The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-01-16
"A CHASTITY LIE:
Alleged Prosperity is So Char
acterized by Debs
In a Lecture Delivered By Him
in Kansas City.
FAVORS THE TRUSTS.
Competitive System the Bane
of the World.
Capitalists Playing Into the
Hands Of Socialists.
FAYORS THE TRUSTS.

Trusts will bring the millennium of
socialism. Prosperity is a CHASTITY lie
So believes Eugene V. Debs. the apostle
of socialism, who delivered his lecture on
Labor and Liberty in the Academy OF
Music at Kansas City Sunday afternoon
The hall was filled and the audience list
ened with great attention and literally
applauded the speaker.
Mr.. Debs said, among other things
THE privilege of addressing you this
afternoon on the subject of Liberty and
Labor is appreciated by me far more
than words can express I am a hearty
sympathizer with organized labor The
century which is just closing marks an
epoch and a critical period in Industrial
conditions in this world. The competitive
system Is the bane of the world today.
1t is responsible for the conditions so
graphically described in that poem The
Man With the Hoe The new century
will not tolerate this system and its early
years will see it absolutely abolished,
The tramp is the most melanchoiy OBJECT
in our modern civilization. He is the VIC
tim of the modern system of capltallzed
competition. l never see a tramp put
what my heart goes out to him in pity,
for if the system continues long enough
I may become a. tramp myself
THE cheapest commodity in the world
today Is human flesh and blood. Human
ity is secondary always to the consldera-
ton for making a profit. No man today
is ever given work from motives or hu-
mainly or pity. First came the machine
which entered into competition with the
man. cheapening his labor; then came the
woman forced to forsake her home and
enter into competition with the man and
the machine. still further cheapen1ng the
cost of production. Then the child was
forceS INTO The STRUGGLE for existence by
that great fight for profits. There is no
reciprocity in these conditions, for while
the child feeds the machine, the machine
starves the child
'1Just to show what is being accom-
plished by labor saving machinery we
have only to go back a few years to the
time when the printer boasted IhaL no
would supply the human intelligence re
quired in the work of composition. Visit
| the typesetting machine, as yet young
| and far from perfection A ch1id toueh
until the printers trade is a lost art. The
| same thing applies to every other kind of
labor, skilled, or common,
| we are told today that TINS IS an era
| of unparalleled prosperity. say that 1t
| is a CHASTITY lie. Love and abject poverty
/ do not dwell together and there are thous-
| ands of children today being raised un-
der conditions which can not we'll fail
/ to make them paupers. The courts, of
| course issue injunctionS at the COM
/ mand of their masters, for the economic
masters are the real rulers of this coun-
try and government Is their pastime- I
| am not a peSsimist. l would not, If
| could lay as much as a straw in the
way of these centralizing forces which are
| tending today to destroy the world. They
| are working surely toward their own de-
| struction. I stand before you today a
''The trust of today is the outgrowth
| was the Individual who built up a bust
! ness for himself. He found competition
| fnconvenient and he entered into a part
nership with his competitor. few
| years and these associations again found
| competition endangered their profits and
! they still further centralized forces and
| formed corporations. Now corporations
| are again striving to wipe out competi-
| ton by entering into trusts. For twenty
| five years the legislatures of this country
| have been striving to regulate corpora
lions. Have they Succeeded? How, then
can you expect to legislate trusts out OF
existence? No, 1 want to say right here
that the trust, in itself, is not evil.
1T Is q positive good and benefit which
! is at present perverted by private owner
ship. This Capitalization is the real solu-
| ton of present evil economic conditions
1t is only necessary that the public al
large, instead of a few individuals, SHOULD
control this Capitalization. The capital
the Industrial chess board without play.
ing into the hands of the socialists.
'Labor-saving machines are good II
! when every workman owned his owl
| tools there was no such suffering to
less for the work formerly performed by
| individuals is now done in great factor
| les with monster machine. The work
man must own that machine. He is go
| lions held that they were ilustra
| ton of the survival of the fittest They
laughed at all efforts to regulate then
are attempting to enact the same legisla
ton to regulate trusts. Do you thinl
they will succeed? The corporation COB
| The corporation absorbed the small
| tradesman and the farmer. The lttl,
great department store. The little farm
became a part of the great corporation
for which the individual farmer becam,
the hired hand Can you turn back TIN