Industrial freedom. [volume] (Edison, Wash.) 1898-1???, 1898-05-28
GRINDING OF
THE WHEELS.

Have YOU ever noticed that all the
writers of stories during the 10Th CEN
fury have invariably painted the manu-
featuring towns and mining districts in
such sombre colors of abject horror that
the sympathetic reader always feels
like rebelling against the cruel slave
drivers of these industrial dens?
In those stories the work people are
always gloomy and hopeless and poverty
stricken, and even the writers who have
no idea Of preaching reform. and do
not condemn our present unjust system,
fall into the same gloomy word-paint-
ing. and paint picture of such dismal
and hopeless colors in portraying the
manufacturing and mining towns Of
civilization that the readers heart
throbs painfully at the very mention
of these modern industrial bells.
The thoughtful writer can not avoid
this gloomy painting. The feeling is
in the very air, and it falls upon think
ing men and women in spite of their
oEn bright prospects and brilliant
hopes, their environments and happy
dispositions. There is an underlined
feeling of human oppression and brutal
wrong in the summer breeze, as well as
in the cruel winters blast. This long
continued grinding of the sorrowful
faces of the outraged poor in the dust,
has set everybody's teeth on edge. and
the average writer can not help but
bite and snarl at the dismal conditions
of humanity without even realizing
why the spirit of rebellion is ALWAYS
uppermOst in his mind.
The miseries of the orthodox hell are
so unreal and fantastic that they make
but little impression on the minds of
the careless: but the terrors and op-
pressions of the average manufacturing
town can be described intelligentlv bv
the most common writer, because we
are all perfectly aware of the terrible
truths without the writer attempting to
prove them to rs.
Now, if our system of government is
perfect, and the Christian spirit is
the ruling spirit of civilization. why.
then, this terrible gloom of hopeless
mess and unrest in our great industrial
fields:
Do men complain without reason? DO
women grow prematurely old and hag-
gard while gay and happy heart beats
in their bosom: Do men. women and
children 70 about ragged and hungry
from choice: DO fond mothers teach
their boys to become wandering tramus
and social outcasts? Does the great
God of truth design thieves and burg
lars and wanderers;
Dare we Christian people bring such
a charge against our Creator:
You know the charge is false. You
know that this low, brutal system of
competition ha, changed all that is
good and noble in man into one gold
throbbing thirstof inhuman greed. We
are no longer human wcare only com
mon beasts Of the Industrial fields. with
all the finer feelings of human SYM
pathy crushed out of our hearts.
We are sweat cannibal-. We do not
eat the blood ofour unfortunate broth
ers, bat we do torture them in our i'm
dustrial bells ana live upon the sweat
forced from their aching and hungry
bodies.
Christ died to change this brutal sys-
TEN, but SO far He died in vain. The
Judas lscariots outnumber the Peters
and Johns ten to one, and Judas sits
on every seat of honor, still accepting
the usual 30 pieces of silver as'the regu-
lar price of betrayal.
Is il any wonder, my dear brother.
that writers cannot depict life in our
great industrial hells without painting