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

along the iron track OF progress
and civilization. In the costume of
the craft, through the CRIME of ming
led sweat and smoke and dust l was
initiated into the great brotherhood
of labor. The locomotive was my
alma mater, | mastered the Curriculum
and graduated with the degreeof D.
D., not as the lexicons interpret the
letters, Doctor of Divinity" but that
better sign1fication, "Do and Dare"
"a higher degree than Aristotle con-
ferred in his Lyceum of Plato thun-
dered from his Acadamy. | am not
in the habit of telling how little |
know about latin to those who have
slaked their thirst for learning at the
Pierlan springs, but there is proverb
that has come down to us from the
dim past which reads "Omnia vincit
labor" and which has been adopted
as the shibboleth of the American Ia
Dor movement because when reduced
to english it reads ''labor OvercomeS
all things" in a certain sense this is
true. Labor has built this great me-
trOpolis of the new world, built it as
the coral insects build the founda-
from the fathomless depths of the
ocean until mountain pillows are
dashed to spray against the fortif-
cations beneath which the builders
are forever entOmbed and forgotten
Here in this proud city where wealth
has built its monuments grander and
more imposing than any of the seven
wonders of the world named in class
ic lore, if YOU will excavate for facts
you will find the remains ofthe bones of
the toilers, buried and imbedded in
their foundations. They lived, they
wrought, they died In their time
they may have laughed and sung and
danced to the music of their clanking
chains, They married, propagated
their species and perpetuated condi-
tons which, growing steadily worse,
are to day the foulest blights the mag
nation can conceive upon our much
wanted civilization.
And from these cOnditins there flow
a thousand streams of vice and crime
which have brOadened and deepened
until they constitute perpetuai menace
to the peace and security of society.
penitentaries are crowded with vic
TINS, andsthe question how to con-
troll these institutions and their I'M
fortunate inmates is challenging the
most serious thought of the most adj
vanced uations on the globe.
The particular phase of this grave
and melancholy question which we
are to consider this evening is embod-
led in the sabJect assigned the speak
ers: prison labor, It's Effects on In
dustry and Trade.
Imust confess it would have suited
my purpose better had the subject
been transposed so as to read: "In-
dustry and Trade their effects on Ia
Dor" for, as a socialist, | am convin.
ced that the prison problem is rooted
in the present system Of industry
and trade, carried forward, as it is,
purely for private profit without the
slightest regard TO effect upon those
engaged in e. especially the men, wo-
men and children who preform the
useful productive labor which hes
created all wealth ard all civilization.
Serious as is the problem presented
in this subject of our discussion, it is
vet insignificant when compared
with the vastly greater question Of
the effect of our social and ecOromic
system upon industry and trade.
The pernicioas effect of prison con-
tract labor upon free labor" social
when brought into competition with
it in the open market, is universally
conceded, but it should not be over
looked that prison labor IS itself an
effect and not cause, and that CON
Wet labor is recruited almost wholly
from the propetyless, wageworhng
class and that the inhuman system
which has reduced comparative few
from enforced idleness to crime, has
sunk the whole mass OF labor to the
dead level of industrial servitude.
1t is therefore with the economic
system, which is responsible for not
only prison labor, but for the grad
ual enslavement and degradation OF
all labor,, that we must deal before
there cal. J any solution OF the prs
on labor problem or any permanent
relief from its demoralizing intiuen-
ces.
But we will briefly consider the et
feet of prison labor upon industry and
then pass to the larger question OF the
cause of prison labor and its appall
ing increase, to which the discussion
logically leads.
From the earliest cSes there has