The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1895-01-31
THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES ARE NOT
HOPEFUL.

HOBEfUL.
Gen. Lucius Fairchild, of Wisconsin,
made speech at a banquet of the Sons
of Ohio in Chicago, which is attracting
attention. Gen. Fairchild will be re-
membered as conspicuous soldier of
the war. He lost his good right arm at
the second battle of Bull Run. Since the
war he has been Governor of Wisconsin,
Consul to London, and Commander-in-
Chief of the Grand Amy He is a Re-
publican of the old school and does not
take kindly to the venal methods of our
modern politics. As he opposed black
slavery before the wsr he is not in har.
mony with the Republican leaders of to-
day.
The Chicago Record, an Independent
journal of liberal views, comments as
follows on Gen. Fairchild's speech at the
Sons of Ohio banquet:
"In all that makes good citizen,
loyal soldier and devoted patriot Gen.
Lucius Fairchild may be taken as a shin
ing example. But the gallant general
disappointed his admirers in his pessi.
mistic address at the banquet of the Sons
of Ohio on Tuesday evening. He could
see little in the signs of the times that
did not arouse his fears for the republic.
The labor troubles in Brooklyn, he be.
lieved, were indications of spirit of un-
rest that threatened the very life of the
government, and he rejoiced that his age
made it probable that he should not wit
ness the final catastrophe, as some of his
younger hearers might be compelled to
do"
The Chicago Record takes a more
hopeful view. 1t disagrees with the gal.
liant General on the future outlook. We
quote paragraph from the prognosti-
cations of the Record
"At no period in this nations history
was there ever so large a proportion of
children in the public schools, and never
before was there such activity in the
building of schools, churches, public il
braries, art galleries, hospitals and the
like, all for the improvement, comfort
and happiness of the great masses of the
people. Along every line of thought the
idea of improving the masses is the dom
inant one."
And sull Gen. Fairchid may be right.
and the Record wrong. 1t is true our
public schools are full of children and
that all our cities are adorned with mag
niiicent churches, with spires that pierce
the sky, much higher than in the earlier
days Of the Republic. 1t is true that
great cities rise on every hand, and that
all our valleys are filled with hamlets and
towns that send up great volumes of
smoke that sometimes hide the sun. But
when we examine the moral and physi-
cal condition of the men whose toll fab
ricates the machines, builds the factories
and school houses and churches what do
we discover. We cannot fail to see that
the condition of the laboring classes in
this country today is one of universal
unrest; Just as Gen. FairChild depicts in
his banquet speech.
1t is not the size of our cities, the miles
of our railroads or the volumes of smoke
our factories send into the sky that
make people great and prosperous
and happy, but the kind of men and
women these potencies produce.
Only few days ago we read of gen.
eral cut in wages in the great steel works
of Carnegie at Homestead. We read
also that the poorly paid hirelings of
Carnegie, having no organization, and
no surplus money or bread, were COM
PEELED to submit to the wages of half
starvation, or starve. And labor sub
mitted A few days later we read that
this same Carnegie had made a generous
donation to build a magnificent church,
not at Homestead, but for swell con-
gregation elsewhere, who needed the true
religion of Christ much more than they
needed a fashionable church.
Public schools for all and magnificent
churches are surely valuable evidences
Of wholesome and refined civilization,
but suppose the children Of the poor
have to wear out their young lives in
factories, to keep the wolf from their
fathers hut, of what benefit are free
schools to such children?
Suppose the man who labors in the
factory, and the poor mans wife who
boilS his soup from a bone, have no
clothes fit to wear in church where the
pews are soft with plush velvet, what
benefit is that church to the moral well
being of that family?
The trouble today, land nearly all the
trouble), is over the the distribution of
the earnings of labor. While capital
is fully organized and securely in
trenched in power everywhere,
labor is entirely dependent and at the
| absolute mercy Of capital. In too many
| instances, ,notablyin combines controlled
by men like Carnegie and Pullman, cap
ital is entirely without mercy.
Unless this condition is changed, and
that too, speedily, the worst predicted
by Gen. Fairchild will surely come to
pass.