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

and city councilmen, the masses of
English voters have no direct inf1u-
ence over public officials. The demo-
Gratis among them have to put up with
the standing ofense of royalty and
the lords. And in England to speak
up for free and secular education in
State-maintained schools is to clas-
sify oneself as a radical.
In Germany, however advanced the
common schools. their relation to
higher education is not what it is
in America. 1t is not m as
here, hat wage-workers procure for
themselves a college education with
direct connection with the common
school course. AS to the effectiveness
of the ballot, if a fair apportionment
Of seats were made, the socialists and
other radicals of Germany would at
the next election increase their mem
bership in the Reichstag by perhaps
nifty per cent. Aside from voting for
members Of the Reichstag. the Ger
man workingman has little or no in
fuence on those who govern him.
In Austria the trade unionist has
by the letter Of the law no legal
status. The act of 1870 on combina-
lions, forbids workingmen's unions to
accumulate funds to be used in labor
Consequently the trade
unions, as labor organizations, do not
pay strike or lockout benefits. The
members take care Of this branch of
their work through free o~rganiza-
tons, Of course. but the union mem
bers are the only ones who commonly
do. Members Of the union are
obliged to pay dues to the free or
ganization." Here is a legal force
impossible to the working-classes of
the United States. It makes one of
the widest differences between the
conditions of the workers in our own
country and conditions to be found in
Europe.
The European W~orkingmen's identi-
fication book is a badge of his still
existing serfhood. While in America
any n may freely roam the country
over, in most countries in Europe the
laborer must be prepared to produce
the police or on applying for en-
ployment. At the Paris Congress of
his '~1egitimation" book on demand of
the International Secratariat one of
the protests drawn up related to the
arbitrary action of the Prussian po-
lice in turning back at the frontier
Austrian laborers going to seek work
in Prussian-Germany, or in opposing
upon them both entrance and police
taxes. In Italy, the laborer's book,
besides giving his character as a
workman. as seen by his successive
employers, states whether he has ever
| been in prison for any cause whatever.
" In NAAo 1SA wv
agitator' subject to police bounding
is thus liable to be effectually
squelched.
1t is through the exercise of a mans
rights-his personal rights and his
rights as a citiZen-that in time he
may attain to their full extent his
economic rights. Hence. in
ing laboring class conditions in Eu-
rope with those in America, I AVE
placed, first, some consideration Of the
extent to which. what we regard as
the fundamental rights of men are
exercised in the old world and in the
new.
Americans have suffrage.
BY it they may, if they will, amend
Federal or State constitutions, change
all their lawmakers and officeholders,
and speedily bring the laws up to the
mental and moral level Of the ma
jOrity. Not even in england can the
masses do as much. The House of
Lords, among other obstacles, stands
in the way. If royalty is not regarded
as one of the obstacles it is because
ROYALTY effaces itself. The British ma
ton as a whole seems disposed to toll
crate the conventional figurehead of
kinship, so long as it remain nothing
more.
Americans exercise the right of de-
voting their lifetime to their own pur-
poses. On the continent of Europe
every man in the masses must give
up years Of his life to compulsory ser
vice in the army. Under some gov
ernments the poorer and more ignOr-
ant and helpless man the longer is
his term of service. Exemptions go to
the favored classes. An endless stream
Of wrongs and infamies flows from
from militarism as carried out by
the ruling classes in the great powers
Of Europe
Americans are not taxed to support
religious denominations to which they
are opposed. This can not be said Of
the Subjects Of the British govern
nent. State religious, or the usual al
liances between church and state. have