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

ing every chapter of these modern tales
of realistic fiction, when we realize that
every time the writer touches the
truth he touches the aching heart of
the toiling millions?
And greater than all the heavy bur
dens of toll heaped upon the shoulders Of
the people is the fear and worry of hay
inc that burden removed and the bur
den bearer turned out to die.
This fear and worry is not confined to
the work people alone. The system is
equally as cruel to the fallen bosses as
it is to the born wage slave. Our
statesmen and anointed ~ rulers have
made the system so savage and unre-
lenting that even they get crushed and
ground under its cruel wheels if they
chance to fall from their positions and
lose their money in the fall.
Every year the defeated politicians
and supplanted statesmen lie down
along the track of defeat and let the
juggernaut car Of disappointment and
despair pass over their weary bodies
and crush the last bit of greed (which
is the last spark of life out of them for
ever. The chains of oppression they
are always forging for others at last
fall upon the forgers and crush the life
out of their greedy bodies. The hell
they have created to crush the spirit Of
their brethren is ever gaping to receive
the creators. and few men die con-
tented and at peace with the world in
which they have created so much
wrong and misery.
And yet men try to suppress the
truth of this awful condition, and heap
abuse and falsehood upon the heads Of
those who warn the people against the
continuation of such an abominable
system.
Why suppress the truth?
Did truth ever iniure those who love
and heed it? Are not those who sup
press the truth, professional liars?
Would men who love the truth suppress
it? Would men who love Justice deny
its blessings to the common crowd?
Would men who truly loved their
Creator torture His creatures? Would
men who love humanity support u sys-
tenn which is brutalizing every tender
feeling in the human breast? Did the
man who loved Christ betray him to his
enemies? And would the honest
statesman willingly burden his people
with burdens too grievOus to bear?
This system which grew out of human
greed has now become so great and
monstrous that statesmen dare no
longer act honestly with the great hun
cry world. They dare not represent
the people: dare not fight against
wrong.
We send a man to congress or state
legislature, and he simply occupies a
seat on the great revolving wheel of
misrepresentation, and all he can do is
w ~ W III llilS dlotluu W IllI lllt gang VI
jump off and go home.
The wheel is in motion, and the arms
of one puny man can not stop it, any
more than mouse can stop locomo-
tive. The people themselves must stop
this great revolving wheel of oppres-
sion and wrong. To east one man in
front of it, in hopes of stopping its
onward motion. is as foolish as to throw
an awl in front of loaded lumber
wagon. And the greatest men on the
wheel are those who are the most will
ing that the grinding of the people
shall continue: so look not to them for
relief. They never would have grown
so great had they been opposed to the
of the wheels.
There is but one remedy: sweep them
off. Let the people arise and stop this
political wheel which is grinding the
life out of them, and dump the riders
into the ditch.
THE MAN WITHOUT A SOUL.