Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1906-12-11
Presidents JMessade

times calls it forth and at other times
merely furnishes the excuse for its ex-
istence. No more sh0rt-sighted policy
can be imagined than, in the fancied in
terest of one class, to prevent the edu-
cation of ano her class. The free public
school, the chance for each boy or girl
to get a good elementary education, lies
ar the foundation of our whole political
situation. In every community the poorest
citizens, those who need the schools most,
would be deprived of them if they only
received school facilities proportional to
the taxes they paid. This is as true of
ore portion of cur country as of another.
IL is as true for the negro as for the
white man. The white man, if he is wise,
Will decline 10 allow the negroes IN
mass TO grow TO manhood and Womanhood
without education. PROFESSIONALLY edu-
cation such as is obtained in our public
schools does lot do everything towards
making a man a good citizen; but it does
much. The man who acquires educa-
ton is usually lifted above mere brutal
criminalty. Great though the benefit of
these schools has been to their colored
pupils and to the colored people, it may
well be questioned whether the benefit
has not been at least as great to the
white people among whom these colored
pupils live after they graduate.
Labor and Capital.
In dealing with both labor and capital,
with the questions affecting both corpora
tons and trades unions, there is one mat
ter more important to remember than
aught else, and that is the infinite harm
done by preachers of mere discomfort.
These are the men who seek to excite
violent class hatred against all men of
wealth. They seek to turn wise and
-. lx,AN ,tF.aI
OF corporations and for doing away with
the abuses connected with wealth, into
a campaign of hysterical excitement and
falsehood in which the aim is to intiame
to madness the brutal passions of man
kind. The sinister demagOgueS and fool
ish Missionaries who are always eager to
undertake such a campaign of destruc-
ton sometimes seek to associate them
selves with those working for a genuine
reform in governmental and social meth
DDS, and sometimes masquerade as such
reformers. In reality they are the worst
enemies of the cause they profess TO adj
vocate, just as the purveyOrs of sensa>
tiCnal SANDER in newspaper or magazine
are the worst enemies of all men who are
engaged in an honest effort to better
what is bad in our social and govern
mental conditions. To preach hatred of
the rich man as such, to carry on cam
paign of SANDER and invective against
him, to seek 20 mislead and inflame to
madness honest men whose lives are hard
and who have not the kind of mental
training which will permit them to appre-
ciate the danger in the doctrines preach
ed-all this is to commit a crime against
the body polite and to be false to every
worthy principle and tradition of Ameri-
can national life. Corruption is never
50 rife as in communities where the dem
aeogue and he agitator bear full sway,
because in such communities all moral
bands become ioosened, and hysteria and
sensationalism replace the spirit of sound
judgment and fair dealing as between
man and man. In sheer revolt against
the squalid anarchy thus produced men
are sure in the end to turn toward any
leader who can restore order, and then
their relief at being free from the intol-
cradle burdens of class hatred, violence,
and demagOgy is such that they cannot
for some time be aroused to Indignation
against misdeeds by men of wealth; so
that they permit a new growth of the
very abuses which We're in part respon-
sible for the original outbreak. The one
hope for success for our people lies in
a resolute and fearless, but sane and cool
headed, advance along the path marked
out last year by this very Congress. There
must be a stern refusal to be misled into
following either that base creature who
appeals and panders to the lowest in
stinctS and passions in order to arouse
one set of Americans against their fell
lows, or that other creature, equally base
but no baser, who in a spirit of greed, or
to accumulate or add to an already huge
fortune, seeks 10 exploit his fellow-Amer-
leans with callous disregard to their well
fare of soul and body.
The plain people who think-the me-
chanlcS, farmers, merchants, workers
with head or hand, the men to whom
American traditions are dear, who love
their country and try to act decently by
their neighbors, owe it to themselves to
remember that the most damaging blow
that can be given popular government is
to elect an unworthy and sinister agita-
tor ON a platform of violence and hypoc-
risy. Whenever such an issue is raised
i'll this country nothing can be gained
by hinching from it, for in such case
democracy is itself on trial, popular self
government under republican forms is it
self on trial. The triumph of the mob is
just as evil a thing as the triumph of
the plutocracy, and to have escaped one
danger avails nothing whatever if we
succumb to the other.
The Eight-Hour Law.
So far as it is in our power, it should
be our aim steadily to reduce the num-
be- of hours of labor, with as a goal the
general Introduction of an eight-hOur
day, There are industries in which it is
not possible that the hours of labor
should be reduced; just as there are COM
munities not far enough advanced for
such a movement to be for their good, or
if in the tropics, so situated that there
is no analogy between their needs and
ours in this matter. On the iSthmus of
Panama, for instance, the conditions are
in every way so different from what they
are here that an eight-hour day would
be absurd; just as it is absurd, so far
as the iSthmus is concerned, where white
labor cannot be employed, TO bother as to
whether the necessary work is done by
alien black men or by alien yellow men.
But the wage workers of the United
States are of so high grade that alike
from the merely industrial standpoint and
from the civic standpoint ii should be
our object to do what we can in the di-
reCtiOn of securing the general observ-
ance of an eight-hour day. Until re-
Gently the eight-hour law on our federal
statute books has been very Scantily OBJ
served. Now. however largely through
the instrumenrality of the bureau of la
Dor, il is being rigidly enforced.
Labor of women and children.
Let me again urge that the Congress
provide for a thorough investigation of
The conditions OF child labor and Of the
labor of women in the United States.
More and more our people are growing to
recognize the fact that the questions
which are not merely of Industrial but of
social Importance outweigh all others;
and these two questions most emphat-
ically come in the category of those which
affect in the most far-reaching way the
home life OF the nation. The horrors
incident to the employment Of young
children in factories or AZ work anywhere
are a blot on our civilization.
EmplOyerS' Liability.
In spite of all precautions exercised
by employers there are unavoidable acct
dents and even deaths involved in nearly
every line of business connected with the
mechanic arts. Compensation for acct
dents or deaths due in any line of indus
try TO the actual conditions under which
that industry is carried on, should be paid
by that portion of the community for the
,e H., s,,sI.