The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-02-07

the uplift Of labor: its increase of dig
~ i.lty ana esteem; its briefer seasons:
us Tlehers compensation: its broader
outlook; its more hopeful grasp of OBJ
portunity and power
For thousands of years the sole re-
W. TaE "a OF labor was existence. reduced
70 It's least requirements, its simplest
Lormulst-labor driven by the lash;
labor snackled and fettered; labor in
CHAINS and bondage; labor of serf and
slave and bondman. 1t is the boast
OF the Anglo-Saxon that his laws and
MS civilization were the first of all the
world to strike the shackles from the
slave and free the hand that toifs: that
for many hundreds of years the air of
England has been such that none
might breathe it and remain a slave
that whatsoever set foot on English
ground that moment became free
Englands sovereignty proclaimed the
presence of her power, there labor was
free and toll requited.
THAT boast was true in the letter
of the law. For hundreds of years
the English law, by express enactment
and command, has forbidden human
slavery When England wrested the
Cape colony from the Dutch the slave
was freed. When England took the
Antilles from France and Spain, the
slave was freed. England's fleet sup
pressed the slave trade. In India, IN
Egypt in all her islands and posses
sions, the morning of England'S con-
quest and dominion has been the dawn
of freedom.
And yet while that is true, while
the English law was the first to abolish
literal and nominal slavery, its treat
ment and control of free labor down
to the commencement of the nine
teenth century has been repressive,
coercive, oppressive and barbarOus.
1t has kept the word of freedom to the
ear. but broken it to the spirit.
Nowhere has English law been so
advance. so feudai in spirit and pur-
pose, as in the concerns of labor and
its control and protection.
1.-THE better impulses of humanity
are ftful, not constant; the public
conscience wakes and sleeps; but
greed is a daily force, a ceaseless,
deathless impulse. So, in this struggle
for the betterment of labor conditions
by legislation, we have a tickle and
inconstant ally, a tireless. sleepless
foe. But its old fortress of freedom
of contract is becoming untenable.
Its outer works have been carried; a
few more assaults and it will yield en-
tirely. Already the courts are begin
ming to examine it. They are no
are beginning to see that, as between
employer and employed freedom of
contract is mere phrase, and they
look through the theory to the fact
And that essential and elemental fact
of labor is that it differs from all other
commodities that men make traffic
of. It cannot be boarded for a future
customer nor accumulated for a later
market. It must be sold today or not
at all.
1.-THE laboring man who fails to sell
today's labor today has forever lost
the price of that days labor. 1t is not
like wheat, or corn, or steel, or calico
1t has only a present existence. The
mine owner who does not mine and
sell his coal today still has it. The
farmer can hold his wheat for a bet
fO1 he or ms
as valuable tomorrow as it was today;
but that commodity which the labor
ing man has to sell perishes each hour
it does not find q present market,
passes forever out of existence, and
loses for all time the potentiality of
reward.
Labor is therefore the most fleeing
and perishable of all commodities, and
he whose sole commodity it is, whose
comfort and very existence depend
upon the instant and constant sale of
his labor, is forever meaSurably at
/ the mercy of him who buys and who
is. most often the sole accessible buyer.
Every hour that labOrer waits for a
market he loses his market: every
day that he holds it for a higher price
he loses all price; every day spent IN
seeking a purchaser destroys SO much
of his wares. How absurd, then, to
say that there is freedom in contract
between the laborer and his employer.
as there is between all other sellers
and buyers; that there is freedom of
contract. between him whose daily ex-
istence depends upon the sale of that
days labor, and him who can buy or
wait at will, give employment or with
hold it; between him who must sell
or starve, and him who can refuse
to buy, yet miss no comfort.
I'm our care and concern for every
unit of humanity, for every individual
citizen. we are not 10 be frightened
by phrases moved by epithets, nor
deferred by obstacles. Where there
are no precedents we will make them;
where none have gone before we will
blaze way, and where the last legis-
lature stopped the new one shall begin.
I'VE cannot, by statutory enactment,
make men equally strong, equally wise,
or equally shrewd; we cannot make a
market for labor, nor prescribe it's
wage, nor place labor and capital upon
equal footing, each independent of the
rather than war; we can establish
tribunals, where they may meet on
equal terms and adjust their differ
ences; we can guard the health and
safety of the laborer, and prescribe for
him wholesome and hygienic sur
roundings. We can forward the work
already begun, and speed the hour
when labor and capital. each master
of its destiny mutually dependent, and
hand in hand. work out their own
problems, free from the control of
legislators and lawmakers
In drastic terms, Judge c. E. Foote
who spoke on Progress OF LABOR ana
it's Cause" denounced combinations
and trusts In part he said:
There was a time in this great
country of ours when men became re- |
nowned for their patriotism, their
bravery, their loyalty and their love
of men, and that is true in some in
stances now, but as a rule, men be- |
come noted in this day and age for
their ability to accumulate property |
to winnow the earnings of others; to
husband the product of labor; to
gather together the dollars which have
been shaken from the mighty tree
of wealth by the hand of toll.