Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1894-05-02

tnO PtOuto hHu OlIoIS II00 soup 10 CIle
workingman as the amends for this
robbery.
We are told on the fourth of July
that the days of slavery are over:
while the fact is that we have white
| slaYes by the million who are glad to
drudge for poorer pittance than the
! former serfs of Carolina. The once
prosperous laborers have sunken into
squalid tramps, and their cottages into
| dens and sites. The miners swarm out
of their pits to starve in the open air.
In the foundries the fires are cold, IN
| the mills the wheels do not turn. Civ
ilization freed the plantation chattels
a generation back; but there are now
more white slaves sewing cotton than
there we've black slaves picking it
thirty years ago; while the new mas.
tiers deny the responsibility for the
feeding and clothing of their wage
| slaves. 1t is safe to say that the whole
history of the old ehattel bondage does
not contain the amount of wretched-
ness and despair that has filled the cup
of the American wOrklngman during
the past twelve months. The new
slavery is being fastened on civilized
men of our own race, who were born
free and who hold the love aud mem
cries of freedom.
In every large city of the North and
West depots are established, whence
food is given to famlshing crowds. The
cowed and stumbling multitude are
herded like Texas steers at a roundup,
and corralled in their misery. Men
are trodden under foot by their fell
| lows, whom want has made insane, in
the wild struggle for the loaf which
may keep alive, for one day longer, the
hungry family. Visit the vast coal
fields and you will see men of the white
race toiling for pittance, as men new
er toiled in the cotton field, IN abSo
lutte subsection to the will of their
master, and with no hope of relief
save through the portals of death more
merciful than their brother man. The
factory, the mine, the furnace is closed
whenever the caprice Of the interest of
the capitalist directs; that alone is
consulted. The suffering, misery, de-
SPAR OF the workman is not considered.
The plantation slave of old was more
sure of the first needs of life-clothing,
food and shelter, than are to-day hun
dreds of thousands of civilized white
workmen. This direful and fatal con-
dition of labor is the result of laws en-
acted at the bidding of London and Je-
rusalem, and wholly in the interest of
capital. The corporation, the mOnopo-
list, the money-king have for many
years dictated our legislation and
chosen our rulers. They have shaped
the financial policy of the nation, and
no matter which party fills the offices,
Wall street Is always in the saddle.
The result comes today in the wreck of
fortunes. the destruction of trade, the
, paralysis OF industry, the demonetiZa.
ton OF silver, the shrinkage of all val
} ues but gold, the distress of the work
man and producer.
The fashionable methods of acquir-
ing wealth, during the last quarter of a
century, have resulted In transferring
nlnety-fiv per cent of the wealth OF
the nation to less than five per cent of
the population. The people consent
that those who have, under the forms
of law, thus taken to themselves the
profits of national industry, may hold
their ill-gOtten gains-unless they
themselves unwisely precipltate the
world crisis that will end in canceling
the bonded Indebtedness of the mod
ern world. The victims only ask that
the spoilations shall cease, and that
laws be adopted making them impossi-
BILE in the future. If the plutocratic
class is wise it will not object to COM
promising ON this basis. 1t only
holds by paper titles, which will van
ish when the people decide to resume
? their own.
: Our present system Of competitive
cutthroat civilization which can insure
steady interest to those who have
. amassed wealth, but cannot insure re.
: munerative work to those who produce
d, wealth, is in its last hours. A new
. civilization Of associated interests has.
-, ed on justice rather than greed will
take its place. The evils of this age
S are made the agents which are to ush
er IN cooperative industrial system
I; expressive of the golden rule. The
: symbol of our present social state is
| the statue with the head of gold anC
feet of earth seen by the old prophet
e that statue will fall as an advancing
: economic knowledge and an enllghten
ed and resolute popular Will smite tt
;. pieces its feet of clay.