Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1904-11-02


wrecked many life; and it was the
legitimate offspring Of DISSATISFACTION.
Not long ago an entire family de-
stroyed itself because it had no money.
The parents put their little ones to
death, and died with them, rather than
sink into the hell of vice and crime and
misery which yawns for the man or
woman who can get no work. This case
was but one of thousand. Does it de-
serve no attention from rulers and law
makers? Is it beneath the notice of the
great? God forbid! will incur all the
odium which may come to me from maxi
ing the statement that a social and polit-
lca1 system under which such awful
tragedies are of constant occurrence is
profoundly unrighteous, is Internally
wrong.
There is absolutely no reason why our
laws should not be so reformed as to
bring about more equitable distribu-
ton of the good things of life; noreason
why the individual man or woman, able
to work and willing to work, should not
dl10Gys find it at fair wage; no
reason under the sun why the reign
Of privilege may not be brought to end
No Reason for It at All.
Almost every i'll which now af1icts
the body polite can be traced to it's
source in vicious legislation Govern
ment, instituted for public purposes, has
been prostituted to private purposes,
and that,is the true secret of most of our
troubles
1t is to-day more apparent than it ever
was before that combined capital has
deliberately come to the conclusion that
union labor must be crushed. The very
spirit now actuates the Pullman Car
company, the Harvester Trust companies
and similar considerations of capital,
which moved the British parliament CEN
turtles ago, when it punished a combina-
ton OF workmen as crime. Not only
did the capitalism of that day deny
laborers the right to form unions, but a
low scale of wages was prescribed, and
the workman who refused to work at
the stated price was punishable by law
as a criminal. Having thus enacted
legislation which created poverty, there
was only one more step to take, and they
took it-they made 1kverty a crime.
Political History Does Repeat.
The moneyless man who could not pay
his debts rotted in prison. The hungry
man who begged for something to eat
was hung. During the reign of Henry
the Eighth 1000 Englishmen were put
to death each year for the high crime Of
being so persistently poor that they re-
peated the offensefilivg! shrdlu hmm
peated the offense of begging three
times. 1t was penal to beg at all; it
was death to do it three times. The
English king under whom these horrors
occurred was at the head of the Church
of Christ, was official defender of the
Faith" and was as constant in attend
ance upon divine service as the Baers,
Pullmans, Rockefellers and Armours of
our own day. He had known Erasmus.
had written book against Luther, had
reveled with Francis First on the Field
of the Cloth of Gold and had for con-
fidential ministers cardinals of the
Church of God. In other words, he con-
formed to all the outward forms of Chris
tianity and ranked as equal among the
great men of his own time, yet he put to
death an average of 1000 paupers every
year of his reign for no other crime than
that Of giving cry to the pangs of hun
ger, the peculiarly atrocious feature OF
which barbarity being that the lao
had produced much Of the poverty
10htch 1t punished.
In our own land there are many lndi-
cations that capitalism is being insti-
gated by the same spirit as that which
lived in the ancient code. If labor unions
can be crushed by capitalism which has
formed it's trust, liberty will be gone, not
only from the individual laborer, but
from every other individual. Belong
to the trust, or obey it, will be absolute
ly the only possible outcome if the en-.
croachments of these rapacious monsters
are allowed to go unresisted. In every
village. every town, every city, every
state, the American people are so bad.
gered and insulted and robbed and op-
pressed by the hundreds of monopolies
and trusts that the Individual citizen
is reduced to state of indignant but
remedyless impotence.
Labor Beneath Parker's Notice.
From republican nominee one does
not expect great deal upon the labor
question; and would be disappointed il
he did expect it. But from a democratic
nominee one naturally hopes for deliv.
erance. Judge Parker's formal letter
does not recognize that such thing as
the labor question exists. He offers nc
solution of the trouble, and upon the
calm tide of his smooth rhetoric there
is no suggestion that civil war smould.
ers in many a region of our Christian
republic, where capital and labor have
taken each other by the throat. 1t Is
true that Judge Parker thinks that tariff
reform would benefit the wage-earner
So it would, if it were of the right sort
But Cleveland, once upon time, sounded
the slogan of tariff reform" and, after
one defeat, was elected to do the work
Arthur German was the master builder
who framed the measure which was tt
lessen the burdens of the oppressed, and
when Arthur German got through with
the job the burdens of the oppressed haG
merely been shifted from one shoulder
to the other. The great-warm-hearteG
senator from Missouri, George G.. Vest
wanted coal put upon the free list in
order that cheaper fuel could be had by
the people; Arthur German opposed the
measure stubbornly in the senate. Wher
the sugar trust wanted better rate thar
the Dlngley bill was about to give them
Senator Elkins brought Havemeyer an6
German together in personal confer.
ence, and the trust got what Havemeye,
came for.
and Arthur German is Parker's man
dger.
The tariff reform" Of the democratic
nominee must, therefore, be taken with
care, and to the Parker letter of accept.
ance should be attached the German
Tariff Act of 1894 as Exhibit A." anG
the speech of Gen. Joe Wheeler against
that measure as Exhibit B."
Labor Arbitration, "something Must
Be Done"
II were president l would recognize
that capital and labor have reached s
dangerous antagonism. My utmost in.
fluence would be used to establish ma.
tional bureau of arbitration. I would
ask combined capital to choose one man