The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1906-07-28

The Struggle for Chance to Struggle.
If anywhere on all the earth there
is single man or woman or child who
is hungry or cold or ragged 1t is not
the fault of nature The world is
large enough. her fields and forests
and mines are rich enough in natural
resources and in productive possibil-
tiles to provide for all.
If anyone Is hungry or cold or
ragged or shelterless 1t Is not the fault
of the tools. The simple tools Of the
olden time, when with them men
struggled against nature to secure the
means of life, have grown into the vast
and complicated machinery. bound to-
and great tanks of steel upon the sea,
until the whole wide world has become
one vast workshop using these tools.
It is no longer a direct struggle to
exist. The struggle comes in the effort
to get chance to use the tools and
to have for ones self the products of
mis- own labor when so equipped. The
tools are sufficiently productive. If
anyone Is cold or hungry or ragged or
shelterless 1t Is not their fault.
Again, it Is not for lack of workers,
numerous enough. strong enough and
willing enough to use the tools to use
the earth that anyone is hungry or
cold or shelterless.
The earth is rich enough, the tools
are productive enough, the laborers
are abundant and their ability to pro-
duce enough unquestioned.
Why, then, should we live in novels,
go clothed in rags and consent to be
fed upon the refuse Of the lumpy jaw
and tuberculosis of Packingtown? It
Is solely and only because those who
own the earth will not use 1t and wiz.
not permit us to use 1t unless we buy
from them the privilege to do SO. And
when we have paid the price they
ask there is nothing left but lumpy
jaw and crusts and rags nnd novels
for ourselves. It is because those who
own the tools will not use them and
will not permit US to use them unless
we buy from them the privilege to do
so and then consent to use them as
the hired servants of these idle mas
tiers Of those who toll, and they will
not give this privilege to us except on
terms which leave to US only the
waste and refuse of the revelry and
riot of those who toll not, neither
do they spin."'
There Is no waste in all the world
so vast as the productive possibilities
of the unemployed, together with the
poorly equipped, the irregularly en-
ployed and the improperly organized
among those who are employed. The
disasters which come from earth
quakes and floods and fires and frosts
and panic and plague are as nothing
when compared to the disasters which
come because those who toll are un-
able to do so on any terms, or are
obliged to toll, If at all, under condi-
tons where the best machinery, the
best organization and access to the
best of natures resources are denied
to them.
Capitalism proposes that these con-
ditions shall continue and all the po-
litical parties now In power anywhere
are definitely controlled in order to
perpetuate these conditions, and that
for the sake Of the advantage to the
private owners who hold all these
things subject to the purposes of
speculation rather than in the collec-
tive interest Of US all.
The Socialist proposes that what
ever we must use together we shall
own together, and that every living
human being shall have as good an
opportunity to go to work as any
other.
That is all there Is in Socialism, but
that will make an end Of involuntary
poverty and industrial oppression as
well as rags, shoddy. tuberculosis ana
lumpy Jaw, for them, both for lack
Of power and for lack of motive, the
few will never again rob or .oppress
the many.
WALTER THOMAS MILLS.