The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-04-28
LABOR AND CAPITAL.
GROWING AGGRESSIVENESS OF
CAPITAL.
Results of the Decentralization of
Silver-Dcbts Increased Bears
Most Heavily Upon LabOr-Imme-
dfate Measures Necessary.

While in the beginning, all primitive peo-
pie who followed pasturage and agricul-
ture, led to the greatest extent a COM
munal life, sharing with each other the
increase of the field and herd; we find
that as soon as civiliza ton reached any
advanced degree, a struggle began TO OBJ
tain possession of as many of this world s
goods as the ability and power of the in
dividual made it possible to acquire.
Once this desire obtained control. it de-
veloped into a passion which soon COM
PEELED the enacting Of certain laws to
prevent the strong and powerful from
completely annihilating the weaker part
Of the community or nation.
The conditions existing at the close of
the fifteenth century mark we'll the slow
progress, which civilization made during
all the centuries termed the dark ages
of history" Labor was simply recognized
under condition of servitude which gave
the owner control over his servants as
one of his chattles. The acquisition Of
property by the laboring masses was pre-
vented by the most rigorous laws, nor
were they in any degree permitted to &C,
quire even the rudiments of education.
With the discovery of this continent the
unlimited quantity of gold and silver pro-
duced, infused new life into the stagnant
channels of industry and commerce. Tho
present stage of civilization could not
have been attained but for the addition
of this new blood now circulating through
the various commercial arteries of the
European countries.
Tracing the struggle between capital
and labor, it is we'll to confine ourselves
70 one example which in it's eliminating
period of not quite one hundred years
ago, teaches a lesson which may we'll be
needed by all nations now existing or yet
to be developed.
Forty thousand families. favored by
such legislation as they saw fit to enact
from time to time, had absorbed all the
wealth of that rich country. The laboring
masses, reduced to the EXTREMIST stage of
poverty, were either hanged or bayoneted
in such numbers as was deemed sufficient
to over-awe the masses. When they ask
ed for bread, they were told to eat grass.
The outcome is too well known to every
school child to be here reviewed, but one
fact. more than all others stands pre-
eminently before US, i. e., that labor haa
emancipated itself from a condition of
servitude and must henceforth be recog-
nized as leading factor in the building
up of any nation. Even the negro is told
to be free, that he may use his best end
deavors and contribute his energies to his
own progress and elevation.
In spite of all this progress, there are
reactionary agencies at work which soon
er or later must again, only on a much
vaster scale produce the same conditions.
which brought about the French revolu-
ton.
AS long as one family can accumulate
in the period of a little over one hundred
years, sum which is variously estimat-
ed at one billion to one billion and half
dollars, and can through this power die
tate the financial policies of the different
countries, the necessary legislation to pro-
tect them, must of its own accord follow.
AS long as two or three men can con-
troll the entire meat production of this
country, and establish the prices at which
they see fit to buy or sell from day to
day; as long as other monopolists are
permitted to levy such tribute upon the
people as they see fit to exact. while the
masses are powerless against these heavy
odds; the concentration of capital must
necessarily grow stronger and stronger in
the same proportion as the strength of
the Individual diminishes, until becoming
top-heavy. it must by its own immense
volume eventually collapse.
The question now arises: In what de-
gree can the examples here reviewed ba
applied to our own cuuntry, which with
its immense area of land capable of cuIti-
its wonderful resources and its
unlimited field for manufacture, should
afford sufficient returns for the means of
existence to every person who devotes his
energies and his labor in any given cham
mel, whether this channel lies in the di- !