The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-11-15
share, dividends yearly.

NOC only tn1S, put one company dlS- tributed a stock dividend of 100 per Scent. besides. This is known tech nically as ''cutting a melon'' and our ! old friends, the express robbers, have become adept in this form of opera tion from long and lucrative prac- tice.
 But our self-sufficient friends who says "'tst ,tst, why don't you let well
 enough alone?'' insist that this is the | method the Lord intended.
 For one Brown Baby with count less millions to squander, thousands of poor workers must congest their pitiful lives out in the humid oxy- gen impoverished, lint-laden mills of l Rhode Island and Massachusetts. For the purpose of maintaining a few useless families in exaggerated aff1uence, thousands must perforce
 surrender their very lives - sordid. empty and mean, at best.
 Why be discontented, indeed! Why
 deplore the fact that, according to
 Secretary Nagle, of our Department
 of Commerce and Labor, one-third of
 the 9O,0O0 men employed in the steel l industry work seven days a week and
 one-fourth of them work 12 hours daily on this basis and they receive | the magnificent pay of s47e per year for it.
 l As a sociologist recently expressed | it,
 | What is the proper name to give to a country where 750,000 workers
 are killed and wounded in the shops
 and mines and on the railroads ev- cry year; where a vast majority of
 the working class die premature deaths from diseases caused by over-
 work, by underfeeding and from dls-
 eases caused by dirt--dirt in the air.
 in the drinking water and dirt an1 poison in the food; where four out
 of every five children in the world are doomed to drudgery and insufficient cy, and where light is luenched and l ignorance always triIimphs.
 If such a place is not fit to be
 called hell, what will you call it?' ! Are we to continue on?
 Truth forever on the scaffold, | ':Wrong forever on the throne"
 attitude indefinitely, or are we to per-
 severe in our dissatisfaction; perhaps become even more so as our knowi-
 edge of the worlds iniquities increas- | es. l Browning says that moreover the
 moral sense grows but by exercise
 and also "that mans reach must ex-
 ceed his grasp. or what's Heaven l for?"
 | The true optimist is the man or woman who with tongue, or pen, or
 by example insurges against the cruel
 ty, the injustice, the criminality of | our present horrible system of in- dustrial slavery-who inspires hope
 and confidence and love by his per
 sistent attempts to better it--who wioh brain afiame and the good sword
 Excalibur in hand, mites the hydro
 headed dragon of oppression when
 ever opportunity presents.
 | The smug conservative "belly with good capon lined''-who regards this
 system as the sine qua non of human ! perfection is a dangerous foe to hu-
 manity in the large. His acquies-
 ence and inactivity, his ingenious
 countenancing of the criminal indif-
 ference and heartless bestiality which
 is at the bottom of it all is utterly
 reprehensible and absolutely inde- fensible.
 l I have more respect and admiration
 for the little Salvation Army lassie
 helping a drunken vagabond steady
 his footsteps on the bottom irung Of
 the latlder--urging him to exert the small smoiety of manhood which his alcoholic obsession has left him than | have for any blo,,tedt pillar of so- ciety whose ostentatious philanthro- | pies and obtrusive charities are a
 stench in the nostril of those who understand the methods by which fe attained to his present en1inence. 1 Sometime not far distant the query, ''how much has he" will be changed
 to the query, where did he get it."
 The present ludicrous worship of
 mammon is but a temporary mania. 1 Even now the possessors of large
 fortunes, who have lost the only thing
 in the world which is really worth
 while to a normal man-the respect
 of his fellows-are currying favor by large gifts and princely largesses.
 Very good There is no such thing as tainted money and the very blood
 money wrung from the mill opera tives in Homestead and Pittsburg, the millions unlawfully secured in crim- inal rebates-as President Cassatt ot the Pennsylvania railroad cited
 shortly before his death are now finding their way back to the pub
 lie from whom they were filched. And best of also does destiny | shape our ends-they are put to the very purpose which will ultimately make it impossible for future stee bandits to duplicate the horrible ex- lample" of their penitent predecessor