Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1902-01-20

I q.
Are we to submit indefinitely to starva-
ton wages because we can't help our
selves? OF course | look at it from q
wOrkingman's standpoint. Boiled down
to it's simplest terms the men don't see
anything but reason in aSkiag that a
business like the ore industry, that has
made a few men princeiy rich, ought
to divide up its profits mere fairly and
make good many persons more COM
Portable instead of making a select few
uncomfOrtabiy wealthy"
do you believe man can re I'M
comfortably wealthy" asked Andrew,
with a smile, as if he believed it him
self.
you don't need to 60 outside this
room to find one" answered Stuart
soberly. What good cen do with all
my money in case like this? l seem
to be rs helpless rs either Of you"
"No, you're not. You can relieve
great deal Of distress. Money is a
great power in that way"
But look here Eric. Isn't this the
situation? Here are 5000 men out on a
strike. y thousand of them have been
offered their demands. They have re-
fused cut of sympathy for the rest,
/ who will never get what they ask, for
l can't compel the other companies to
DO what l think is the right thing
Now, then, these men are faced with
starvation or at least with great Suf-
fering this winter. Shall say to them
. I
ey. l will take care of you indefinite
~ or until the money is gone? 1t
seems to me that the thousand men
ought to 80 to work if they have an
offer at their own terms. What do you
think, Andrew
Il think as you do. l regard the
strike as disaster. At the same time
the men are doing as thousands of men
have done and will continue to do until
we have letter system than we have
at present of settling the differences
between men who labor with the brain
and those who labor with the hand.
Would it be possible to provide the
men with work of any kind, so that
they would not be fed in idlenessT'
why, what can miners do except
their own kind of work? Who can
manufacture work in a country like
this, where the whole industry re-
wolves about one thing? Besides-wen.
go on, Eric, if you want to speak,"
said Stuart who saw Eric impatiently
biting his lips and nervously clinch-
ing his hands.
Il don't know what to sayr burst
out Eric. '"The whole situation is
maddening. The men are right, and
the men are wrong. If their methods
of getting justice are at fault, the de-
mand itself for justice, l believe, is
right. But what can you expect? Who
for all these years has paid any atten-
ton to the human end of this ore pro-
ducing business? What care do the
men at Cleveland have for the souls or
the development of the souls of these
men who dig the stuff out of the
ground that helps buy other men cost
ly luXuries and fine clothes and houses,
travel, education, pleasures and beau
ties of all sorts? What are we reaping
now but the fruits of a great sowing
of selfishness in the one great passion
for money and what it will bring? |
ask you two men, who have been rear
/ ed III finer atmosphere than mine, if
1t is not true that the wagewOrkers Of
the world, ignorant or mistaken or
wrong and even vicious though at
times they may have been and are.
still have sinned according to their
light less deeply or less wholly than
the men of great wealth and education
and social power. | am not saying
that we are perfect or never make mis-
takes or that the selfishness is all on
one side, but | do say that this present
condition would not now be on us here
If the men who have made their for
tunes by the toll of the miners had act
ed like Christian men. How many OF
the mine owners have got together and
prayed for wisdom to settle this mat
ter right? Not one of them EXCEPT
Stuart here. And yet-well, when l
get started l feel as if l could break
all bounds. There is fire in my bones
over this problem. l don't believe
there is a man living who can devise
n thorough remedy. If he can, he
stands guilty before God for keeping
silent. And this much is certain: No
man or nation or form of government
known to civilization is free from these
, differences between the men of mus
Gle and the men of money. Why, only
this morning the papers had telegraph
&c dispatches announcing tremendous
strikes in five different countries
England, France, Germany, Australia
and the United States. There are
more than 100000 men out on strikes
this very minute. l know there is
| Great discomfort, and men say great
foolishness, on the part of the men of
labor. Grant it. The fact is we live
in an age of unrest. But at the bot
tom the whole secret of the trouble lies
IN disregard of humanity in passion
for getting wealth first of all. The
love of money has wrecked empires.
/ and If will Sr,och O,,r