Wheeling majority. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1907-192?, 1910-03-17

ness of this worldwide working class
power is shaking the foundations OF
all government and civilization.
n The capitalist system has had its
day and, like other systems that have
gone before, it must pass away when
it has gulfilled Its mission and make
room for another system in harmony
with the forces of progress and COM
patible with the onward march Of
civilization. -,t.s
The Capitalization Of eapttal, The
concentration OF industry ann the
cooperation of workingmen mark
the beginning Of the end. Gompeti-:
ton is no longer ''the life OF trade"
Only they are clamorinE for com.
petition" who have been worsted In:
the struggle and would like to have
another deal.
The small class who won out In
the game of competition and own the
trusts want no more Of it. Theg
know what it is. and have had
enough. Mr.. John D. Rockefeller
needs no competition to give life to
his trade. and his pious son does not
expiate upon the beauties OF competi-
tion in his class at Sunday school.
No successful capitalist wants COM
petition-for himself-he only wants
it for the working class, so that he
can buy his labor power at the lowest
competitive price in the labor mar
ket.
The simple truth is. that competi-
ton in industrial life belongs to the
past, and is practically outgrown,
The time is approaching when It will
be no longer possible.
The improvement and enlargement
of machinery, and the ever-increastng
scale of production compel the con-
centration Of capital and this makes
inevitable the concentration and CO.
operation of the workers.
The capitalists - the successful
ones, of course,-co-operate on the
one side; the workers-who are
lucky enough to get the jobs-on the
other side.
One side gets the profit, grow rich.
live in palaces, ride in yachts, gam
Bile at Monte Carlo. drink champagne.
choose judges, buy editors, hire
preachers, corrupt politics. build uni
versities, endoW libraries. patronize
churches, get the govt, nreach morals
and bequeath the earth to their lineal
descendants. Il"
The other side do the work, early
and late. in heat and cold they sweat
and groan and bleed and die--the
steel billets they make are their
eorpses. They build the mills and
all the machinery: they man the
plant and the thing Of stone and steel
begins TO tlrob. They live, Tar away
in the outskirts, In cottages, Just
this side of the novels. where gaunt
famine walks with despair and LES
Miserables" leer and mock at, civili-
zation. When the mills shut down.
they are out of work and out Of food
and out of home; and when old age
begins to steal away their vigor and
the step is no longer agile. nor the
sinew strong, nor the hand cummings
when the frame begins to bend and
Equiver and the eye to grow DIM. and
they are no longer fit as labor power
Ito make profit for their masters.
they are pushed aside into the human
drift that empties into the gulf Of
despair and death.
The system, once adapted to human
needs, has outlived its usefulness and
lis now an unmitigated curse. It
stands In the way of progress and
checks the advancement of civili8a-
ton.
| If by its fruits we know the tree.
so by the same token do we know our
social system. Its corrupt fruit be-
trays its foul and unclean nature and
condemns it to death.
The swarm of Migrants. tramps,
outcasts, paupers. thieves. gamblers.
lpickpockets, suicides, confidence men,
fallen women, consumptives. idiots,
[dwarfed children; the disease, pow
erty, insanity and crime rampant in
Ievery land under the sway Of capital
ism rise up and cry out against it,
and hush to silence all the pleas OF
its mercenaries and strike the knell
OF its doom.
The ancient and middle-age civili-
cation had their rise. they ruled and
fell, and that of our own day must
follow them.
Evolution is the order Of nature.
and society, like the units that CONF
pose it, is subject to its inexorable
law. s .sff
The day Of Individual effort. OF
small, tools, free competition, hand
labor, long hours and meager results
is gone never to return. The ciYiliza-
ton reared upon this old foundation
is crumbling.
The economic basis Of society is be-
ing transformed.
The working class are being knit
together in the bonds OF cooperation
they are becoming conscious Of their
interests as a class. and marshalling
| the workers for the class struggle
and collective ownership.
With the triumph OF the workers
the mode Of production and distri-
l-bution will be revolutionized.
Private ownership and production
for profit will be supplanted by social
Iownership and production for use.
The economic interests of the