Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1896-02-14
OUT OF SLAV ELY.
WHOLE COLONIES LEAVING THE
CITIES FOR THE SOUTH.
They Can at Least Have Pure Air. Pure
Water, Sunshine, and tho Privilege
and Opportunity of Securing Their
Own Home.

From the Cleveland Citizen: Twenty
families of Providence, r. l., got to-
gether the other day and resolved that
they were heartily disguised with the
dirty, ugly filth and poverty in that
city of wage-slavery, and further, that
they would look up some healthy loca-
ton in the South and emigrate to 1t as
soon as possible.
1t might be betraying confidence to
say that a similar movement is on foot
in this city, but it is the truth never
theless. Many of the most active work
ers in local labor and reform ranks
have about arrived at the conclusion
that the masses are satisfied with the
conditions surrounding them: that they
are wasting valuable time and money
in pointing the way out of the wilder
ncss-that they are casting pearls be-
fore swine.
If they have become pessimistic they
cannot be blamed much. Your reform
er, with keen sense of justice, with a
heart that beats for all, with altruistic
notions, with beautiful ideals, is only
human in the end-intensely so. II
his intellect were blunted, II it were his
consuming desire to crafty self at the
expense of others, he could rudely ell
bow his way through life, ride rough
shod over the unfortunate and cringe
and fawn before the successful like any
other unfeeling individual. But he loves
his race; his sympathy is sublime; his
sacrifice noble. Still there is begin
ming and an end to all things.
Your reformer may plead and scold,
but it is of little avail He is sneered
at by oppressor and oppressed alike. 1t
is deplorable, heart-sickening. Those
who perform manual labor. who create
and have not, are calloused because Of
their poverty. Those who produce
nothing and yet possess all become
hardened by their riches. Tell the la
borer who tolls early and late that he
is the equal Of his employer and he
stupidity mods assent, but down in his
heart he does not believe it. He is still
the slave who was whipped with a
knout and treated as brute.
In the city the poor, the workers of the
shops and factories, are dependent up
on the crumbs that fall from the tables
of the rich, who own the shops and
factories. The employer has easy hours
and gets the lions share of all that is
porduced the employee tolls long hours
and secures only enough to barely ex-
list. The boss lives in fine mansion.
his feet tread upon soft carpets and
rugs, his eyes feast upon rare pictures
and bric-a- brac and books, and a beau
tiful lawn surrounds his residence, dot
ted here and there with shady trees and
pretty shrubbery and beds of flowers
and there are weil-kept stables with
employee pays a landlord for the privi-
lege of existing in a ramshackie dwell
ing on a narrow, back street, amid
smoke, dirt and dust, and there is
prints on the wall, some secondhand
furniture in the corners, and an odor
of mustiness and cookery about the
place, to say nothing of the dreary yard
OF yellow clay, with coal-sheds and ash
barrels to complete the desolate picture.
The employer dimes upon the best that
a market affords and wears the finest
of clothes; the thankful employee eats
the cheapest of foods and wears cheap,
shoddy goods. And finally, the en-
ployer stands for public office, and the
employe enthuses and PUSHES to the
polls and elects him.
For nine employees out Of ten there is
no future. They eat and sleep and work
if they can get work-from one end
of the year to the other. Their one
great study is to keep the wolf from
the door, and to accomplish that end
often enough principles dear to them
are ruthlessly sacrificed. Their chill
dren are early sent into the workshop
and factory to struggle against want,
stunning their growth, losing the pleas
ures and joys of childhood and wasting
their lives in endless exacting toll;
their wives, the mothers, the guardian
angels of the family rooftree-who can
tell Of the suffering, the sorrow, the
tumultuous despair in their hearts when
the father is thrown out of employment
and the little ones are in need Of food
and clothing!
1t is true the school-doors are open.
And each year more young men and
women are turned out with their i'm
aginations expanded, their hopes en-
larged. only to be bitterly disappointed.
to become dissatisfied, and to finally
settle into the rut of struggling. fight
ing humanity, made such by constantly
narrowing opportunities.
If the agitators of certain commu-
nifty become discouraged at the indif-
ference, the cowardice of the immov-
able masses, who seem to be sinking
to the Chinese level We say again that
they cannot be blamed for desiring to
improve their surroundings and living
peacefully and happily and removed
from fear Of want