The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1903-01-17
PRESENT CAUSE J. !. /.
+. J. !. UE Coal, famine:
coal BARoNs PROBABLY NOT
WORSE THAN OTHER MEN.
They are Merely Products Of a Be-
nishted Social System. Baer,
Hills and Elliot May Blame the
Miners. But the WorlEingman
VIII Not Join in the Verdict: 1t
is the Benishted System that in
Wrong.

of thousands of workingmen all over
the country are enduring great hard
ships, and in the case of the children,
the aged and invalids Of the working
class, are in positive danger Of their
lives because of the high price of fuel.
It is well that the workers should think
now, think hard and long, so they will
not forget within a twelvemonth, as to
the causes of this famine.
Who is to blame? It is very we'll for
such men as Baer and Eliot and Hills
and Hewitt and Jerome to throw the
blame upon the miners who stood i6e
for six months. But workingmen of the
various trades will not join in that
verdict. They have had their troubles
too. They know what a strike means.
They know that a hundred and fifty
thousand men do not stay on strike for
six months without good reason. But
it the miners are not to blame, who
then? Obviously the responsibility
il it is to be put on any men, must be
put on Morgan and Baer and Markle
and ali the rest Of the owners Of the
mines, the men who have it in their
power to allow or to forbid the miners
to work and to dictate the terms at
which they may be permitted to pro-
duce the fuel that all the people need.
On the Coal Barons, on the capital
list class in general which supported
them, and on the capitalist politicians
who used the power of government to
protect them-on them, and them alone
rests the responsibility for the suffering
which the coming Of winter now brings
to the workers of the country.
But, after all, it is not so important
to say who is to blame as it. is to say
what is to blame.
It does little good, nor is it altogether
fair or reasonable, to make this a
question of personal condemnation, of
imposing blame upon the capitalists
and their agents as men.
Baer and Stone and the rest of them
are probably not much more greedy
and cruel and faithless than the aver
age Of men. Mems conduct depends
chiefly OIL the social system on which
they live and the position which they
occupy in that system. The conduct of
the capitalist whatever his personal
inclinations, cannot in the nature of
things be otherwise than greedy and
cruel and faithless., It:is only by such
conduct that he can maintain himself a,
a lord Of industry; and. if he fails tt
exercise those evil qualities which con.
tribute to capitalist success, he will not
benefit the workers IL butzWill only give
place tO.H some com pet tor less.fha ndi:
capped by ideas 80 kind liness5s and
honor. ~ :: ~ "% + ny -
What we have to look to is not the
mne, good or bad who are to blame tina
we have no coal, but to look to the so.
cial system which gives those men the
power and the motive to interrupt in
dustry, to drive the workers to desper-
alton, and so to deprive all of US OF
one Of the prime necessities of life.
1t is the capitalist system that is tc
blamer-the system of private propert,
in means Of production socially pro:
duced and operated, the system which
makes private profit the sole motive
power Of the industrial world-it is
| this system that is to blame. And ii
we would guard against the recurrence
| of such conflicts, involving such terrible
and widespread suffering as now pre-.
walls, and which are sure to recur un-
| der capitalism, now in one industry
| now in another-if we would guarG
| against this growing danger we have
to think not of petty reforms or chang.
es in the mere personnel Of government
| but Of the radical change of the in
| dustrial system which will remov,
their cause.-The Worker