The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1902-11-29
SELF:MADE OR
MADE FOR SELF

taken the deepest, most benevolent in
terest in the highest welfare of the
greatest number have been men who
from humble points of departure push
ed their way upward through clouds
and darkness to sunlight, pricked by
the spur of honest poverty on one flank
and the spur of honest ambition on the
other, and who, having drunk deeply
themselves of the bitter cup of toll,
never forgot in their best days how it
tasted, and were never weary of think
ing how they could mitigate from their
vantage ground at the top the harsh
lot Of badly requited toll they left at
the bottom Franklin, Lincoln, Greeley,
Peter Cooper, Stephen Girard, Horace
B. Claflin and Amos Lawrance were all
men who rose right up from the people
by rugged toll to private competence
and public distinction, and their hearts
and hands were always busiest contriv-
| ing how tackles might be broken, how
| burdens might be lightened for the ach-
| ing neck Of labor, how all the oppres-
sed might go free.
These are thN1ighest type of true
selfmade men, far different set from
that so-called order of self-made men
that would be accurately described, not
as "self- made" but as made for SELF"
The self-made men that make our his,
! tory worth reading are willing to do
something to help the world to bet
| ter, because a more humane, civiliza-
| tion-to help the world to help itself.
There has been another class Of self
made men of lower type, who have
deserved well of their country. They
! were not philanthropists, but they were
| neither wreckers nor bandits in bust
ness. 1t will nit be pretended that
! Webster was as single-hearted a
| statesman as Lincoln; but in all emer-
gencies he could rise to the level of
| patriotism and public pustice. It will
not be pretended that John Jacob AS
| tor and Commodore Vanderbilt were
humanitarians in their philosophy Of
| life; but they were legitimate business
| men with a genius for construction
and combination. They were rough
| seamen, but honest navigators, never
| pirates on sea or land, least of all
! miserable wreckers, displaying false
lights from the shore to ISre good ships
into the breakers and dash them to
ruin on the rocks, so that they might
"
better men than themselves.
Aston and Vanderbilt won their
wealth legitimately by business meth
DDS organized and applied by their far
seeing genius, without specifically seek
ing to be other than men of legitimate
generalship in the business world, real
ly became great public benefactors.
Nobody was alarmed because Aston
made $20,000,000 or because Vanderbilt
| made $50,000,000. This vast amount of
| money was blessing, not bane to the
people, so long as it's owner did not
make a ,Warclub out of his gold with
which to pound the public. But to VAN
| derbilt succeed the present ruling type
Of lawless plutocratic pirates and slug
gers and scoundrels, of which Jay
Gould was the first illustrious exemp-
lar. Gould spent his life, fguratively
speaking, in locating henroosts by day
and robbing them by night. He reaped
where the other man had sown and Gull
tivated. He fixed his talons into every
great enterprise in the country, and
generally picked the bird clean of meat
down to- the bone. He grew richer
while the properties Of which he was
the bloodsucker grew poorer and more
heavily burdened with debt. He spent
lbs. whole life jumping" the property
Of his fellow-men; he was the first
railroad magnate to encounter a great
strike-that of Martin Irons, in 1871
and since the day Of Jay Gould's sue
cess the day of imam made for SELF
has dominated increasingly every year
important corporate enterprise in
America.
The history of the attempt to en-
force the Interstate commerce law
proves clearly that the responsible Or
ganizers and executives of the leading
railroads will lie from force of habit
to the government or to each other in
order to steal. Their business honor
personal veracity and respect for law
are always curbed by sixpence. The
success of these men is the most fright
full thing about them. The average
wageworker is not filled with envy of
their riches, but with fear because of
the wicked and laWless use they make
of them. It is not that the people are
envious Of wealth we'll won. They OBJ |
ject to the arrogant assumption of I'M
limited and arbitrary power on the part
of a few; they object to economic and
industrial slavery; they object to the
doctrine that the people have no rights
that the moropolists is bound to re-
spect. The people feel and know that
the influence Of these men is like a
slow. creeping paralysis on the best
heart and soul of the nation. They
feel and know that the teachings Of tho
pulpit and the Sunday school, which
are ostentatiously supported by these
men, are discredited with out growing
boys and girls, by the deeds of men
who have bith Christian creed and con-
science for lip service on Sunday but
discard it on Monday. They know that
one Of the causes of the decline of re-
spect for the church 10 the religious
sanction given by great metropolitan
pulpits to ill-gotten wealth. The worst |
Philistines of the plutocracy have be- |
come the proudest pillars in the tenn |
pies consecrated to the worship Of
Christ and His Observation-Disclosures
Of God and the brotherhood of man.
The church in America leans on the |