Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1910-09-06
HOLDS LABORER
Is ONLY SLAVE
Frank p. Maxwell, Orator, Says
Worker Is Looked Upon
With Contempt.
PEOPLE TRUST RIDDEN
Four Thousand People at Exposition
Park Listen to Stirring Speech.
Mayors Talk Also.

Four thousand people gathered at the
picnic incident to the tri-city Labor
day celebration at Rock Island EXPOSE
tbon park yesterday afternoon heard
Frank T. Maxwell, an orator from Dan
vile, Ill. In the course of his remarks
Mr.. MAXWELL said:
Without owning you today, the mas
tiers are able to exploit you even more
mercilessly than they did the slaves
and serfs. You are in bondage, not
through the ownership of your bodies,
but through the ownership of the
means whereby you live. The owner
ship Of the resources Of nature and
the control of the agencies of produc-
ton are SO complete today that your
exploitation is more perfect than of
the slaves or serfs.
"The slave enjoyed his continuous
keep The serf had granted him the
means by which he could produce his
own keep, but the workers today are
too cheap for such benevolence. You
eat when they need you and wear the
muzzle when they don't need you.
You are the cheapest working class on
whose backs a master class ever rode.
You are so cheap they can AFFORD to
starye you when they don't need you.
They can afford to murder you rather
than make safe the machinery with
which you work, and you view your
self so cheaply that the masters can
even afford to let you vote, and want
to say that their confidence in the
~ nf
ever been misplaced.
Too Cheap to BE Owned.
SIS it any wonder the master class
holds you in contempt? The masters
know that the workers today are but
the industrial sons of serfs and the in
dustrial grandsons of slaves, and the
only reason why they today are not
owned and held as slaves or serfs is
they are too cheap. The wage system
Is master class economy.
"And to preserve the cheapness of
labor with the least expense to them
selves they have employed a bunch of
intellectual prostitutes and put them in
schoolrooms, editorial chairs and pull
pits to teach the people master class
philosophy, master class ideas of bust
ness and master class religion. The
teachers have gone into the school
room and taught that every boy had
a chance to become president, and ev-
cry girl chance to become a presi-
dents wife, In fact that they all had
chance to become rich and great
Yes, they have taught to our defense
less children the great man theory of
history. And we find when analysed
that the essence of that kind of great
ness is the reaching of a place where
either, through the control of wealth
or power one could dominate over his
fellows. This is the brutal idea of
greatness the masters have taught US.
But knowing that very few could ever
attain to it they taught it that the
working class might war among them
selves, rather than war against the
masters.
Big Fish Eat Little Ones.
"The editors in their san ctums have
praised and extolled the glories of COM |
petition. When under competition the
weak become the victims of the strong. |
producing as a logical result a trust |
controlled people when applied to hui
man society.
"The preachers have stood in their /
pulpits robed in sacred -vestments and !
taught the workers when they looked |
upon the wealth of their masters, made
rich by their labors Thou shalt not
covet.' They have taught them the
great doctrines of contentment. They
have kept them gazing at the stars in
search of heavenly home, while the
masters were filching them of SO cents
Of each dollar they produced. They
have taught them that poverty was