Little Falls weekly transcript. (Little Falls, Morrison Co., Minn.) 1894-19??, 1894-06-29

ed hand of labor occasionally to grasp
the gentle hand Of the man who profess
es to be SO intensely Interested in our
welfare?
Never until George M. Pullman can
give satisfactory answer to these ques-
tions will I account him benefactor to
his race, lover Of his kind, philan-
thropist or one who has done anything
for posterity which will cause mankind,
when his dust slumbers beneath the sod,
10 rise up and call him blessed.
Thou eternal God, what poison has
crept into human nature and the spirit
of true democratic simplicity that can
cause this man, who himself was once
a poor mechanic at the bench, but who
is now pampered millionaire, in
trenched behind his gold, to deny these
just requests Of those whose hands have
made him rich, and to heed not the
tears of wives and children who have
been simply existing upon the crumbs
which fall from the rich mans table?
81 am told that the average wages
paid by the company are $1.S7 day. I
doubt it much. It is claimed that the
men are not receiving starvation
wages 1 know many Of which this is
true, but they are the exception and not
the rule. I know a man who has had,
after paying $14. 50 rent for four small
rooms and II cents for water rent,
but rs cents a day left to feed and
clothe his wife and children. When
we remember that this is an average
case, that it is on the basis of full time,
then, in the name Of all that is just and
right, say God help that man if his
dependents be many Or if sickness in
wade his home. And cry shame upon
the rich corporation that dares to insult
the American workingman with such a
wage as that. No, no; it is wrong
eternally wrong!
''It is mans lot to labor, and the
chimneys of great factories rise like the
steeples of churches and call us to the
battle Of life. But all these temples of
labor will be turned into the slaughter
houses Of anarchy and the music OF ham
mer and anvil become discordant with
the raging elements of Infatuated con-
ficts if, in the days to come, Justice is
not melted out to the laborer and capital
ceases to be tyrannical
1.-THE great trouble with this whole
Pullman system is that it is not what it
pretends to be. To a casual visitor it is
q veritable paradise, but it is hollow
mockery, a sham, an institution girdl&l
with red tape, and as solution of the
labor problem most unsa tisfactory.
''The great trouble with the town Of
Pullman, viewed from the standpoint
of an industrial experiment, is that its
deficiencies overbalance all its beauties.
Tt is the most un-American town in all
America. It belongs to the map Of Eu-
rope. It is a civilized relic Of old world
serfdom. Today we behold the lamen-
table and logica} outcome Of the whole
system.''
Mr.. Cawardine went exhaustively into
the causes of the strike and held the Off
cials Of the company to be culpably neg
igent in permitting only partial in
vestigation Of grievances to be made and
in allowing members of the committee
from the workmen to be discharged.
II am with you to the end,'' he said
in closing. II hope you will get your
just demands. I shall always in the
future count it as the proudest moment
Of my life that I could say q word Of
comfort at this crisis and take my
stand beside you in this great and ap-
parently unequal contest -