The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1899-01-20
LOCALIZED IDEALS.
TIE TWO ts,115199Ns OF THE DILEMMA
PRGSENTGCGOSoC!AL PERFORMERS.

TIE TWO H,1;r199N5 OF THE DILEMMA
PRGsCNTeDesoso SOCIAL PERFORMERS.
Less OR Mare Governments Nothing
Can BE Verse Than Our Present In.
dustrial observation-disclosures of Gov
rnmcntul Agencies.
Especial Correspondence
It has recently been stated that the
public employment bureaus OF Germany
find situations for the unemployed at
the rate Of IL, 900 per month. We are
not told, as we should be, what relation
that bears to the nun Der CT monthly ap-
plications, nor the time elapsed between
the average application and tho day
when the applicant finds employment.
But then governments are not apt to
give us any more information than they
can help When not fattering. Incom-
plete as it is, the information shows
that, like most modern nations, Ger
many is being undermined by the gan.
creme Of the unemployed. There is no
doubt that the government bureaus ia
question are only found in the few priu.
NAtNA S4VASS dAl AAO NAOAC AutiCu AS 6tl:"
urated with the unemployed when the
large cities suffer from that evil, such
cities being just the places where the
wealthy people are found in plenty, and
where labor is most needed in those very
lines for which most men are adapted
when having no capital of their own
nor taste for agricultural pursuits.
1t is difficult to conceive Of a more
fatal evil than that of a constant army
of men looking for employment, often
displacing each other when employ
ment is found, with jobs far from per.
manent when taken hold of and hard to
obtain again when lost. And not even
the dreadful militarism of European
nations does anything more to some.
what diminish the army Of those who
look for an occupation, while militarism
itself intensiiies other social evils.
Suppose, now, that the government
bureaus we have mentioned are Wise
under the miserable Industrial condi.
tions we develop i'll all nations. Why
should government he forced into any
such business? Are the labor employers
so helpless that they cannot find en-
ployees when wanted. and are the latter
SO infantlilie that they cannot find en-
plOyers in need of workers? DON'T you
see the righteousness of the situation:
just as well have the whole programme
of u socialistic friends if government
has to help the employers and employ
ees to be accommodated with each other,
and the writer has long been convinced
that the programme in question, more or
less complete, is our next step in what
we call evolution and irrespective OF it's
results az 81 finality.
What seems to be- as certain and in
evi1abie as any axiom in mathematics
is that cur present industrial system is
being rapidly destroyed by it's own ex-
cesses and crimes. It is all a question
Of what shall take its place. The very
ensemble Of our dreadful complexities,
with their chaotic depths, points out to-
ward two opposite roads or diametricaI-
ly distinct processes with the probabili-
ty OF identical results if conducted by
mon Ct good will. Does that look para
doxical? 1t does not need to be. We
often come across that in natural phe-
nomena. We can ruin our digestive or.
gans by systematically overlooking them
or undertaking them. We can become
subject to headaches, %dyspeptio attacks,
ETC., Ey the use Of food too rich or too
poor, iy too much physical labor or too
little, by too many responsibilities or
too few.
When the Puritans first landed in
Massachusetts, they declared, "The
colony shall be- governed by the laws of
God until we have time to make bet.
ter. There you have it. Not even
when we assume that men were men Of
faith, not even then men knew what
was the meaning of Gods laws applica-
BILE to the social organization. T.. fact
is that through the whole course of his
tory government, Or the social compact,
has'been hut a mass Of absurdities and
contradictions with abysmal depths Of
folly and crime and one solitary ulti-
matum-viz, to concentrate. the wealth
Of nations in the hands of a small mi
nority. The climax of that superb oily
and wretched crime seems to have been
reached toward the end of our glorious
~ nineteenth century.
Face to face with that fact we have
two PHILOSOPHERS Of government. One Of
them virtually says: 1.-The only natural
function ct government is to see that
legislation does not logalize any process
of robbery. That is, human government
must either legislate Gods laws out of
existence, and SO God himself, as civil
lization has always done, with greater
or less emphasis, Or else it must accept
God as an actual fact in the universe
and his laws as elements indispensable
to all healthy human growth" This
philosophy implies the utmost govern
mental simplitication. 1t means that
government should simply do that which
is absolutely needed to preserve the
equal rights Of all, that which shall
prevent everybody from getting on top
nf onx,hCJr, cleo ~, ,p1o1,y,r nrt,o1-. 80,