The herald., 1895-03-10
COMPETITION THAT KILLS
Robert E. Tener's Address to the
Single Tax Club
ADVICE FROM MRS. M'COMAS
An Industrial School Much Needed in
Los Angeles
Social Economical Topics Discussed at Length
Ralph Hoyt on What Greed
Would Do

At the single tax meeting in Blanch
ard Fitzgerald hall last night the large au'
dience was ably addressed by Mrs. Alice
NJ. McComas on Industrial f lucatlon.
Her address was an able effort in alvo-
cacy of compulsory education and indus
trial schools She gave an array OF facts
showing what is being done in Eastern
cities in this import mt branch OF school
work. 1t was her belief til t the eduatlon
of the rising generation could not DC
thoroughly successful without the indus
trial ature. In California there were IN
dications that the idea of industrial edu-
cation VAS steadily gaining ground. The
city of Oakland had recently voted SUI,
for az industrial school. In San Diego
there was alrca such school in sue
cesful operation. Los Angeles should not
long lac behind her sister cities in that
respect.
The speaker strongly commended Super
iutrudent Search for the pos ton he had
taken with reference to tins matter. Los
Angeles imperatively required Increased
school facilities, ana should have them
as soon as possible. All true friends OF
industrial education should give the
subject serious attention and prepare for
action. 1t WAS u scheme to compel child
rem who needed schooling to be kept out
of the sch oil room. Another high school
was needed, and it should be established
on the industrial plan.
The above are only few OF the salient
features of Mrs. McComas' address, which
was warmly ap2lauded.
The balance OF the evening was used
chiefly by single tax sps akers, who, as
usual, got in their work in behalf OF e,lu-
81, - .tlp
OF the SIN lie tax PHILOSOPHY. All were
listened to with close attention, and the
meeting proved to be one of more than or
binary interest.
The chairman read paper from Robert
+. fener of TINS city, VINO was unable to
b. present. but who addressed himself TO
the subject OF Competition mat Mis-.
The author said;
An article in an Eastern publication
recently treated on Competition that Kills.
After tersely describing the miserable life
men. women and children employed
in manufacturing clothing in New York
and Philadelphia, it ends with question
and an answer 1t is asked If no curb nor
prevention of this ptiful state OF affairs
is possible, and the implied answer Is
that restricted immigration would lessen
or abolish the evil That is, we are to
drive back TO even more hopeless misery
the fellow creatures who flee to America
those that exist here. If, then, this rem
edy should do all its advocates claim, 1T
would not lessen the sum OF human mis-
ery nor the evils OF the competition that
kills 1t would, at best, only delay their
exhibition in our own country.
AS the price of even that selfish gain we
would be called on to to crush all the hui
name and Christ-like feelings SO well de
picted in this me paper in the article
about the little immigrant child sent TO
his father" Yet one man. on whose COM
ings and gongs no restriction is pro-
posed, recently took out of the country
and squandered daily on a yachting trip
a sum equal to the earnings OF i've thous-
and immigrants.
But, surely the worldwide trouble is
not the mum bers OF workers, but the COM
petition for leave to work. Here in Cali
fornia with its sparse population and
boundless resources, that competition Is
almost as keen as in Philadelphia or New
York; and newcomers here, as there, seem
an evil if they are willing to work for their
living. What makes this competition
that kills'-that starvos and stunts at
least-and that will as surely prove fatal
to the republic as to the workers in the
sweat shops? Is it not plainly, that the
God given right and duty OF labor is itself
made an article of merchandise; that the
bulk of the natural resources (opportu-
mites to labor are withheld from use, and
that those who are permitted to use the
best are made to pay tribute for the PRIV
ilege? With the natural resources OF the
country so tied up, how can we fail to
have competition, not for work, but for
the privilege of working?
Miners, let us say, are standing idle
and ready to bring the coal to the sur
face; railroads are ready to distribute it;
people are freezing for want OF it; and
we, by law, give the frightful power to
Il.
made millions of years before man came
to earth, | own, and you my fellow crea-
lures and fellow countrymen, may stand
idle may starve, may freeze for want OF
it, but it shall not be touched. y
And some one can SO say OF each re-
source we have.
This god Of clay-must we not crowd
around him, must we not, in the com
petition that kills, - beg and pray to him
for leave to work, and offer tribute for
the privilege? and if he relents and sells
to some the privilege to work-the work
that Is laying there abundantly if he
will only step aside-will not the other,
still idle, soon begin to underbid their
fellows who have got the job, - in the
competition that kills?'
This god of clay-Landlords smiths
sole barrier between the worker and the
work, that we have created and then
worshiped, this Moloch into whose very
arms we yearly cast an Offering of our
youths and maidens to be shriveled up in
the agonies OF trampism and prostitution,
shall we continue to bow before it? Or
shall we, having the right and the power,
pulverize it into dust. and march over it
to life, liberty and happiness?
J. D. Drake asd
II favor industrial education in all
phases, for it leads to individualsm and
anything which advances the intrest of the
individual necessarily increases knowl-
edge. And | think the time is not far dis
tant when industrial education will make
every vocation of life "a profession in
itself. But industrial education will
never see its acme as long as we have in
dustrial slavery.
Thee is fundamental principle un
DERIVING all these questions, of far greater
Importance and one that our people must
fully understand if they would advance
great principle implied in equal rights,
making every man free and independent,
instead OF branding him as a slave.
1--WE did not educate the negro while a
slave But we changed his social condi-
ton; we gave him "a chance in other
cation under our present social condition
out of Job is under Il greater mental
educate man and then prevent him from
oppC rtunity to use it? This we are doing
every day.
First let us give every man an equal
etrnf oI mi /, nj