The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1901-09-21


to al. with the functions of pro- uction
and distribution uhtrammeled and un-
restrained. with all men enjoying equal
rights and the gains Of each mans In
dustry secure unto himself. we should
never again see the astounding spect-
acle that greets our eyes today--the
spectacle Of one per cent of our families
owning more wealth than all Of the
remaining 80 per cent?
The remedy.
The simplest way is by judtcious ex-
erctse Of the taxing power. Remove
all taxes that fetter labor. Wipe out
every tax that restricts consumption
and production. Exempt labor and
It's produce. Levy your taxes where
nature intended they should be levied
upon the privileged monopolfsts of
natural resources and public utilities.
And when you have taxed those priv
ileges to the full extent of their value,
you will merely have absorbed, as
community. those values to which the
community alone is entitled by virtue
of its creative right. for franchise val
ues are community values. When you
have done this you will have establish
ed a government as free in fact as it is
In name. Then, and not until then, will
labor be set free, and each man at
liberty to employ himself at will, and
his wages will be his own. Then will
you have government where each will
possess what he earns, and no man will
possess what he does not earn. I feel
that such a government would be just,
and that none other can be. I believe
it is impossible.
1t is with such men as you to saw
when it shall begin, or whether or not
it shall ever be. J. know that you are
sincere in what. you do. But your
only weapons now are the boycott and
strike. I sympathize with you. God
knows my heart bled with pity when I
read in the accounts of the great strike
in the anthracite coal regions last year,
of the little helpless boys who came up
out Of the ground to see what it was
all about. and marched in their dirt and
rags, at the behest of their leaders.
And there were grown men, too-hund-
reds of them-who had never learned to
read or write. And then I thought Of
the damnable Stupidity and the soul-sick
ening brutality of the grasping, grind
ing, God-hating commercialism which
has doomed those poor men to life Of
hopeless and degrading servitude, while
their omnivorous lords and masters
were founding Christian universities
wherewith to put the golden padlocks
on the lips of truth, because, forsooth,
they owned the stock in the corpora ton
which held the legal title to the ground:
Pardon, me, gentlemen, if my language
is Incorporate, for I cannot mince my
words when speaking of the barbarous,
heart-wrecking cruelty and injustice of
our present system, and when with
Robert Burns, I
See yonder poor, o'erlabored wight,
So AFFECT, mean and VILE,
Who begs a brother Of the earth
To give him leave to toll;
And see his lordly follow-worm
The poor petition spurn,
Unmindful though a weeping wife
And helpless Offspring mourn.
If I'm yon naughty lordlings slave
By natures law designed,
Why was an independent wish
If not why am subject to
His cruelty and scorn,
Or why has man the will and power
To make his fellow mourn?
! Yes, my fellow citizens, I am with
you in your strikes and boycotts. But
I would stand tor something better
than the strike and more effective than
the boycott. I would stand for a sys-
tenn of government which shall make
them both unnecessary; a system which
shall wipe out the inequality born OF
privilege, and elevate labor to it's true
dignity as the rightful sovereign of the
earth; a system which, by removing
from men the power to rob their fellows
in the guise Of law and leaving to each
the equal chance that belongs to all
would substitute new hope and noble
aspirations for the soul-destroying pas
sions of greed and gain, and thus pave
the way to civilization, infinite in its
possibilities, and higher, nobler, better
grander than the human mind has vel
conceived.-An address delivered before
the Allied Trades Unions of Jefferson
City, Mo-, Monday, September 2 Gabol
Day., 1901, by Speed Mosby.