The Imperial press., 1905-08-05
New Clothes Needed

clothes should conform to his larger bone and muscle. An old maiden aunt or a doting mother, who would wish to hold him back in his natural expansion forcing him into the out-grown garments of his earlier youth. refusing him clothes cOnformable to his sturdy and expanding figure, are but fighting against the inevita be and forcing upon him a condition of discomfort and humiliation which will in some moment of supreme physical effort inevitably lead to tragedy of torn cloth, bdfsted seams and deep modification.
 We would call such an uncomfortable female fool, and our sympathy would be for the boy whose lusty figure was thus cramped and outraged. And if when the inevitable break would come this same maiden aunt or mother would simply be content with a begrudging batch over the rent, refusing the revolu- ton of new suit to fit the form, which was offered and urged upon them, but enlargimg the old one in spots by patches over every tear, transforming it into shapeless, awkward, unsub- stantial monstrosity of makeshift, our opinion of those reactionary females would be that of contempt and im- patience.
 Our industrial condition at present is in the position of the growing boy wearing the suit that fitted him few wears ago. And the country is full of maiden aunts who insist on cramping us with the methods of business in vogue in the first half of the last cen tury.
 When the nineteenth century was young almost everything was made by hand. Land was plenty and cheap everyone owned his own tools and could have life of independence. But We have grown in our industries until our methods and capacities have be come revolutionized. One man or corporation owns the tools that hun- dreds of men use. Machinery has multiplied each mans capacity for production tenfold. Capitalism has de inped and concentrated our in- du. $ inso a form and magnitude unC ,ed of fifty years ago. But We arr Ii trying to waddle around in o;., ancient economic suit and those old aunts protest against change. They insist on our adhering to the same political methods, holding the same opinions and using tho same system of distribution as our Grandsires did. The consequence Is tragedy.
 The following statistics show how the workers owned the natlOn's wealth: In 1850. 62 I-2 per cent; in 1860, 43 B. Der cent; in 1870, 32 2-3 per cent; III 1880, 24 per cent; in 1890, H-per cent; ih 1900, 10 per cent.
 If these figures do not indicate d half century of uncomformity to changing conditions what do they indicate? God hasn't injected into the world a new tyne of man. He hasn't made the working-man naturally any less pro- violent. We find since 1850 incarcera- tions for crime has increased GOO per cent ahd suicides 700 per cent. Drum kenness, prostitution, vagabondage, opium and other drug habits have multiplied to fearful extent.
 Must we blame all this on God for peopling the earth with worse class of mortals than he did in the first ha of the last century? las he given Satan carte blanche with our bodies and souls till We are ready t. curse God and die? No sensible person thinks this. What then j4 ,ha cause of this sinister condl- .- n which the nation finds itself at
 " .ime when wealth and the plica ion of things for use is with O.. parallel in any other country and any other age.
 1t is because We are trying to wear an, ontgrown, uniting and time-worn suit over a reconstructed body. We try to conform old economic laws and con ditiops To a revolutionized industry and We are n akiug mess of it. If a break, occurs we put a piece of new cloth on an