Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1900-07-11
The Good Old Days.

There are still some people who be-
there were no capitalists, when trusts
were no dreamed of, when every me-
chanic was his own master. The farm
err plowed his soil and bowed to no cor
poration; the plowboy went merrily
whistling to his work as the sun rose
above the hills; the milkmaid skipped
over the dewy fields; the harvest was
gathered home with songs and reioic-
ing; the village danced at eve about the
be-ribboned Maypole. All was like a
scene in an opera. and just as real. But
there is another side to the picture as
given by s. T. Dodd in a volume on
Trusts" issued this month, and a copy
Of which reached the New Mexican to-
day. He says
England. prior to the days of the in
PRODUCTION Of machinery and her extern
sive manufactures and commerce, was
a very different land from that pictured,
The mass of the people lived in abject
poverty. Their food was peas, black
bread, fern roots and the bark of trees,
Their clothing was of leather or their
limbs were wrapped with wisps of
straw. Their matched nuts were with
out chlmneys or glass; a hole in the
roof partly carried off the smoke from
the fire on the mud floor, and the fire
a to be covered at the ringing Of the
curfew bell. Many of the people were |
as savage as Indians. Half-naked wom-
en- chanted wild measures, while the
with brandished clubs danced a
war dance. One-half of the families dill
not know the taste of fresh meat. and |
most of the other half had 1t but onca
week. Roads were mere gullies filled.
in wet weather, with mud, tn ough |
which travellers f1oundered on foot or on
horseback. The king and court Travelled
In carts drawn by oxen. The houses
were without ventilation; the floors
were covered with rushes, the bottom
layers of which We're left untouched
for twenty years, alive with
vermin and foul with u~nspeakable
The house servants went
about naked or in extremely filthy garb,
md slept on the ground by the freside
az night. Noblemen were destitute of
comforts which are now the necessities
Of every workingman. Clean shirts
were almost an unknown luxury; the
served the purpose of a
handkerchief. The purest county air
vas fouler than the air of our city
lums; the death rate was double that
to-day, and men were old at 40. The
'eople were as degraded mentally and
morally as physically" {
The use of capital and combinations
t capital have changed all this. In the ,
me or Homer twelve women were con-
employed in the house of Pencil ,
pc, probably one grinder to supply :
twenty-five bread eaters. Now the la
or of n man. aided by the force of :,
Azure which is supplied by the use Of :,
apital. produces flour for 1000 persons. :,
Is this economy Of labor, this con-
Of energy, that Is made pos
Die by capital, which includes the
luch despised trusts. The laborer
{ to-day earns not only wages which q
'ur centuries ago would have been n
a magnificent income, but also u
time for repose, for recreation, time c.
exercise his mental faculties, t me to g
10y his home and his family. 81
Mr.. Dodd points out in his volume of n,
2 pages that a combination of capital 81
id monopoly are not necessarily syn- N
The progress Of the Industrial n,
1rld Is measured by the increase of r.
pital put into enterprises, and as a ed
lole the effect Is beneficial to the fo
tie as well as to all classes of people. tn
pulists and Democrats may denounce sp
pital, they may sigh for the good old te,
vs. of industrial pauperism, but 1t Is co
theirs own good that their wish can pu
,er be fulfilled. of