Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1897-05-28

"Ah, once more" cried. I'VE stars. we
waters,
On my heart your mighty charm re-
Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,
Feel my soul becoming vast, like
you"
From the intense, clear, star-sown vault
of heaven,
over the lit seas unquiet way,
On the rustling night air, came the
"would'st thou be as these are? Live
as they!
"Unaffrighted by the silence round
them,
Undistracted by the sights they see,
These demand not that the things with
out them
Yield them love, amusement, sympa-
thy.
"And with Joy the stars perform their
shining,
And the sea its long, moon-silvered
For alone they live, nor pine with not
All the fever of some differing soul.
Bounded by themselves and unobser-
want
In what state Gods other works may
be,
In their own tasks all their powers
pouring,
These attain the mighty life you see."
oh, air-born Voice! long since, severely
clear
A cry like thine in my own heart I
hear.
Resolve to be thyself; and know that
Who finds himself loses his misery"
Matthew Arnold.
The Wage Question an Ethical One.
Cincinnati Commercial Tribune:
What shall be paid for labor? Not all
that the employee may ask, for he may
demand the whole product Of labor,
and then capital, shorn of reward, would
withdraw, leaving labor to starve.
Neither must wages be what the en-
ployer would willingly pay, for he
would choose to pay nothing; so starry
ing the laborer. The wages of labor
must be its fair share of the products,
in a business conducted with equal
economy as to wages and other ex-
penses at both ends of the line-the
counting-room and the shop. This is
not a matter to be settled arbitrarily
by either party; rather it is to be deter
mined by careful and just calculation.
1t is question of right and wrong,
not of within or greed. When capital
and labor cooperate, the service OF la
Dor is worth so much and no more; and
so much and no more must be paid.
Those who fix wages without regard to
these principles, by working the mar
ket, forcing competition and in like
ways, are no better than highwaymsn
or pirates.
What is the test of a fair division
with labor? 1t Is very simple. When
the workingman, willing to labor, fair
ly competent, reasonably prudent, is
falling behind, month by month, while
the employer is increasing his surplus,
there is no fair division. In such a
case the employer is becoming rich
without economic merit, and the work.
ingman is growing poorer without eco
nomic demerit. Somewhere in the prac-
tice of division there is fraud.
Under just distribution of the prod
uct of labor there would be no enforc-
ed idleness among workingmen. A man
willing to work could find employment
The aggregate wealth of the country
and of the world is increased year by
year. Fair division would, therefore,
increase the wealth of each individual
hA ind fpfo -
course, not the wilfully idle. For all
increase of wealth, in legitimate ways,
is primarily due to labor.
The question of wages is a question
of ethics. There is no more important
fact than this for the workingman to
insist upon. 1t is not the separate in
terest of class that is concerned, but
the welfare of the whole people. Ac-
cording to the approach of fair d.
vision among people, they are thrift
ty. growing in intelligence and all good
qualities, or the reverse. Where there
is no pretense of fair division, the peo-
pie are sunk in slavery, and the end
of the civilization or the race is at
hand. Remember, then, this is not
workingmen's question, but the affair of
all the people, high and low; and it is
a question of ethics.
How far from truth and right are
they who say, II have right to buy
labor as cheap as l can get it." That
is a disavowal Of all responsibility for
the common welfare; the assertion Of
right to prey upon your neighbor, il
his necessities give you the chance,
though you drive him to ruin, turn his
children into the street and destroy the
family. 1t is claiming the right to de-
preciate labor by crafty management,
by cunning working of markets, by
reckless speculation, and by Industrial
calamities carefully planned and re-
morselessly brought on. With a mans
labor are bound up the fortunes of
his family, mental, moral and material.
To take his labor without just reward
Is robbing the helpless and the inno-
cent-infinitely more shameful than the
business of the foot-pad! But within
the last thirty years this land has