The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1902-11-20

ging passes under. the general descrip-
ton of the labor problem. 1t is ques-
ton, in the last analysis, of instructing
the industrial concerns of all, together
with the award among all Of the net
product, to the managers of concentrate
ed capital fast possessing themselves OF
widespread monopolistic privileges,
relying largely upon their sense of fair
ness for just award; or of reducing
such privileges, wherever they appear,
to public control or management. 1t
is thas question at bottom not greatly
different from the slavery question it its
industrial aspect. Both are questions
whether the livelihood Of all may not
better be looked after by the few privi-
legged ones than by all; whether industry
shall be organized on a paternalistic or
upon cooperative basis.
Such is the complexion to which the
industrial problem of our days is being
reduced; and while the party now in
power does not openly stand for the
paternalistic order or policy of letting
things drift as they will that is what
it's position of non-interference and
modified apology for monopoly,
amounts TO as a practical matter And
as an extreme measure the party goes
no further than to propose certain regu-
lative measures which may not regulate
at all save in superficial and inconse-
quential way.
"But the question is with us and is a
burning one. The people are thinking
seriously about it and are taking sides
whose boundries tend to run with SIMS
ter exactness along the mischieveous
lines of class There is obviously no
more room for two great parties on the
side either of open championship of the
present order Of things, or of palliative
applications which do not palliate, than
there was in the slavery era of our
politics The opposition party of the
day must either become on iInitator or
the Wing party in relation to this ques
ton or it must stand for deepreaching
treatment of the matter after the man
ner of the Republican party of 1856. 1t
will initiate the Wing if it contents
itself merely with proposing tariff re-
duction as an adequate or satisfactory
protection against monopoly and priyil-
age; and it will invite the fate of the
Wing party. The popular temper and
demand indicate that it must present a
more comprehensive and radical pro-
gramme of trust regulation and public
control of public service monopoly, or
it will be forced to give away to party
which will. That party will not be the
Socialist party in the full sweep of its
present cooperative demands, but it
will be a party advocating strong tenta-
tive steps in the direction of public
management Of monopoly.
There seems to be greater chance
that the Democratic party will be radio
allied than that it will break up into
the building of a new party-though its
present chaotic condition may seem to
promise n repetition of the political ex-
perience of 1852 g. As the nation grows
larger it becomes increasingly difScult
to break down old parties and build up
new; and AZ in England reforms is
more apt to capture the work through
the established mechanism of an old
party than to substitute u new one for
the achievement of its immediate ends,
The question of the fate of the Demo
cratic organization will not long remain
in doubt The next few years will set
tie il. !"
!