The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1904-03-12

that this hive of industry is place
where hundreds an dthousands are out
of work at all times; that because Ma
ture is being cornered, fenced in, cut
off from use, men that would employ
themselves in mining coal or other
telling timber or farming are driven
away to the cities. They cannot paw
the high, speculative price demanded
for the use of land, and even when
they do have land they are pressed
down under a great burden of taxes
on the product Of lab Dor. -.
And when such men come to the
cities, hoping there to get employment
that will yield them a reasonable liv-
ing, they find they must enter fierce
competition for employment. There
seems to be more men than working
places.
Is it any wonder, then, that some 20
to the wall? That some lose heart and
hope? That they turn beggars with
out expectation Of ever rising from the
depths Of poverty?
1t is not fair to suppose that the beg
gars we meet on the streets Of our
great cities were once just as bright
and brave boys as the 17-year-old
brigth with expectancy to seek his for
tune.
Did:not nature plant that hope in the
human heart? Did not nature give the
human being hands susceptible of Won
derful skill and a brain to direct them
into fields and ways that lead up and
up in what seems an infinite progress
sion?
Yet the hands and brains must have
something to work upon. They must
have the materials of nature-land-
W nh m
duce the things needed to satisfy de-
sire. No matter how skillful the hands,
how wonderful the brain they can do
nothing with nothing. They must have
the materials of nature-that is, land.
So that If the best boys Of the coun-
try ever grew should come trudging TO
New York seeking employment and
should find none, and: should find en-
ployment nowhere else because :monop-
oly has fenced in nature and raised
warning sign, in effect reading: mo
workers allowed to trespass here"-
then what can be left for these human
beings but the lot of criminals, who
take what they want by force or
stealth; or the lot of beggars, who
grovelingly impore' aims?
In one Of the LONDON theaters for
more than a. year, and in a New York
theater for several months, has been
presented play called 1.-THE Admir-
able Crichton" pronounced Criton.)
The play first presents the picture of
the domestic circle. of a British noble,
man, while living in niagnificence from
the rents drawn presumably from a
large rural estate, has some notions Of
social equality, to which he obliges the
members of his family to comply once.
month: On that occasion his stiff.
necked daughters (his wife is dead) are
summoned to meet IN the drawing room
as social equals all the :domestics Of the
household, from the butler down to the
stable boy. Most ofl<the menials re-
gard the ceremony sis something, of an
ordeal, thatsmust be- faced to please the
'sGov.," assthe tit1e3s1fead of the: fam
lily is: called i'm. the.kitrhen..: But no one
rebels against the 3eeremony as the
butler, Crichton, man of alertiness
and ability, and a >model household
manager. He Ill conceals his abhor-
renee of it, and when questioned says
plainly that he thinks that such a
function generally observed would not
only be destructive of the underlying
that of classes, each helping those de-
penden upon it-but that it would
wreck social order and turn civilization
back to barbarism. The pate de fcie
gras nobleman tells him he is wrong
| and so the playing at equality pro-
ceeds.
Well, it happens that this nobleman
| and his family, with one or two
friends, and a couple of domestics, one
of them being Crichton, who regretful-
ly consents to step down from the high
| station of butler to become temporarily
valet to his lordshipEall 60 off on a
yacht for a cruise nthe West Indies.
While cruising storm sweeps down
| upon them, and the yacht is wrecked
upon an uninhabited semi tropical
| island, far away from the beaten course
! Of vessels. q:
1t was the Robinson Crusoe exper-
fence, except that instead Of one man
| there were eight beings, four woma n
and four men. But it brought them all
! down to primitive conditions. There
was no place for a nobleman there, un-
less he was nobleman who could do
most toward supplying the wants; who
had the strongest arm and firmest will.
! In such a condition of things the
most useless one of the party proved
to be the one who wore gilded trap
pings in England-his lordsip. And the
young blade who carried himself with
his at-home- in England aristocratic in
science, and would do nothing but wait
INA
and who cracked unseemigly jokes-he
was ushered into a to new and surpris-
ing world by way Of cold bath when
INSTRUMENTATION, the erstwhile defer
entail and obsequitous butler, but now
changed man-put the young gentle
mans head in bucket of water, ac-
companying it with: quiet declaration
that the operation would be repeated
as often as necessary to break the
gentleman of his insuppora BILE habit!
Here was a strange state Of things,
indeed! The former butler turned mas
ter!
And why not? It came about natur-
ally. There was no passing of resolu-
tons, no discoursing equality, no as
signment Of the leadership. BY a freak
of fortune the party, fresh from Eng
land, with all the ceremonies, states
and ideals belonging to social condi-
tions there, was thrown suddenly and
Unexpectedly upon a desert island, be-
yond the reach, or at least of any but
the accidental reach; OF their fellow
men. It was case Of being reduced
to first principles. How should they
get food to sustain life? How should