Industrial freedom. [volume] (Edison, Wash.) 1898-1???, 1899-05-27

"ii'iie'h anu OLIlCl CHStIlS E11eQ IN
dustrial battle-helds where thous-
ands of workingmen after being op-
pressed and robbed were imprisoned
like felons, and shot down like vaga-
bond dogs; where venal judges issued
infamous injunctions and dcspotic or
ders at the behest of their masters.
enforcing them with deputy marshals
armed with pistols and clubs and sup
ported by troops with cleaning bay
onets and shotted guns to drain the
veins of workingmen of blood, but
for whose labor this continet would
be a wilderness. Only the fortunes of
hunger and nakedness provoked pro-
test and this was silenced by the BAY
Onet and bullet, by the club and the
blood that followed the blow.
Prison labor is not accountable for
the appalling increase in insanity, in
suicide, in murder, in prostitution
and in a thousand other forms of vice
and crime which poelute every foun-
tam and contaminatee every stream de-
signed to bless the world.
Prison labor did not create our
army of unemployed but has been re-
crulted from its ranks, and owe their
existance to the same social and eco
nomic system. Nor are the evil effects
confined exclusive to the poor work
ing class Their is an aspect of the case
IN which the rich are as unfortunate
as the poor. The destiny of the cap
italist classes irrevocably linked with
the working class. Fichte, the great
German philosopher said, wicked
ness increases in proportion to the ell
walton of rank"
Prison labor is one of the nantes
tations of our economic development
and indicates it's trend. The same
cause that demoralized industry has
crowded our prisons, Industry has
not been impoverished by prison la
Dor, bnt prison labor is the result of
impoverished industry. The limited
time at my command will not permit
an analysis of the process.
The real question which confronts
us is our industrial system and its eff
fects upon labor. One of these effects
is, as | have minated, prison labor.
What is its cause? What makes it
necessary? The answer is, the COM
petitive system, which creates wage.
v,
ployment and reduces the wages of
thousands more to the point of bare
subsistence.
Why is prison labor preferred to
free labor?" Simply because it is
cheaper; it yields more profit to the
man who buys, exploits and sells it.
But this has its limitation. Capital
list. competition that throngs the
streets with idle workers, capitalist
production that reduces human labor
to a commodity and ultimately to a
crime-this system produces another
kind of prison labor in the form of
child labor which is being utilized
more and more to complete the sub
iugation of the working class, There
is this difference: The prison laborers
are clothed and housed and ted The
child lab orers, whose wage is dollar
a week or even less, must take care
of themselves.
Prison labor is preferred because it
is cheap. SO with child labor. 1t is
not question of prison labor, or of
child labor, but of cheap labor.
Tenement house labor is another
form of prison labor.
The effects of cheap labor on trade
and industry must be the same,
whether such labor is done by pris-
oners, tenement-house slaves, children
or starving "hoboes.
The prison labor produces by ma
chinery in abundance but does not
consume The child likewise pro-
duces, but owing to its small
wages does not consume. SO with
the vast army of workers whose
wage grows smaller as the product
i've capacity of labor increases, and
then we are afflicted with over-pro-
duction, the result of under-consump-
ton. What follows? The panic.
Factories close down, wagc-Workers
are idle and suffer, middle class bust
ness men are forced into bankruptcy,
the army of tramps is increased, vice
and crime are rampant and prisons
and work houses are filled to over
flowing as are sewers when the streets
of cities are deluged with floods.
Prison labor, like all cheap labor, is
at first q source of profit to the capt.
alist, but finally it is turned into two
edged sword that cuts into and de
stroys the system that produced it.
First the capitalist pockets filled by
the employment of cheap labor-and
then the bottom drops out of it.
In the cheapening process, the pau
Derized mass have lost their cOnsum-