The labor world., 1899-09-30
...THEY DO RIGHT.
He Who Wears a Fetter Needs it.-He Who
Bears Kick Deserves it,
BY HELEN WILMANS,


r KNOW the slave-driver and know the
slave, and I say that the slave-driver
L selfish as me is, is a gentleman in com.
parison with the slave. There is nothing
In all the world so ignoble as a slave. He
is in his true position so long as he will
ingly bears his servitude He is fit for
nothing else. Why should care that his
back is bent with the burdens Of ano-
ther? Way should I be distressed at his
wrongs? His wrongs are his rights so
long as he bears them willingly. That
which would be the wrongs Of freemen
are for him his just deserts.
[ mean to speak the truth from this
tire on. I have coddled the slave and
called him a man, when I knew there was
no manhood in him. will do it no long
er. On the contrary, I mean to assert
everywhere and on all occasions that he
who wears fetter needs 1t; thathe who
bears a kick deserves 1t. I wash my
hands of spirits SO slavish as to take part
in the injustice that is crushing them.
Moreover, I say that the Dent back Of the
laborer, the horny hands, the coarse, dis
torted features and the general ugliness
that marks him are a confession of his
own sins in aJbetting the sins of his mas
ter.
l desire to speak face to face to you,
the slaves of the nineteenth century; to
tell you how I have seen every effort
made by philanthropists for your benefi.
fall to the ground worthless, because
your own base influence was against it.
There are labor papers working for you
to which you never contributed the cost
of drink of whisky. I have seen more
and worse than this; that you have no
respect for any man but the one that
kicks you, and no trust in any power but
that which crushes you.
You are the obstacle in .he way of race
Our masters are hand
full; you are legion. Your masters are
and though will not willingly
relax their selfish grip on the good things
of this world, not one Of them would dare
refuse if you stood up for your rights.
But you are more besotted with the far
off dazzle Of their gold than they are
with Its possession. They have moments
when they reflect how their money has
been gathered at your expense, moments
when they almost wish that the system
that fosters robbery and makes gold king,
that puts in allegiance every noble i'm
pulse, could be changed. But you adore
the system; you doff the ragged cap and
bend the servile knee before the baser
part of these mems natures and your
only desire for liberty is for the sake Of
their vices instead of their vdr-
tues They know this, an6 tl1ey know;
that a social rupture that would trans
form you into millionaires at their ex-
pense would be the greatest possible cal
amity.
For these men, selfish as they are,
have benefited the race through the
thrift Of enterprise. They will build rail-
roads and make the different races OF
men as one nation. They have utilized
your dumb energies to serve mankind in
serving themselves. They have used you
as machines running your services at the
lowest cost compatible with your lives,
until at last they begin to supplant you
with cheaper wood and iron. And all
this because they could do it, because you
have permitted it. -
They have done right. You were and
are as worthless as the dirt under your
feet, except for the power Of physical
contraction and expansion In your mus
cles. You will noo think. The moment
one Of you begins to think he ceases to
belong to that class to whom this arti-
Gle is addressed. Your faces are prone to
the ground to which your worn-out
bodies are rapidly fastening. You plod
and delve from day to day, never casting
admiring eyes aloft, except when your
masters with liveried attendants splash
mud over you from the carriage wheels
as they pass in naughty splendor.
And you have the privilege of citizen
ship in land where such privilege is de-
MED by you to those whose intelligence
ten generations of culture will scarcely
enable you to comprehend-the Intelligent
women of these States. And what is
more, being in the majoriy, you hold its
pure current and turn it away from that
point where it would be of incalculable
benefit, and where above all other influ-
ences it would benefit you and lift you out
of your down-trodden condition. For
American women above all others are
your sympathizers. They resent for you
the wrongs your craven souls accept. And
you turn up your noses contemptuously
when reference is made 10 their political
equality.
What are you going to do? Your mus
cles. the only part Of you your masters
ever needed, have been supplanted by the
more economical substitution of machin-
cry. Are you willing to cumber the earth
as useless lumber or do you mean to
come up to the dignity of manh ood
among your brother laborers who are or
ganiZing for self-protection There are
only Two ways for you. Your muscles are
superseded. You demand for them be-
comes continually more limited. The
world calls on all men now for BRAIN 1t
asks you for thought tnat though it may
develop the finer and as yet unexp1ored
forces of nature. If you refuse to re-
spon,. to this call, there remains She
other alternative-to die and give place to
impulse of a more refined age.
4 MAMMOTH labor -displacer, in tht
n shape of new excavating machine
Chicoso laborers.
The big machine is boring a
sewer forty feet below the surface of a
prominent street faster bnan three gangs
of br;cklayers can lay the brick to in
close the sewer. BY the use of this de-
,1iShp hor