The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-11-09

+ars l!istedu OF you the 1anl-
tors OF Paris have struck against
this custom Of the empire. In
Great Britain -paym of
members of Parliament by the
State is a negation of the rights
OF the masses Of w~age-earners to
De represented by men from their
own ranks. To a prevailing measu
the House of Commons is, as COM
monty observed, a gentlemen's club
the word gentleman to be taken in
the English sense of a high-caste man,
and not in the American sense of a
manly man. The first, second. third.
n fourth class cars on European
railways do not merely indicate vary
ing costs in a journey; they mark off
strata IN society. The fact tina army
Oncers and certain high-grade govern
ment f~unctiOnaries have the right to
travel In first class cars at third class
rates is used by the democrats to IL
iustrate the parasitic privileges of
a~r1stOcracy in general. I witnessed
an instance in which two respectable
look1ng women with a child were 3D.
Jected to on entering a second class
car by a naughty and ~r-bea
man, though they a~pologized for
taking the last seats in the compart-
ment. They are servants he said.
as II they were animals. They have
no right to be seated with u.s." The
habitual ton Of the conservative
European press when dealing with
special questions suggests the idea that
he wake-workers are the dependent
wards of the employing class; there
fore, the assertion of the latter Of
their supposed rights is a form of
reason. The street cars of Paris
and other European cities have first
and second class compartments. The
one empty or nearly so, the other
damned.
In America we are taught hat all
citizens should have equal rights,
and that the man who will not stand
up for his rights is unworthy Of citi-
zenship; in Europe, powerful, if not
in all countries the dominant, ele-
ment of society defend the rights of
kings as divine, advise the poor to
be satisfied in the station in which
God has placed Them" teach that the
separation of state and church is a
sacrilege, and assume that the ag-
g1essive, upward movement Of the
masses is a peril to society.
h difference in the prevailing
sentiment toward democracy I regard
as the first point to be made in COM
pairing the conditions Of the wage
workers in Europe and America. A
complete change in this respect must
be the forerunner in Europe to a
general social progress. More than
any other factor the labor organiza-
tons are working this change. They
are evolving a triumphant democracy.
The political disabilities of the Eu-
ropean working classes also mark
the incompleteness Of the abolition
of serfdom. AS in the feudal time,
power in most countries is in a large
measure still in the hands Of a set
Of hereditary Or prOprietied bosses,
whatever their titles. In Hungary
Oh account Of the property qualihca-
tons, not one Wage-WOrker in TWEEN
ty has a vote. Hungarian working
men who have been in the United
States and have returned to their ma
tive country "a from their own ex-
perience, make comparisons between
the two governments on the points
affecting the W~age-wOrker as citizens.
Those 1 met invariably began by
showing the differences in the suf-
frage. The sentiments of the masses
have but a small influence on the
Hungarian government. Their eff
forts through labor organizations to
promote their welfare are constantly
hindered by Interference of the au-
thorities. The common school cues
ton, long & settled in the United
States ~favOrably to the working
classes who were apable OF protect
ing their own interests through the
ballot, cannot be grappled with by the
Hungarian working people because
they are without the ballot. Four
ffths of the so-called public elemen-
tary schools of the ountry are still de-
nOminational.
The average Englishman would
bly, maintain that while Hun
gary represents the lowest level of
European society with respect to the
citizens rights in voting and to a free
schooling, England is at the highest
level or very nearly the highest. But,
in the larger English cities from
twenty-five to forty per cent. of the
have no vote on any
n1hlic question whatever. They fail
in residential tax-paying or other
qualifications A w~orkingman. in all
other ways qualified, may lose his vote