The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-09-27
Chicago Chronicle.

chicago chronicle.
Labor day is the only general holiday in
this country which has in IL any degree
of social, class caste distinction. By
reason of a false and absurd notion on the
part Of those who work with their hands
Labor day has become time set apart Tor
a special class and does not and can not
embrace the whole people.
Somehow the foolish notion has taken
possession of a great many people that
only those who toll with their hands and
those who are organized into unions can
be classed as laboring people. Another alb
surd notion now extensively fostered is
that there is necessarily a wide gulf be-
tween the man who works with his hands
for his daily bread and the man who by
thrift, by effort or by fortune has come
into possession of the ability to direct this
toiler with the hands.
This idea that to labor or not to labor
changes the nature of a man, alters his
ambitions or his rights, is pernicious and
destructive. In this country of free insti-
tutions and unbounded opportunities, the
man who looks at his hardened hands and
declares that they are the heritage of un-
just laws and unfair social distinctions,
makes a mistake which in itself limits
his ambitions, hardenE mis- temper, infiames
his hatred and makes him an enemy to
his kind.
Not one man out of 100 i'm our 10000 900
of people is the victim. of any kind of OPP
preston, except that which he brings upon
himself by disobedience of the law, by
hatred Of his neignbor, by decayins ener-
gies, by some unnatural circumstance.
Inc barriers Wnlcn are erected between
capital and labor are erected by those
who denominate themselves laborers The
man who earns his daily bread, but who
lives in the house which his thrift has built
auarrels with himself when he quarrels
with capital.
The man who dissipates his wages In
unnecessary Indulgence and quarrels with
his neighbor because he has not done the
same Is the man who creates caste in So
ciety, who digs CULTS between himself and
his fellow men and who thus creates those
distinctions which he falsely imagines de-
stroy the sympathies of the fortunate for
those who are less fortunate.
Labor day generally falls into the hands
of those who are thus quarreling with
prosperity and charging their crime OF In
dolence and sin of failure 10 fate and to
the false idea that society is arrayed
against them.
For this reason Labor day is not in real
ity a national holiday. The discussions en-
gagged in on that day are not along lines
Of economics, but Dartake of the bitterness
of class hatred and the unreasonable and
Illogical assumption that certain conditions
grow out OF the repressive purposes OF cap
ital rather than out of the inertness and in
activity of those who falsely call them
selves the laboring classes.
When Labor day shall be made use OF
for the candid and honest inquiry into So
cial and industrial conditions. when its
orators shall consider the necessary rela-
tons between those who labor with their
hands and those who plan with their
| brains-between those who employ capital
to provide work for the willing and those
who nartake of the benefit-then IL will
be what il should be, a national holiday
in reality.