Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1904-01-22
The Private Ownership OF abor Politics.

Our political and industrial affairs will Away
be out of gear as long as private individuals re
ceiye the benefits that ought to come to tn
whole people.
We have not vet found any reliable means o
protecting ourselves from those smart and I'm
scrupulous individuals who use the rest of u
as stepping-stones in their climb to wealth ant
| power.
1t is the American people who give value t.
all the property in the country. If it were no
for the 10000, 600 of us, every railroad woull
be worthless streak of rust, and every sky
scraper would be as worthless as the ruined
temples of Ceyon, and every plot of land OF
Broadway would be as cheap as the snowy acre.
of Greenland.
Yet, all this profit which it takes the whole
of us to make is pouring, every year, into thu
pockets of few people. Here you have, in ;
few words, the secret of enormous fortunes ant
of the poverty of millions of industrial people
1t is the city which gives value to every
franchise Yet, in every city, the official whom
we elected and paid to take care of our fran
chises have been persuaded to give away these
franchises to private individuals.
The same fact explains the weakness of labo
politics. There are about two million trade
union voters in the United States-a large
enough number to hold the balance of power
in any ordinary presidential election. Yet, the
labor vote is given away, here and there, to q
few labor leaders or politicians, who climb into
A. IL. 81 Il, nd
forget everything except their own ambition as
soon as they feel secure.
The great mass OF organized wage. workers
get absolutely nothing in return for their votes.
So far as their own homes and their own inter
ests are concerned it makes very little differ
ence, if any, whether they vote or not.
The labor unions are kept quiet and harm
less ty the stale trick OF throwing few poit-
ical Jobs to few labor leaders, who, in most
cases, at once forget their zeal for the cause OF
labor and set out to make as much money and
as many rich friends as possible.
Two thousand years ago, this trick was
played with the same success upon the ogran-
lied workers of Rome. French historian
saws that the sailors and bakers of Rome had
powerful trade unions, and that whenever they
demanded higher wages or shorter hours, their
leaders were made senators and knights.
This tickled the vanity of the bakers and
sailors to such degree that they forgot to in
sist on their demands, and the mass of them
went on toiliug and drudging while their lead
ers were pretending to be noblemen and doing
their best to buy pedigrees
No class ever benefited by the few indvidu-
ais who rise out of it. How long will it be
before workingmen learn this plainest fact OF
history? Catherine the Great of Russia was
born and bred a peasant girl; but she did not
do anything to help the Russian peasant girls
Galerius was swineherd and Docletian was a
slave, but when they became the emperors OF
Rome, they did nothing to make life easier Tor
the swineherds and slaves of Rome.
Horace was farmers son, but that did not
benefit the Roman farmers who remained farm
ers. In this country, there have been thou
sands of individuals who climbed out OF their
early Surroundings, but their success has not
don, anything to solve the social problem OF
giving fair play to all the people. In fact, the
average man who climbs up does all that lie
can to keep the rest OF his fellow men down.
Consequently, every trade union is obliged to
choose between going into politics in united,
intelligent way, and thus getting proper legls-
lation for all its members, or keeping out of
politics as a union, and thus allowing some
labor leader to trade its votes for a political
Office. which will benefit himself, and nobody
else.