The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1894-09-29
Help the Poor Before They Help
Themselves.
MR. EDTTOR:

Nh. EDITOR:
see that the citizens OF your town
have done their share toward averting
labor revolution by raising the sum Of
5000 toward paving the cost of trans
porting several hundred strike repre-
scntatives from ConneilsvIle, Pa, to
farms in your locality. | have for some
time been agitating an agricultural eX-
odus from the large cities and mining
and manufacturing centres as means
of relief from discomfort and strikes.
Mr.. Sovereign has said in recent
speech in Baltimore that there are
5000, 900 people approximately moldlng
themselves INTO felons because of lack
of work and means of support. OF
course, this number is found In the
cities and overstocked centres. They
are said to want the means of livelihood
and | advocate that they all should be
assisted to small farms where wheat,
wool and all the necessities OF life can
be raised independent of the caprices
of capitalists, or the fluctuations oftrade.
nave Iul tllEI az OtGlit'L itIttt IiIC
several states in which this suffering
exists should give state aid to all need
ing it toward setting themselves up in
farming localities. | urge this because
think the state has over-educated its
masses away from agriculture, and that,
the bad results being seen, it is time to
turn back again to the first principles
of agriculture. 1t is bad father who
gives his son mistaken advice and can
not rectfy it.
If the citizens of every locality re-
spOnded as literally to this agricultural
reform movement as yours have, it
would, of course, be sufficient to place
all the impoverished striking families
in the country in districts where they
could thereafter maintain themselves.
1t has been noble work you have
done, if newspaper accounts are true,
and you have solved the labor problem
aside from the United States Strike
Commission.
You have also set an example for the
large cities to follow If wealthy cities,
like Chicago and New York, could re-
spond in their measure, as you have
done, toward the alienation of the dis
fyess, by helping those who are willing
to help themselves, the howl of the
anarchist would have no excuse and
the honest iaborcr would not have to
filter away his means TO pay the eX-
~ a 1th arc RI as
sist him in those battles against capital
which amount to no victories of perma
nent value in the end.
1t should he remembered that the
demands Of the American Federation
of Labor are revolutiunary-to say no.
thing OF what the demands Of anarchy
are. To enforce compulsory education;
legal eight-hour day; municipal own
ershIp of street cars, gas and electric
light plants; naturalization Of telegraph
and telephone lines, railroads and
mines; collective ownership by the
people Of all means of production and
Northumberland all the opposite to eN-
listing conditions and many of them, if
enforced, take away at one fell blow
the present owners rights to life, lib
liberty and the pursuit of happiness in
the lines that they have enjoyed it.
While labor leaders of various types
are, therefore, busving themselves edu-
eating the disconnected masses up to
the point Of working out this reforma-
ton or revolution. il Is time that the
wiser and more peaccable citizens
should be eXerting themselves upon the
masses in the contrary direction by get
ting them out of the reach of the des-
seminators OF such doctrines and onto
farms where they can have peace and
prosperity. The rich men of the coun-
try who do not see and operate on this
plan can have nobody to blame but
themselves if, failing to do il, revolu-
ton ultimately comes that wrests their
sources of riches from them as ruth
lcssly as did the civi! war wrest from
the southern planters their slaves. The
times proclaim it.
T. B. LIvESEY.
Sykesvillc, Md.