The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-07-12


those rights are ignored and denied.
so long shall there be just cause and
reason for discomfort, complaint and
protest from the larger portion of our
community, and so long shall our do
nestle peace and prosperity be threat
ehed and jeopardized by injured, and,
therefore, dissatisfied and discordant,
elements. Now, what are those rights,
and how should they be recognized?
They are many but let US confine our
selves to the present matter under dis
cussion.
Allowing broad margin, our labor
ing class represents at least 10 per
cent of the community, and the cap
itaists thus, at most, represent only
the remaining % per cent The latter
both claim and exercise the right,
among other things to combine and
unite together in syndicates and cor
poratlons in order to protect them
selves and the better TO further and
promote their interests, while they deny
the same privilege to the former,
through whose energy and muscle their
whose sweat and lifes blood in return
are bartered away and sacrificed to
their unscrupulcus greed and Unsuitable
thirst for gain. Now, it may fairly be
asked: What right has one-fourth of
the community to dictate to and gov
ern the social relations of the remain
ing three-fourths? No right whatever,
hn hot II hoe,
money and wealth, and wealth is might,
and might is right-nowadays-
/ good twentieth century logic ca
We look around us today and we see
the rich becoming richer by incredible
strides; but we see, too, the poor be-
coming poorer in just proportion. Do
you ask the cause? Then we give it to
you in plain terms, for where is the use
| in mincing matters? The rich are
growing daily more extravaganza and
more fond of displaying their wealth,
for, to the great majority of them,
wealth is novelty. Luck and chance
in speculation have made millionaires
and multi millionaires of men of low
and vulgar minds. destitute of social
refinement and gentle breeding, whose
wives and daughters know no way of
commanding consideration or of at
tracing admiral ton but by their furs
and diamonds and their extravagant
expenditures. The effect of this on the
community at large, in producing
competition in extravaganza, and en-
HANGING the average expense and diff
ticulty of living, is not easily estimated.
There is no country in the world where
the general extravaganza is so great
as in our own, and, as a natural conse-
quence, where the cost of living is
greater for all classes. Such a condf-
ton of affairs, brought about by the
extravaganza of our would-be aristoc-
racy, than which an hereditary aris-
tocracy is far more preferable, has
worked untold hardships on the poor
and laboring Eelasses, whose scanty
earnings are scarcely able to afford the
very necessaries of life, not to speak of
the comfortable and easy circum-
stances" to which every honest citizen
is entitled in the present much-vaunted
prosperity of the country. The labor
ing classes see and are made to feel
this condition of things they see and
feel that their employers are growing
abnormally fat on the fruits of their
sweat and blood, while they themselves
are denied just portion and ratio of
the products of their labor. The in
stinct of self-preservation and self
defense, the natural antipathy to slav-
cry, and the spirit of freedom which
their constitution fosters, prompt them
to resent such injustice, and the same
spirit which has indicate d the end
prompts and suggests, too the means
to attain it. They see and feel that a
hard battle has to be fought against
the greed and aTaEice of capital, and
they see and feel-for long experience
mas taught them-that this battle can
not be fought single-handed. They !
see and feel that union is necessary. 1!
Tor in union there is strength" and
by union of forces alone can they hone /
to be victorious, against such odds. !
Ihelr cause is just and good, and the I
means is equally so, and we hope to see |
the day when every Individual of their
class will be found affiliated with one
or other form of union. We see a con-
oltlon of vice and wickedness forced |
upon a certain portion of our commu-
nifty merely through the present rela
ions between labor and capital, and it |
is the duty of those who have the we'll
being and virtue of the nation at heart.
of our representatives in senate and
congress, and of the public press to
exert their power and influence to
check the growing evil by checking its
cause.
Our nation is professedly Christian.
but Christianity teaches a better and
hlgher principle than the oppression
OF the poor; it teaches mot to muzzle
the mouth of the OK that thrasheth out
the corn We, therefore. appeal to
our chiefs of industry, who in some
sort hold our lives and the well-being
and virtue of our nation in their pock-
cts. They are a respected and M
doubt, respectable body. We see
them occupying the chief seats in our
Synagogues, consulted by secretaries
of the treasury, constituting boards of
trade, conventions of manufacturers.
home leagues, making
speeches at meetings for the relief of
The poor, and other charitable pur-
poses. They are great; they are re-
spectacle; they are benevolent. They
are wise, too, and influential. They are
able to place our industry on its right
and equitable basis without any in,
Jury or injustice to themselves, and
We call upon them to do it; nay. we