St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-07-03
AN oyERwoRKED WORD.

lnere Is no otner WORD III the Century
dictionary that is so overworked at this
time as is the word Glasses" We hear
OF them on every hand, and it looks as if
the social divisions of the old world
were to be initiated and accepted here
i'll a crude and shifting sort of a way,
but definite eDou h to divide our people
into distinct divisions called classes,
each having its station, its privileges
and its burdens. We have our people
classified now into the laboring and the
capitaliStic; into the manufacturing and
the AGRICULTURAL; into the debtor and
creditor; and gradually there is coming
into general acceptance the notion that,
by reason Of wealth or poverty. some
people belong to an upper and some to
lower class. We protest. in the name
of our common manhood. against every
thing that tends to admit that there is
any other possible classification of men
or women than that which rests in
nature and is based on character. That
division, for some inscrutable reason, is
Inherent in the race, has been from the
beginning, and, for all that the GEN.
turtles indicate, always will be; but it
knows no condition of birth or fortune
or heredity, and is only modified by
environment. Character in the man at
the bench or on the farm or in the
counting room is one, and it belittles
itself when it claims that it is more or
admits that it is less when it appears In
one or the other vocation.
But of all the attempted classical
tions that are silly and senseless, the
one that is entitled to be hung in the
gallery OF a fools paradise is the one
which divides men into debtor ana cred
itor classes, which is the red fire and
sounding timbrel of the arrant and ire
deemable demagogue. 1t is not creGita-
bic to our boosted progress ana high
civilization and universal education
that there are so many people so guilt
BILE. with reasoning power SO little de-
veloped, who swallow this appeal to
prejudice and envy without attempting
to analyze ii, accepting it as unquestion-
ingly as if it were written on tables
of stone. There is but one kind of peo-
pie who are solely creditors, and they
ara the Weary Virgins of the world, to
whom 1.-The world owes living" and
who tramp from place to place, making
precarious collections on the debt.
Every other man and woman Is both
debtor and creditor, and all who work
for wages are more creditor than debtor.
Every farmer is creditor from the
moment he begins to prepare his ground
for crop, and remains such until the
Of hoo
harvested. products Of his toll. Every
working man or woman who works for
wage is creditor from Monday morn
ing, when muscle or brain Is put to pro-
ductlve work, until Saturday night,
when the debt created by week of
work is paid for. And the man or men
for whom they work, and all who con-
sumo the products OF the farm. are the
debtors of the farmer or the working
man or woman until they requits the
debt by payment
Our creditor farmers and workers for
wage ought to turn these considerations
to account when the blatant demagogue.
be he politician or labor agitator, pirates
about creditor nations and creditor
classes, land the gold bugs and the money
power. If it be true that certain men
to whom other people owe money insist
on payment being made in gold, the
men who produce food and the raw ma
terial of raiment and those who labor in
the conversion of products of other
labor into the things people want to use
these people who for season, or a
month. or a week. are the real creditor
classes-ought to be sharp enough and
shrewd enough to know that what these