The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1896-02-26
THE SITUATION NOW.
THE IMMORTALITY IN THE BUSI.
NESS WORLD,
"The Rich Mans Wealth Is His
Strong City-The Destruction of
the Poor is Their Poverty"

When we stop to think of it, is it not
an AIMING thing that there is so much
misery, want and anxiety in the world
among people who are willing to work
and capable of producing with their
labor all sorts of wealth to satisfy their
needs? How many there are all about
us, here, there and everywhere. who are
in need of good, well furnished homes!
And the carpenters, masons, producers
of all sorts of building materials, paint
ers, decorators, carpet weavers, furni-
ture makers, artists, authors publishers,
printers, and the rest, would gladly
build, beautify and furnish luXuriously
homes for all. They could do it easily If
kept at work. The famers could feed
all, the factories could cloth all, and the
workers could all be rich, with every
legitimate want supplied, if all the able
bodied were kept at work eight hours
day, six days in the week, 300 days in
the year, for period Of ten years. Mod
ern machinery and natural motive power
have so multiplied the results of labor
in almost every branch of industry that
need should be unknown. But machin-
cry, steam and electricity have not bene-
fitted the poor. Invention and tireless
motive power have not done away with
poverty. The percentage of landless,
homeless, dependent people is even
steadily increasing. Great numbers OF
sober, capapble men and women cannot
obtain regular employment, cannot ex-
change services with one another and so
meet their mutual wants.
1t is true of the different classes that
the rich are growing richer, the people
with small means are growing poorer,
kl,o ,1,ov>s rhn aon ND
employment are increasing, and the
struggle between competing workers
for the insufficient places and wages
decreed to them by the landlords and
capitalists is growing more desperate.
degrading and destructive. In the de-
gree that wealth is concentrating the
world is growing worse, more selfish,
more miserable. 1.-THE rich mans
wealth is his strong city; the destruc-
ton OF the poor is tI.eir poverty "The
rich ruleth over the poor, and the
borrower is servant unto the lender"
CapitalistSRre organized and organiz-
ing to increase their power and exac-
tions; the wage--workers are organizing
to resist wage reductions; and between
these two commercial forces relentless,
wasteful. terrible war is determined.
Between contract and contract truces
are observed, but there is no such thing
as settled peace. On the one side the
capitalists never satisfied, out of the
profits from underpaid labor are buying
up and monopoliZing more and more OF
the natural resources, the increasingly
valuable lands, mines, oil wells, lumber
regions, municipal mOnopOlies, costly ma
chinery. the necessary means OF prOduc-
ton and exchange, and are increasing
e 4, %s,sA s1,,t< ID
on the other side the wage workers are
organizing the fight for enough to live
on, and they will never cease demand
ing more and more, until we have in
dustrial equality as we'll as political
equality, or until, starved to desperation,
the bomb and torch shall be resorted to
by the maddened masses. The great con-
solidating corporations and the class
called monopolsts, with the law and GUS
toms of the centuries behind them, will
not force less from the workers than
they have obtained power to, and the
workers will not endure dependence and
destitutiOn as their permanent place and
part in society. 1t is also true that the
knowledge of injustice is spreading, and
an explosion upward cannot be long pre-
vented by force or subtlety. An indus
trial despot, when men are enlightened,
will be seen to be as oppressive ty-
rant as political despot. monopolist
is as much of king as if crowned and
publicly proclaimed such.
But the monopolists cannot be con-
demned, save as we condemn the busi-
ness system which has made them. And
have we not all plunged into it and lived
by it's law, or rule? In view of the re-
suits of the business struggle it is forced
upon us to ask, is it right? is it Chris
tian? are the commercial transactions
which all engage in, the acts of trade
commonly regarded as legitimate,
moral?
From an editorial in an Omaha daily
we clipped few years ago the plain
statement following, written in answer
to query of correspondent. That pa
per said
1T is the law of the business world
and the law of the industrial world that
the buyer and the seller, whether labor
or material bought or sold, stand for
the time being in antagonism to each
other"
Each gets as much as he can and
gives as little as he must, buys cheap
and sells dear, if he can do SO, and con-
siders it practical wisdom and necessary
business so to do. 1t matters not how
much kindness of heart and sympathy
individuals possess, it is not allowed to
interfere to any appreciable extent with
the business struggle. Business Is
business we say.
But this struggle for gain one of an
other, which we call business" is anti
Christian, is exactly contrary to the
moral law. "Thou shalt love thy neigh
Dor as thyself'' And it is this selfish
struggle which has divided men and pro-
duced all the innumerable, immeasur-
able, inde-scribable evils which flow out
of selfshness Let this statement sink
down into your minds and receive care
full consideration, that the business sys-
tenn of selfish force which fixes all prices
and wages and distributes the rewards
of labor, is anti Christian, immoral, and
we must separate ourselves from it. We
must come out Of Babylon, whose doom
fOretold approaches, or we shall continue
to suffer her plaques and go down with
her into final destruction. For her sins
have reached upto heaven and God hath
remembered her iniuuitieS"-Wealth