The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-07-11
LABOR DEPARTMENT.
HON. THos. n. LUCAS. EDITOR.

thou canst find any law Of interest in ma
ture; the plant roofing into the soil borrows
for time the few elements of it's growth,
and then returns them to the earth again;
the farmer sows the grain and In time
feaps the harvest and in time spreads the
fertilizer on the soil, sows, and his crops
are renewed; but if he take! take! and
never returns an equivalent to the soil Tor
what is used the soil is Impoverished and
refuses to yield; he pays the penalty; the
mechanicism borrows force from the earth
by motion of wind, water, steam, or cleo
tricity, and al once it returns to earth the
common reserve of nature and is ready for
use again; the worker constructs an utility
and at once it commences to decay and
must be saved by use; what product of
mans hands becomes perpetual, with power
of continual growth by concretions, be-
comes a product and a fraction of a pro-
duct, or two or more products by the lapse
of time; nowhere does labor expended in
the production of a product increase, be-
cause it cannot transcend the laws of ma
ture governing its component ports matter
and force; an atom of matter can neither
Increase or diminish force cease to act.
But money, the servant of production, a
counter a medium with which to effect ex-
change; is by human law, church snobbery,
literary humbug and scientific lies, made
more potent than nature natures laws,
Deity.
Strew millions of money on the most
fertile land and the land remains wilder
ness; give a millions of money in the
wilderness and he leaves it neglected and
almost perishes for lack of food raiment
and shelter; give the man an and he
srasps it as a part of himself, his courage
returns, he makes him a shelter, he cuts
down the forest and makes rude i'm
plements of agriculture, defends himself
from wild beasts and clothes himself in
their skins. And from his industry arises
a home the wilderness blossoms as rose
and civilza ion is made possible by labor
Then let the human shark, backed by hui
man law, the church, political science and
the devil make its appearance and the
toilers progress is arrested. He works
harder, clears more land, raises more
grain and cattle, and as his children grow
up, he adds their labor to his toll; at
length, exhausted, he dies and leaves the
mortgage legacy to his children and
their bodies to the usurer. But where was
the human shark? He lived surrounded by
luxury in a mansion in the city, not a
stick or stone of which represented his
own labor, but the labor of the toilers in
the city fed SO poorly on the coarsest
fragments of the produce stolen from the
man in the country that, when they got
sick they were compelled to visit the
shark with bated breath, asking loan on
the few pieces Of furniture they possessed
and they also, by creating wealth were
made slaves to the ShreWd schemer who
practiced usury.
Is it any wonder then that destruction
has overtaken crime and folly. Remember
Simon Owen, and the voice of the stranger
became very slow, solemn and impressive
In the civilization of the future of which
you must be 1.-The Noses" that blacklist
OF all crimes, usury, must be forever
barred, for it alone in time would wreck
the universe.