Little Falls herald. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1889-1950, 1898-09-16

As matters exist today, there are.
thousands Of people in our So!
called lower classes the term, byl
the way, should be forever ia !,
booed from the vocabulary Of any
true American---for whom it. is al
thousand times easier to do wrong
than to do right. They are not
of the worthless class necessarily,
but even. among our workers.
Think Of the countless thousands
who toll long, weary hours at
hard exhausting labor for a mere:
pittance, barely enough to keep
soul and body together without
hope or ambition. Certainly we
cannot look for very high class
Of citizenship from this great and
ever-increasing army. Our war
fare, known as competition, is re-
sponsible for this condition; but
it must be succeeded by a more
just order, if this nation is to be
saved and the republic is to per-
manently endure. The little chill
dren must be rescued from our
factories and sweatshops, no less
from the slums and saloons, if
they are to- grow up to an ppre-
citation of their responsibility IS
citizens. All the horrors of our
present day industrialism must be
changed. Patriotic men and
women must no longer be willing
to live by robbing children Of
their childhood and young girls of
their maidenhood through their
toll in stores and factories at 50. so
to SIS a week, and the very fact
that the children and young girls
may be hidden from our gaze or
the profit that we make come to
our hands through the thin gauze
Of a corporation, should never for
one moment hide the wrong from
| the uuickened social conscience of
the nan or woman who truly loves
his country. I deny the right of
any man or women living by such
such means to claim to be patriotic.
It is true there are thousands
whose attention has never been
called to this wrong, but those of
us who have had our eyes opened
to this iniquity are nothing less
than particeps criminis unless we
cry out against this spoliation of
our people for the sake of private
profit. When we shall have real
lied the perfect republic then
we shall find the good of the indi-
vidual only in good of all.
In that awful tragedy that oc-
Cured on the morning of July +,
when the steamer Bourgogne went
down with nearly 600 souls, there
was in all probability no reason
that any should have been lost,
had it not been for the insane
frenzy of the cunning and strong
to make themselves secure and to
save their own miserable lives.
There is a shining example of the
so-called law of survival Of the fit
test -fittest, forsooth---it was a
case of the survival of brute force
and as we reflect upon the horrors
of that catastrophe, that out Of 700
persons, more than 200 women
and children, but one woman was
saved, we are enabled to get a
glimpse of the product that our
heartless competitive systemis de-
veloping. How do you like the
looks of the article.
The disgusting and distracting
troubles known as labor troubles
disappear from civilization as be-
fore the clear daylight Of the sun
of public ownership. Whoever
heard of a strike among the post
office employesP And yet, per-
iodically, we are disturbed with
strikes amoug the street railway
employees, the lighting com panies,
the railroad companies; indeed,
among all manner Of employees
who are serving an Individual.