that land of
| the Orient feasted and revelled in lux
ury and case upon the earnings of those
horny handed sons Of Jacob. These
Hebrews constituted the laboring class
of that day in that nation. We see
how grievously they were oppressed
and how poor they were. Had they
been otherwise than poor, why did
they borrow the necessaries for that
journey to Canaan, from their op press
ors, the Egyptians9
Later on, SIS B. c., we find Nebuch-
adnezzar, King of Babylon, besiegiDg
Jerusalem and the land of Judah. He
carried away in bonds the captains
and most skilled men of the land and
left the poor who were "husbandmen
and vine dressers." They were evi
IDENTIFY the laborers of the country.
They were poor, for Divine history
says so. We could, if we had time
and space, prove further from the pages
of history that the men who live by
the sweat Of their bro w"-who live by
manual labor-have never had an
equal chance with other classes in the
race of life in all ages of the world.
But the examples we have given will
doubtless suffice
To day anyone who possess for a
moment the power Of contemplation,
cannot fail to see that the round
shouldered" sons of toll in shackles
riveted on them by the relentless hands
of plutocrats by men who toll not,
neither do they spin, and yet Solomon,
in all his glory, was not arrayed like
one of them.
All candid men admit the wrongs of
the laborers. Who are responsible for
their terribly depressed condition7
Evidently 40 one but themselves. As
they have always been ignorant.
The Roman Catholics have this
proverb: Ignorance is the mother
of devotion" This proverb may not
hold good in religion, but it may and
does hold good in politics. 1t is fact
that the laboring classes have almost
always lived and died with but slight
knowledge of their occupations and of
political economy.
Doubtless every careful student of
history will agree with us when we
assert that whenever a class of men be-
come intelligent and educated, they
almost invariably go to the top; they
either rule the nation or have an equal
Cu6nCO WILL OOA4OA SAOS6OS1 IL OA4Oy C$AO
equally cultured.
The principal cause, then, of the op
preston of the Iaboring class is un
doubtedly their pure and unadulterated
ignorance of men, and laws, and the
science of government.
ALI other classes the world over are
organized to day. They work hand in
hand. They have united their heads,
hands and hearts for the promotion of
their common good.
The tendency of the times seems to
indicate that organizations of classes
are the only means of defending and
protecting their interests, both public
and private. Then, fellow-laborer,
should we stand idly by, with calloused
hands in empty pockets, while the
other classes of men are marshalling
their forces for the great battle of iifeG
The burning question of the hour for
US is: "Why stand ye here all the day
idle" while capital is reaping the har-
vest of wealth you are producing and
then laughing in their sleeves at your
simpliclty2
Does not one twentieth Of one per
centum of our population own more
than one-half the national wealth8
Forty years ego did not sixty out OF
every one hundred heads of families IN
the United States own their own homes,
while to oday only 36 out of every 100
are thus blessed and onehalf these
under mortgageG Life is a great game
ond tho DaonIa are the contestants.