Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1899-04-14
Man and Machinery.

Invention has filled the world with |
competitors not only of laborers but of
echanics-mcchanics of the highest |
skill. To-day the ordinary laborer is,
for the most part, peg in the wheels.
He works for the tireless-he feeds the
Unsuitable When the monster stops, the
man is out OF employment-out of bread.
He has not saved anything, The ma
chine invention was not for his benefit
The other day heard man say that
it was impossible for good mechanics to
get employment, and that i'll his judg-
ment the government ought to furnish
work for the people. Afew minutes later
heard another say that he was selling
patent for cutting out clothes; that one
of the machines could do the work of
twenty tailors, and that only the week
before he had sold two to a great house
in New York, and that over forty cut
tiers had been discharged.
On every side men are being discharged
and machines are being inventc | to take
their places. When great factory shuts
down, the workers who inhabited 1t ana
gave it lite, as thoughts to the brain, go
away, and it stands there like an empty
skull. A few workmcn, by the force of
habit, gather about the closed doors and
broken windows and talk about distress,
the price of food and the coming winter.
They are convinced that they have not
their share of what they created. They
feel certain that the machines on the in
side were not their friends. They look
at the mansion of the cmployer-but
have nothing themselves. The employer
seems to have enough. Even when enl-
ployers fail, when they become bankrupt,
they are far better off than their labor
ers ever were Their worst is the tolers
best.
The capitalist com cs forward with his
specific. He tells the nottingham that
he must be economical and yet, under the
present system, economy would lessen
wages.
Under the great law of supply and de
mand every saving, frugal, sclf-denying
workman is unconsciously doing what
little he can to reduce the compensation
of himself and his fellows. The slaves
who did not wish to run away helped
to fasten chains on those who did. Lo,
the saving mechanic is certificate that
wages are high enough. Does the great
law demand that every worker should
live on the least possible amount ofbread'
Ia il his fate to work one day that he
NAV get food enough to be able to work
another? Is that to be his only hope
that and death!
Capital has always claimed, and still
claims, the right to combine. Manuiac-
turers meet and determine prices, even IN
spite of the great law of supply and de-
mand. Have the laborers the same right
to consult and combine? The rich meet
in the bank, clnb house or parlor. Work
ingmen. when they combine, gather IN
the street. All the organized forces oil
society are against them. Capital has
the army and the navy, the legislature
the judicial and executive departments
When the rich combine it is for the pur
pose of exchanging IDEAS When tho
poor combine it is Conspiracy
they act in concert, if they really dc
something, it is mob. 1t they deienc
themselves, it is treason. How is 1t thai
the rich control the departments OF TIT
government? In this country the polti
cal power is equally divided among men
There are certainly more poor than rich
Why should the rich CONTROL WIN
should not the laborcrs combine tor tn
purpose of controlling the executive tn
legislative and judicial departments
Will they ever find out how powerful
they are? cry comes from the Cypress
ed, the hungry, from the downtrodden
from the unfortunate, from the despised
from men who despair and from womel