Montana news., 1905-01-25
Continued from last week. }

Continued from last week.
The capitalist class, having under
their control the press, and all other
means of communicating ideas, have
used these instruments to instill and
maintain certain ideas in the heads
of those who were being robbed.
They taught and preached the un-
restricted right and sacredness of
the institution of private property,
while at the same time establishing
and maintaining laws and institu-
tions conhscating all the private
property of the great majority of the
population. Most important of all
they seek to keep the great body of
workers divided and fighting each
other. The producers allow them
selves to be divided into two great
political parties who make loud
claims of antagonistic aims and mu-
tual hostility. but who agreed per-
fectly on the one point of interest to
the worker. that the instruments of
production and distribution shall re-
main the property of the present rul-
ing class and be operated by the
workers for the benefit of the pos
SCISSORS.
One very old way in which this
division of the producers is secured
is by setting the farmer against the
city worker. The farmer is made to
believe that the laborer who is seek
ing to free himself from exploitation
is trying to confscate the prop
erty" of the farmer, while the labor
er is told that the farmer is in league
with the capitalists to enslave labor
Both are deceived, and while they
are fighting, the capitalist gleefully
picks the pockets of both. AT bot
tom the trouble is the same for both
and unless they fight together against
the common enemy they must con-
tinue to suffer together in slavery
under a common master.
Either division of the workers can
today produce many fold more of
the necessities of life than ever be-
fore since history began and could
easily supply all the wants of their
members with a trifling fraction of
their present toll were they not pre-
vented from producing because they
cannot secure access to the tools
with which to work or else deprived
of the results of their toll by a para
site ruling class. The remedy for
this condition is obvious. 1t is for
the workers of farm and factory to
unite at the polls and secure posses
sion of the instruments of produc-
ton and distribution, and then being
both owners and producers they will
retain the whole product and can
produce until their wants are salts
fed with no care for falling or rising
prices, overproduction or crises.
But the railroad, telegraph and
elevator, creamery, cheese factory
and binder mandatory, like the
steel works, cotton mills, coal mines
and shoe factories of today, are too
expensive, somplex and interdepen-
dent to be of any value to any indi-
vidual unless he has the power to
make others work in them for him.
Hence the ownership must be in
common. They must be the prop
erty of the whole body of producers
organized for the purpose of con
trolling and operating them.
Wage laborers and farmers must
first unite in a political party of the
producing class to gain possession
of the powers of government now
controlled by the capitalist class.
So long as the government remains
in the control of the owning class
government ownership" of any kind
would simply increase the powers of
the rulers. Not until the producers,
agricultural, commercial and manu-