The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1894-12-29


What is the duty of society, and
what is the limit of the power and
authority of the State in regard to
furnishing every idle person some
thing to do at a reasonable compen
sation, and compelling him to do it,
unless he shall furnish himself with
work? The burden to the State in
furnishing this work, would not be as
great as that which it has to bear in
the vice and crime, violence and dis
order of society which spring from
idleness.
In view of these facts, what also is
the duty of organized society, or the
State in regard to strikes7 May the
State prevent them? Is a strike
species of anarchy, and always
damage and degradation to the
striker, as we'll as to the employer?
And what of contract labor in pris-
ons? Is not the enforced idleness of
the prisoner an enforced moral deg
radiation? Have we any right thus
to degrade him to satisfy the preju
dice or the selfishness of workers out
side of the prison? What right have
they to make any such demand? Is
not regular, systematic work for the
prisoner absolutely essential to his
moral uplift? Is it not, therefore, the
duty of the State to provide this work
in order that the prisoner may be
properly educated and developed
morally for his re-entrance into soci-
ety9
These are simply few suggestions
on the moral value of work, and on
the morally degrading influence of
habitual idleness.
Children should not be put to long
hours of improper work in shops,
stores and factories when they ought
to be in school. Nevertheless, chill
dren should have duties in the home,
and should from their earliest years
be taught to work honestly, faith
fully, systematically-the kind and
amount of work being properly pro-
portioned to the age and capacity of
the child A certain amount of work
in stores, shops and factories, is no
damage to the child, but great ben
eft, SO that it is not oyerwork, and
is not permitted to interfere with
the child's proper education in the
schools.
There can be no doubt that the
men and women who have become
conspicuously eminent, have devel-
oped high character, or achieved sue
cess in any line of human endeavor,
are among those who have developed
great capacity and love for contin-
uous, systematic, hard work.
Proper influence and education of
the young in these matters may go
very far to render unnecessary by the
State any arbitrary interference.
How far the State may go in its
interference with personal liberty for
the benefit of the individual, or for
the benefit of society, may not yet be
definitely determined. But certain
it is that the rights and interests of
society are far greater than the rights
and interests of any one individual.
If society may not set the rights of
the individual at nought can the in
dividual set at nought the greater
rights and interests of society? The
study and proper solution of the So
cial problems of our times must not
be in the interest of any one individ-
ual, or of any one or more classes of
individuals, but in the interest of all
men alike-.n the interest of universal
society.
John Stuart Mill has somewhere
said for substance that, "The proper
limits of personal liberty consist in
the right of the individual to do
whatever he pleases to Go, so long as
he does not interfere with the rights
of Others" A man who buys a drink
of whiskey, pays for it, and drinks it,
may not interfere with the rights of
others. But if the drinking make
him drunk, and interfere with the
rights of others by becoming a nuis-
ance, vicious, disorderly and Grim
inal, shall we say that society or
the State has a right to restrain
and punish because of this result,
but has no right to remove the cause
of this result by prohibiting the sale
of that which makes the man dis
orderly, vicious an criminal nuisance
in society? In short, does not society
or the State. by what it permits or
legalizes or fails to prohibit make
men criminals, and then punish them
for what society itself has made theml
Does not the State by its unwise leg
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