The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1910-04-14

UnlOGalng coal t(trdnS- |.
ferring 200 tons
from canal boats to
bins 400 feet distant) 20 24O
Pitchforks $50 pitch
forks, i2-incn tines).. IL 200
Plow Zone Landslide plow,
I. oak beams and han
dles) ............. 3 us
According to the same authority,
under the best conditions for organ.
ization in farming, labor can produce
20 bushels of wheat for 66 cents, or
/ bushel for 8 1-3 cents. This was
done on bonanza farm of 10000
acres in California, and was the aver
age cost of the whole product of the
farm. Mr.. Carroll D. Wright says to-
day 900 men, aided by machin-
cry turn out product that would re-
quire the labor of 40,O00,OO0 men if
produced by hand. Prof. Herzog of
Austria says that 100000 people
with the machinery of today, employ
ed at socially useful labor, would be
able to supply population of 2O,O00,-
900 people with all the necessaries
and small luxuries of life by working
/ IL hours per day.
This being so, matter being mas
tered, mans efficiency for food-and-
shelter-getting being increased a
thousand fold over the efficiency of
the cave-man, then why is it that
millions of modern men live more
miserably than lived the cave-man?
This is the question the revolutionist
asks, and he asks it of the managing
! class, the capitalist class. The cap.
italist class does not answer it. The
capitalist class can not answer it. {
! If modern mans food-and-shelter-
getting efficiency is thousand-fold
greater than that Of the cave-man,
/ why then, are there 100000 people
| in the United States today who are
not properly sheltered and properly
fed? If the child Of the cave-man
did not have to work, why then, to-
day, in the United States, are 3d.
, 900 children working out their lives
in the lextile factories alone? If the
child of the cave-man did not have
to work why, then, today, in United
States, are there l,752,1S7 child la
borers?
It is a true count in the indictment.
The capitalist class has mismanaged,
is today mismanaging. In New York
City $4,000 children 60 hungry to
school, and in New York City there
are 1920 millionaires. The point,
however, is not that the mass OF
mankind is miserable because Of the
wealth the capitalist class has taken
to itself. Far from it: The point
really is that the mass of mankind is
miserable, not for want of the wealth
taken by the capitalist class, but for
want of the wealth that was never
created. This wealth was never Gre
ated because the capitalist class man
aged too wastefully and irrationally.
The capitalist class, blind and greedy.
grasping madly, has not only not
made the best Of its management, but
made the worst of it. 1t is a man
agement prodigiously wasteful. This
point can not be emphasized too
strongly.
In face of the facts that modern
man lives more wretchedly than the
cave-man, and that modern mans
! misunderstanding efficiency Is a
, thousand fold greater thon the cave
mans, no other solution is possible
! than that the management is prodigi-
ously wasteful.
With the natural resources OF the
world, the machinery already invent
ed, rational organization of produc-
ton and distribution, and an equally
rational elimination of waste, the
able-bodied workers woulu not have
to labor more than two or three
/ hours per day to feed everybody,
clothe everybody, house everybody,
educate everybody and give fair
measure of little luxuries to every
body. There would be no more ma
terial want and wretchedness; no
more children toiling out their lives,
no more men and women and babes
living like beasts and dying like
beasts. Not only would matter be
mastered, but the machine would be
mastered. In such day incentive
would be finer and nobler than the
incentive Of today, which Is the in
centive Of the stomach. No man,
woman or child would be impelled
to action by an empty stomach. On
the contrary, they would be impelled
to action, as boys and girls at games,
as scientists formulating law, as in
ventors applying law, as artists and
sculptors painting canvases and shap-
ing clay, as poets and statesmen serv.
ing humanity by singing and BY
state-craft. The spiritual, antellect-
ual, and artistic uplift consequent
upon such condition Of society
would be tremendous. All the hui
man world would surge upward in .
mighty wave.