The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-08-01
A NEW FRENCH ORATOR.
NJ. Jaures, an Eloquent Champion of
the Workers.
Paris Letter in New York Post.

Paris Letter in New York Post
"It must be-" said M. Jaures, that these
men, who bury all their labor in another's
land while waiting for their bodies to be
buried in the only part of the earth that
is common to all, shall little by little come
to a consciousness of their class and its
that these men cannot for long to come
listen to us or follow US; that, at the mercy
Of the law of wages, they are destined for
long years TO consecrate by their passive
vote the servitude and wretchedness which
we should wish to bring to an end Our
dream of justice is not of a day. We
are far from the complaint of the middle
ages, when the workmen lamented that
they wOve their richest stuffs for their
lords, while for themselves they wove only
their own shroud. They have taken cen
turtles to perceive that from their own sub
stance has been made the substance of the
rich.
But for the peasants there is much be-
side. By what virtue have they been able
to endure their eternal life of nakedness
and priYation? For eighteen hundred years,
under the powerful organization of the Ro-
man GaulS, under the triumphs of the feud
al system, under the grasping bourgeoisie,
they have seen flowing out to others the
fountains of riches which they had made to
leap forth from the soil. For them the toll
of seed time beneath the heavy sun, for
them the fierce struggle of the axe with
the oak, for them the short sleep in stables
and the waking from the earliest hours.
sisters of the day to the harsh cares of
their cattle But it is always to the noble
Gaul, proud that he had Journeyed TO
Rome. to the feudal knight in harness Tor
the tournament, to the bourgeois and the
rich financier, that from century to CEN
fury have gone the wealth of the vineyards
and the fields, the strength or the sum
mers. the plenty Of autumn-it is always Tor
others that they wear themselves out ana
suffer-
From this rapid picture of the part OF the
peoDle until now In civilization, the orator
passed on TO the inevitable change Whlch
the government he opposes has ALREADY pe-
gun. You call them to pubic duties; all
expect something from the state. You
draw them into the cities BY universal eX-
positions you bring them headlong 10 new
sights You bewilder these men, accus-
toned to solitude, in the flood OF noisy
and agitated crowds. You think to lean on
the rural democracy as on strong tree
trunk: and IL is yourselves that uproot the
peasants from the land to which they We're
attached. There are no longer other than
provisional peasants.
NJ Jaures is especially severe on the pro-
tectionism of Prime Minister Meline. by
we only succeed in multiplying IL on every
other. In this tossing, eddying Whirlpool. Y
would be childish to believe that we shall
avoid shipwreck by thrusting a single plank
into the water = Our time is fertile
i'm wonderful reactions. 1t is like an inn
mense keyboard, whose resonance is I'M
forseen and far away. With pro-
tectionism the misery OF the peasant is not
near its end.
ssYet. these long years of suffering will
not have been lost sufferinss for him.
Behold his labor remains barren;
the price of his corn and wine and oil de-
ponds no longer on rain or frost: and he has
the feeling that its variations have for their
cause a human fact, social phenomenon.