The labor argus. [volume] (Charleston, W. Va.) 1906-1915, 1910-09-29

= Human life depends upon food, cloth
ing and shelter. Only when these are as
sured are freedom, culture and higher
human development possible. To pro-
duce food, clothing and shelter, Land and
machinery are needed. Land by itself
does not satisfy human needs. Human
labor gets raw materials and food out of
the soil by creating machinery and using
it upon the land. Whoever has control
of land and machinery has control OF hui
man labor, anu with it of human life and
liberty.
Today the machinery and the land
used for industrial purposes are owned
by rapidly decreasing minority. So
long as machinery is simply and easily
handled by one man, it does not make its
owners so powerful that they can
dominate the sources of life of others.
But when machinery becomes more and
more complex and expensive, and re-
quires for its effective operation the or
ganized effort of many workers, its in
huence reaches over wider circles of life
The owners of such machinery become
the dominant class.
THE MASSES IN SUBJECTION.
In proportion as the number of such
machine owners compare to all other
classes decreases, their power in the ma.
bring ever larger masses of working peo
pie under their control, reducing them t.
the point where muscle and brain are
their only productive property. Millions
OF formerly seif-employing workers thus
become the helpless wage slaves of tho
industrial masters.
The more the economic power of the
ruling class grows, the less useful does
it become in the life of the nation The
IL e
OF the nation falls upon the shoulders
of the classes that either have no other
productive property but their manual
and mental labor power the wage work
ers-or that have but little land and
little machinery outside of their labor
Power-the small traders and small
farmers. The ruling minority is steadily
becoming useless and parasitic.
bitter struggle over the division of
the products of labor is waged between
the exploiting propertied cluss on the
one hand and The exploited, propertyless
class on the other. In this struggle the
wage working class cannot expect
adequate relief from any reform of the
present order from the dominant class
of society.
The wage workers are therefore
the most determined and irreconcilable
antagonists of the ruling class. They
from the curse of class rule. The fact
that small number of capitalists is
permitted to use all the country's re-
sources and social tools for their in
dividual profit, and to make the produc-
ton of the necessaries of our lives the
object of their competitive private en-
terprise and speculatIons, is at the bot
tom of all the social evils of our time.
MODERN INDUSTRY PAINLESS
In spite of the organization of trusts,
pools and combinations, the capitalists
are powerless to regulate production for
social ends. Industries are largely con-
Quoted in painless manner. Through
periods of feverish activity the strength
and health of the workers are merci-
lessly undermined, and during periods
of enforced idleness the workers are fire.
quently reduced to starvation.
The climax of this chaotic system of
production are the regularly recurring
industrial depressions and crises which
paralyze the nation every fifteen or
twenty years.
In its mad and reckless race for profits
the capitalist class is bound to exploit
the workers to the very limit of their
endurance and to sacrifice their physical,
moral and mental welfare to its own in
satiable greed. Capitalism keeps the
masses of wOrkingmen in poverty
restitution, physical exhaustion and
Ignorance. 1t drags their wives from