Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1898-09-03

ylouS occasion was there more impeTa-
tive necessity impelling the student of
the labor problem to investigate the
conditions that surround him and to
search for means for the advancement
of his cause.
Notwithstanding the prevailing i'm
preston that the condition of labor has
improved within the past year and that
in some localities and industries there
is good ground for the impression the
general tendency of labor is not up
ward. The large crops of last year and
various other lesser causes contributing
to slight revivals of business tended TO
create the impression that there was
hope of an Improvements in the indus
trial world, but the close student of So
cial problems knows that there can be
no radical permanent Improvement in
the condition of labor generally until
great fundamental changes in our in
dustrial system have taken place.
The writer has not the disposition to
pose as pessimist, but facts are facts,
and it availeth naught to hide or dis
guise the truth on this subject. 1t is
true that there has been a recent re-
vival in many of the factory districts,
and that things are not so bad i'll some
other industries as they have been in
past years, but there is only q slight
diminution in the army of the unem-
ployed, and many of those who are now
working are receiving reduced wages
and have only temporary employment
There are strikes and rumors of strikes
and in a majority of cases against re-
auctions of wages. You may say that
Striking has become second nature to
the workingman, and that it is as
often an evidence that he sees his op-
portunities improving as anything else
that makes him strike. 1 say to you in
answer that when great majority of
the strikes are against reductions of
wagesit is bad sign for the industrian
and disproves your fiippant charge.
Labor is not out of the woods, nor is it
less deeply enveloped in the black forest
than it was a year ago.
1t therefore behooves all we'll inten-
toned persons to consider labor's situa-
ton; to listen to its grievances, inves-
tigate its demands and to lend help
ing hand to the movements which man
fully, openly and in law abiding man
ner are attempting its uplifting. On
Labor day, just one day in the year, the
business and professional men and all
citizens who are removed from the ne
cessity of wage labor may well afford
to give ear to the plea of the chained
giant, who rattles but does not rend his
chains.
1t is not intended to convey the i'm
preston through the foregoing that la
boris friends are confined exclusively TO
the ranks of the wageworkers. On the
g. l,., l.,k
cause numbers among its active sup
porters some of the country's ablest and
most famous clergymen, jurists, pro-
fessors and others not of the wagework
ing classes, and from them oftener than
from labor organization men come radi-
cal utterances on the labor question.
Oh, the labor movement is thoroughly
All that is needed is that
the great mass of the people, the great
middle class, so called, many of them
themselves, should wipe
the dust from their eyes, see the situa-
ton as it is, realizing that ''labor is
noble and holy" and that truly ''tbe
Iaborer is worthy of his hire that the
labor question is the question of justice,
Of truth, of progress, of humanity that |
the destiny Of the state, the future of |
depend upon its solution. |
Victor Hugo said: Labor is life. |
Thought is light" With all thinking |
who labor what an irresistible power |
would be generated
1t is not possible within the limits of |
his article to set out and classify the |
grievances and demands of labor. Its
general complaint is against the unfair
ness which characteriZes the division of
he products of its efforts. Low wages,
he hours of a days labor and lack of
are the storm centers of its
agitation. 1t claims that only i'll excep-
ional cases does the wage paid bear
my necessary relation to the value of
he product; but that in almost every
Instance what Ricardo called 1.-THE iron
aw of wages" Is the determining
actor. This law proclaims that the Ia
)oreris given from the product just |
to enable him to live, work
md perpetuate his species, and the labor
advocate declares that competition
.mong the laborers enforces this law,
nd must inevitably, except where tenn
,orarily thSvarted by combinations of
he workers, continually lower the
tandard of living. In support of this
we are invited to witness the
'ast fortunes accumulated by the sue
essful captains of industry, the inn
nense wealth of a very few on the one
land and the poverty of the many on
he other. Relatively at least the facts
Import the claim that the rich are
rowing richer and the poor poorer. It
oes not satisfy the man who has labored
lmost lifetime helping to add to the
iches Of 1.-The most prosperous country (
n the globe, P" while his own condition !
as not improved, but rather grows !
Forse as he ages, TO tell him that he is
luch better off then are those of his {
lass in some other country. Labor is {
and Thought is light I
Probably the most potent contributory ]
ause to labor's present unfayorable posi- ]
ion is the invasion Of his domain by the {
iachine. The inventor never sleeps, &