Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-09-30
THE EVOLUTION
 OF INDUSTRY
(By Socialist committee.)


 strument" of labor has completely displaced the individually owned tool of production. Then We can truth fully say that we no longer have in- dividual, product!on---as the prevail ing method of production to-day, but collective production, an evolution that has taken place so rapidly that some of the writers on economies have called 1t revolution" Of in- dustry. The gigantic factory owned and controlled by trust has swal- lowed up lot of little shops, and dictates the price of labor power just as the price of any other commodity.
 Now, the tools of production used to be classed as mans private, or personal property. When the capi- talistic method of production took the place of the system of "individ- ual" production, and the worker was no longer the owner of his tools, was the change of ownership called con fiscation?" And was the fact that the man had been divested of his per sonal or private property, made a subject of lectures or sermons? No! In the evolution of industry the workingman being subject to the owner of the machines, that he must have access to in order to live, was further deprived of what society had previously granted him as his per sonal appropriation, or private prop erty, his own home, and many per sonal comforts that are now fast be- ing reduced to minimum on account of the low price of his labor power. An entirely unnecessary condition, for under the great increase of machine made articles, every article of neces- sity and even luxury might be pos sessed by the men who operate the machines. But the owners of the machines operate them for profit, very naturally, not for the benefit of humanity. Now in the operation of the entire factory system, or indus trial system just how much profit is made on the labor commodity is not so much the question at issue but the fact that as Paul Lafargue says, in his Evolution of Prosperity" "Capi- talistic production has reduced to a minimum the personal property of the proletarian. It was impossible to go further without causing the death of the producer-the capitalists goose that lays the golden eggs. It tends to dispossess him altogether of his instruments of labor, a spoiation which is already an accomplished fact for the great bulk of workers"
 In quoting the average wage of the workingman and the average produc- tion of wealth, we used government figures and know nothing of our op- ponent's MT Willie" The figures of rCarroll D. Wright were secured not by Juggling, but as he says, "by careful investigation of every phase of the subject, and when he makes his averages he includes men who re- ceive very large salaries and wages with those who receive the lowest and in the fairest. computation of re- suits we still find that the average workman produces from $10 to SIP worth of wealth each day Suppose he receives an average of $2 per day which is not the average, then the upholders of the present system of capitalist production claim that the capitalist owner is entitled to all the rest of the production of the worker that out of the profit the worker must come his, the capitalists, expenses for running things, in other words the capital for exploitation And when any worker or upholder of capitalism believes these statements he is utterly blind to the facts. In Swift's great packing houses notices are sometimes placed along the visit or's routes which state that the prof its last year. were very low, etc, giv- ing certain figures-appealing to the same credulity of the consumer of beef--when all the financial world of Chicago knew that the gigantic beef trust combined had made profits last year almost incredible in magni- tude and while the workers in other fields were in the throes of panic they snapped their fingers at the con- sumers by raising the price of beef, just as they snap their fingers at the cattle raisers. who demand a fair price for their cattle and say, "you must sell at our price as we are the only buyers" And so in all other trusts it is not question of good or bad individuals good or bad trusts | 1t is question of profit, and every workingman must know that his labor powers must go into the market to be sold or bought for profit to the buyers, just as any other commodity, bought and sold in the open market.
 If an employer is good and pays more for labor and makes less profit than some other employer in the same line he goes under in the struggle
 for power And what condition
 results by the system of capitalist
 production? In New York city the value of manufactures stands at the head of the list. It is the wealthiest city in the union and leads in the number of millionaires within it's bor-
 ders, but in the census reports of
 100000 homes less than 5000 were towned free and less than IA, 900 had
 even mortgaged titles to homes, 3s4,- 349 were rented homes and Jacob Riis an intimate friend of President
 Roosevelt said insan address recently, thirty years ago when I commenced this fight, there were 10000 window less rooms in New York. To-day
 there are 360.O0o. and they exist in defiance of the law
 What has all this to do with the