The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1899-08-11

I desire to speak face to face with
you, the slaves Of the nineteenth CEN
fury; to tell you how I have seen every
effort made by philanthropists for
your benefit fall to the ground worth
less, because your own base influence
was against it. There are labor papers
working for 0 to which you never
contributed the cost Of a drink Of whis-
ky. | have seen more and worse than
this; that you have no respect for any
man but the one that kicks you, and
no trust in any power but that which
brushes you.
You are the obstacle in the way OF
race emancipation. Your masters are
a handful; you are a legion. Your
masters are intelligent, and though
they will not voluntarily relax their
selfish grip on the good things of this
world, not one of them would dare re-
fuse if you stood up for you rights.
But you are more besotted with the
far-off dazzle of their gold than they
are with its possession. They have
moments when they reflect how their
money has been gathered at your eX-
pense-moments when they almost
wish that the system that fosters rob-
berry and makes gold king, that pnts in
allegiance every noble impulse, could
be changed. But you adore the sys-'
tenn; o doff the ragged cap II bend
the servile knee before the baser part
Of these mems natures and your only
desire for liberty is for the sake of en-
ulating their vices instead Of their vir-
tues. They know this. and they know
that a social rupture that would trans
form you into m%illionaires at their eX-
pense would be the greatest possible
calamity.
For these men, selfish as they are,
have benefited the race through the
thrift of enterprise. They will build
railroads and make the different races
of men as one nation. They have util-
lied your dumb energies to serve man
kind in serving themselves. They have
used you as machines, running your
services at the lowest cost compatible
with your lives, until at last they begin
to supplant you with cheaper wood and
iron. And all this because they could
do it-because you permitted it.
They have done right. You were and
are as worthless as the dirt under
your feet, except for the power of
physical contraction and expansion in
your muscles. You will o think. The
moment one Of you begins to think he
ceases to belong to that class to whom
this article is addressed. Your faces
are prone to the ground to which your
WORKOUT bodies are rapidly fastening.
You plod and delve from day to day,
never casting admiring eyes aloft, ex-
cept when your masters with liveried
attendants splash mud over you from
the carriage wheels as they pass in
naughty splendor.
And o have the privileges of citi-
zenship in a land where such privilege
is denied by you to those whose intel
ligence ten generations of culture will
scarcely enable you to comprehend
the intelligent women Of these states.
And, what is more, being in the ma
jority, you hold this magnificent ele-
ment in check, and prevent its pure
current and turn it away from that
point where it would be of incalculable
benefit, and where, above all other in
%fluences, it would benefit you and lift
you out Of your down-trodden condi-
ton. For American women, above all
others, are your sympathizers. They
resent for you the wrongs your era
ven souls accept. And O turn up
your noses contemptuously when refer
ence is made to their political equality,
What are you going to do? Your
muscles, the only part of you your
masters ever needed, have beer sup
planted by the more economical sub
stitution OF machinery. Are you will
ing to cumber the earth as useless lum-
Der, or do you mean to come up to the
dignity OF manhood among your
brother laborers who are organizing
for self-protection? There are only
two ways for you. Your muscles are
superseded. The demand for them be-
comes continually more limited. The
world calls on all men now for brain.
1t asks you for thought, that though
1t may develop the finer and as yet un-
explored forces of nature. If you
refuse to respond to this call, there
remains the other alternative-to die
and give place to those who are sus-
ceDtih1e tn the hiphor innulcne oP i,
more refined age.-Helen Wilmans.