The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1897-06-19

press forward with the resistless ardOr
of a new crusade, nor will they be de-
f1ected from their course the breadth
of a hair until slavery in every form
has been abolished and humanity rises
to exhaltation, redeemed, regenerated
and disenthralled.
The letters of the slave and the
scourge of the master symbolic the
reign of competitive commercialism
and while the barbarous system is suf-
fered to endure, the Declaration of In
dependence is a meaningless platitude
and our much-vaunted free institutions
delusion and sham. Not until slave
and master have both disappeared, and
forever, and the equal freedom of all
has been established, can we lay any
proper claim to civilization.
No proposition will be accepted by the
convention which will not Withstand the
severest criticism, which is fully expect
ed. Neither the magnitude of the task
we are about to undertake nor the power
Of the opposing forces is underesti-
mated. You will observe when this
convention is organized for business
that only such propositions will be sub
mitted as will have the endorsement of
host Of the best thinkers in the land
students of affairs, men and women OF
varied knowledge and profoundly inter-
ested in the welfare of society. Some
of these thinkers, interested in indus
trial economic and humanit tartan affairs,
will participate in the deliberations of
this convention. They know, as Gold
smith know, and as we all know, that
iii fares the land to fastening ills a
prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men
decay"
and they know, as we all know, that
the twin curse has long since reached
the United States Of America. Here
wealth has accumulated until indi-
vidual fortunes defy computation; here
men by millions are decaying, and here
the ills which the author of the DE
serted Village" so graphically portrayed
are epidemic, and are spreading with
alarming rapidly from the center in
every possible direction over the land.
In certain quarters it is esteemed a
duty to indulge in criticisms designed
to make any and every humanitarian
enterprise the butt for ridicule and con-
tempt, and to characterize their authors
as vagarists, if nothing worse, and their
schemes as ,senseless and impossible
But such a course, designed to work
disaster and perpetuate wretchedness
in the interest of those who profit by it,
no longer intimidates those who, amidst
storms and battles, have achieved so
much self emancipation as to dare to
think for themselves, and have learned
outside of optimistic and pessimistic
schools that they must work out their
own salvation and not trust to "order-
ing of events relating to the emancipa-
ton of others, not even to that inscrut-
able divinity which is said to "shape
our ends, rough heW them how we WILL
nor supinely wait for that one tide in
the affairs of men that leads on to for
tune" but with will and courage and
self reliance hew out for themselves
new pathways to better conditions.
The past is not a sealed book. What
ever have been the trophies of our
boosted civilization, the emancipation
of wage slavery does not appear in the
list of it's victories. Nowhere on the face
of the earth has a monument been
erected as a memorial of such an event.
The combined forces of religion, edu
cation, science and civilization have
been unequal to the task Of SO shaping
affairs as to permit men who toll to own
themselves. The Wage-system has held
them with unrelaxing grasp in perpetual
bondage.
We have had the declaration from an
inspired apostle Of the Christian reli-
gion that God is no respecter of per-
sons" We have it Incorporated in our
Declaration of Independence that ali
men are created equal" and we have
constitutions and statutes in consonance
with the declaration, but it is held that
the cruelty of the wage system can in
h yyhi m
may come and men may CO. the sys-:
tenn, like the brook in the poem, must
flow on forever; that wage slavery is the
one curse forjwhich there is no redress,
and that labor must forever be the
creator of wealth i'm which its share Is
bare subsistence and all too often
cipher at the right hand of a decimal
point. ...-
But the 'thorny stem of Time" is
even now budding with cheering indi-
cations that a new dispensation is at
hand. slgs+
What is this new dispensation and
what does it signify? Ill
In the presence of this audience, made
up of workers and thinkers, I would
not, even if 1 had the tongue Of an
angel, seek to encourage delusive hopes.
My experience and observation teach
me that we live in a time in the history
of our country when industrial condi-
tons are of a character which every
where excite unrest and alarm. Business
prostration is universal. Confidence"
seems to have taken to itself wings and
flown away, and so far as the most
penetrating vision can, discern there is
no indication that it will ever return.
In the meantime the gloom that has set
tied down upon the country deepens
into darkness, nor would relief come to
the disemployed millions if confidence
were to return tomorrow, simply be-
cause there are more workers by far
than can find employment under the
most favorable conditions possible under
the present system, and because the
number of enforced idlers is steadily
and rapidly increasing by reason of the
labor displacing machine which, under
the capitalist system of production, has
doomed labor to fathomless depths of
servitude, suffering and degradation.
Statistics relating to the vast army
of men, women and children who toll
for living in all our centers of popu-
lation constitute a picture of poverty
which cannot be contemplated without
the most painful forebodings Of ills
which alright courageous men. Hun