The labor argus. [volume] (Charleston, W. Va.) 1906-1915, 1910-09-22

their homes to the mill and factory. II
snatches their children from the play
grounds and schools, and grinds their
slender bodies and uniformed minds into
cold dollars. It Wantonly disfigures,
mains and kills hundreds of thousands
of workingmen annually in mines, on
railroads and in factories. 1t drives
millions of workers into the ranks of
the unemployed and forces large num-
bers Of them into beggary, yagrancy and
all forms of crime and vice.
PUBLIC INTELLIGENCE COR
RUPTED.
To maintain their rule over their fell
low men, the capitalists must keep in
their pay all organs of the public powers,
public mind and public conscience.
They control the dominating parties
and, through them, the elected public
officials. They select our executives,
bride our Legislatures and corrupt our
courts of justice. They own and censor
the press. They sway our educational in
stitutions. They own the nation politi-
caliy and intellectually, just as they
own it industrially.
The struggle between wage workers
and capitalists grows ever tiercer, and
has become the only vital issue before
the American people. The wage work
ing class, therefore, has the most vital
and direct interest in abolishing the
capitalist system. But in abolishing
the present system, the workmen will
free not only their own class, but also
all other classes of modern society:
The small farmer, who is today exploit
ed by large capital more indirectly but
not less effectively than is the wage
laborer; the small manufacturer and
trader, who is engaged in a desperate
and losing struggle for economic indie
pendence in the face of the all-conquer-
ing power of concentrated capital; and
even the capitalist himself, who is the
slave of his wealth, rather than its
master. The struggle of the working
class against the capitalist class, while
it is q class struggle, is thus at the same
classes and class privileges.
MUST CONQUER THE POLITICAL
POWER.
Tho private ownership of the land
and means of production used for e1-
ploitation, is the rCck upon which class
rule is built; POLITICAL government is its
Indispensable instrument The wage
workers cannot be freed from exploita-
ton without conquering the political ad-
ministration for private ownership of
the land and the means of production
used for exploitation.
The basis for such transformation 10
rapidly developing within the very
bosom of present capitalist society. The
factory system, with its immense ma
chinery and minute division of labor,
is rapidly destroying all vestiges of in
dividual production in manufacture.
Modern production is already very
largely a collective and social process,
while the great trusts and monopolies
which have sprung up in recent years
have had the effect of organizing the
work and management of some of our
main industries on a national scale, and
fitting them for national use and opera.
ton.
AN END TO CLASS RULE.
In the struggle for freedom the in.
terests of the workers of all nations are
| identical. The struggle is not only
national, but international. 1t embraces
the world and will be carried to ulti-
mate victory by the united workers OF
the world.
To unite the workers of the nation
and their allies and sympathizers of all
other classes to this end, is the mission
of the Socialist. In this battle for free.
dom the Socialist movement does not
strive to substitute working class rule
| for capitalist rule, but by working class
| victory to free ali humanity from class
rule and to realize the international
brotherhood of man.