The independent., 1903-10-15

tel in a great city early in the morn
ing and watch the passing ttihTongs Of
people. Hundreds of young women,
many of them with pale and care-worn
faces, will be seen passing to their
work, each carrying very small
package containing the. noon-day meal.
Thus they pass day after day, patient
tOilers, earning a bare existence, and
the homes that they ought to adorn
and make happy no longer exist.
Then watch the street cars. Those
riding upon them have all paid enough
to the corporation running them to
more than remunerate it for giving
each Of them seat and comfortable
journey. But not one in four get
seat and those who are seated are
jammed and crowded upon until exist
ence in the car is hardly endurable.
The platforms are full and along the
sides hang others who with much diff
1iculty sustain themselves in their
perilous positions. Not one of them
utters complaint. They bear all this
swindling and extortion and never ut
ter the slightest protest.
Then let the onlooker buy a ticket
for some nearby city. He will find that
as soon as the car doors are opened
there is rush. None of the ancient
courtesy is shown to women and chill
dren. They are jammed into the cars
altogether like hogs are driven into
the slaughtering pen at the cattle
yards. All get seats who can, but
many women get none and they stand
after having paid an extortionate price
for a seat, sway.ng to and fro until
their station is reached or until the
train gets farther from the city and
enough have got off to leave seat
for them. Not one of the patient ere
atures makes the slightest protest.
Get off at one of the stations which
is populous little city. There stands
q rickety street car Another rush is
made. The conductor cries in hoarse
and mandatory tone: Move forward"
and if his orders are not obeyed, he
throws Lis burly form into the rear
door and by his weight pushes the
passengers in the aisles forward until
they are pressed u, against the front
door as tightly as they can be. Then
he jams some more into the vacant
space that he has made. The only
protest that is made is by youth
hanging on the outside, who shouts
OUT Get your goad and prod them
up. Some of the cattle may get down
and you will los, them But the re-
mainder of the patient crowd say not
a word.
The farmer will toll all through the
spring. summer and autumn months.
He will pile up thousands of bushels
OF corn, fill his granaries with wheat
and oats, raise hundreds of chickens,
scores of hogs and cattle and the next
spring he will go out and look over
the place and see that they are all
gone and he has nothing to show for
it all, except his living and what i'm
provements he has put on his land.
But he don't complain. He goes to
work and does the same thing over
again, year after year, until his hair
gets gray and his children grow up and
leave him to spend the few mournful
years alone that yet remain to him
before he lies down in the country
cemetery. But he does not complain.
He knows that the railroads take half
of all he produces and the trusts take
most of the remainder. But the farm
Ell is patient man.
The toilers in the city go to the
meat shop and find that they get but
half as much meat for dollar as they
got two or three years ago. They
take the thin slices that meat dealers
give them and go home, but they enter