Industrial freedom. [volume] (Edison, Wash.) 1898-1???, 1899-05-06
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
MAN AND MACHINERY.
By COL Robert G. Inserso Atheist and AsnN New York City, NJ y

intelligent enough to be generous, to
be just, or does the same law or fact
control him as controls the animal or
vegetable world? The great oak
steals the sunlight from the smaller
trees. The strong animal devours
the weak-evreything at the mercy of
the beak, and claw, and hoof, and
tooth-of hand, and club, and brain
and greed-inequality injustice every
where. The poor horse standing in
the street with his dray, overworked'
overwhipped and underfed, when he
sees horses groomed to mirror, glist-
ening with gold and silver, scorning
with proud feet the very earth, prob
ably INDUCES in the usual social re-
flections; and this same horse, worn
out and old, deserted by his master,
turned into the dusty road, leans his
head on the topmost rail- looks at
donkeys in the field of clover and feels
like nihilist.
In the day decentralization the strong
devoured the intellectually ate
their flesh. In spite of all laws that
man has made, in spite of all advaeces
in science, the strong, the heartless,
still live on the weak, the unfortu-
nate, the foolish. True they do not
drink their blood or eat their flesh,
but they live on their, sef-de-
NAL, their WEAKNESS and want. The
poor man who deforms himself by
toll, who labors for his wife and chill
dren through all his anxious, barren,
wasted life-who go to the grave with
out ever having a luxury-has been
the food for others. He has been de-
voured by his fellow men. The poor
w oman living in the bare and lonely
room, cherries and fireless, night and
day, to keep starvation from her
child, is slowly being eaten by her fell
lowmen. When | take in to consider
alton the agony of civilized life-the
failures. the anxieties, the tears, the
withered hopes, the bitter realities,
the hunger, the crime, the humiliation
and the shame-I am almost forced
to say that canibalism, after all, is
the most mercful form in which man
has lived on his fellowmen.
1t is impossible for man with q
good heart to be satisfied with this
world as it is now No man can
truely enjoy what he really earns
what he knows to be his own-know-
ing that millions of his fellowmen are
in misery and want. When we think
of the famished we feel it almost
heart,ess to eat To meet the ragged
and shivering makes one almost feel
ashamed to be well dressed and
warm-one feels as if his heart were
as cold as their bodies.
In a world filled with millions and
millions OF land waiting to be TILED,
when one man can raise the food for
hundreds yet millions are on the edge
of famine. Who can comprehend the
stupidity at the bottom of this truth'
Is there to be no change?
Are the laws of supply and de
mand," invention and science, monop-
oily and competition, capital and leg
islation always to be enemies of those
who toll? Will the workers always
be ignorant and stupid enough to
give their earnings to the useless?
Will they support Millions of soldiers
to kill sons of other workingmen?
Will they always build temples and
live in huts and dens themselves? Will
they forever allow parasites and vam-
pires to live on their blood? Will
they remain the slaves of the beggars
they supprt? Will honest men stop
taking off their hats to successful
frauds? Will industry in the presence
of crowned idleness forever fall upon
it's knees-and will the lips unstained
by lies forever kiss the robbers and
imposters' hands? VIII they under
stand that beggars cannot be gener-
GUS and that every healthy man
must earn the right to live? Will
they finally say that the man who
has had privileges with all Others has
no right to complain, or will they fol-
low the example set by their oppress-
ors? VIII they learn that force, to
succeed. must have thought behind it,
and that everything done, in order
that they may succeed, mnst rest on
justice?