The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-12-17
The Unemployed.

To the Editor of the Globe.
Modern society is confronted by two evils
the millionaire and the tramp. Great wealth
and desperate poverty, however serious in
themselves, derive their chief significance as
symptoms Of an abnormal condition Of So
ciety.
l intend briefly to state the origin and ma
ture of this evil and It's cure. None can
realize more wildly than 1 do the difficulty
of solving practically this problem, yet the
fact that it is of recent growth gives us
good reason to believe that 1t may quick
ly be done away with.
Originally. this nation had neither poverty
nor wealth In the modern sense
Capitalists and the proletariat were I'M
known. The producing class were the middle
class. and owned the means of production.
Land the principal source OF wealth, was
within the reach Of all: so there could not
possibly be such thing as lack of employ
ment But, with the advent OF the steam
engine and the corresponding progress OF ma
chine development, individual effort and re-
source became insufficient to own and use
the new means Of production. Accordingly.
men united their means, formed stock COM
panies and the struggle between labor and
capital began. The first dividend that was
declared published to the world that labor
was enslaved for such dividend was the
1t mattered not that wages might be good.
nor even that employment could easily be
had the one deeply significant fact remained
that labor could no longer employ itself. that
$3.50 S--~N
1t earned.
Thus was ushered In the era Of machinery
Commercialism supplanted the arstocracy Of
land and financial fuedalism inherited the ir-
responsible power OF the more ancient des-
potism. Chattel slavery fettered the individual
and made his personal liberty subservient to
the baser instincts Of his master The modern
tyranny purchases not individual industry.
but collective effort, laboT-not the laborer
is a commodity. Yet the result is the same
and the principle involved is the same, and
so we have confronting us the old irrepressi-
BILE conflict that ushered in the civil war
the contest between freedom and slavery.
Here then, IS the evil we must contend with
private ownership Of the means Of produc-
there will be more men looking for work than
there are jobs for them; because when the
competition is even-the supply and demand
balanced-the capitalist will not run his ma
chine. Thus labor must ever be at a disad-
vantage - there must be a margin of
unemployed to be margin OF profit,
there must be a margin Of profit to be any
employment at all, and the standard Of llv
ing will be regulated by the wages for which
the desperate out-of-work will consent to take
the place Of the man with Job. This evil,
slight at the beginning OF the present era,
has grown with the growth Of machine civil
labor and to destroy the laborer and make his
Life curse. The organized unemployed pro-
pose to stop this. Capital reduced to its
ultimate essence Is the earning capacity OF
labor.
The function Of the capitalist is to buy
labor cheap and sell it dear. Labor must
learn to get along without the capitalist. We
believe we can do this. With enmity to none,
we invite the cooperation OF all. We will
accept the suggestions of a millionaire as
readily as those Of the humblest tramp. and
for their fortune or misfortune we blame
neither, believing that both are the victims
of common evil.
To grapple successfully with this problem
out great need Is not money, but practical
intelligence and ability. The trouble with
most plans for social Detterment is that they
won't work. We think we can overcome
this difficulty, and in doing so we invite the
cooperation Of all public-spirited citizens.
F. R. Hays.
Secretary Of the Organized Unemployed.