Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1912-07-02
WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING
The Meaning Of the Unrest Sweeping
Over the World.

The Meaning of the Unrest Sweeping
Over the World.
What Is really happening in the
world and what Is going to happen?
What is the mysterious unrest which
is producing economic and political
upheavals in so many countries Of
the old and new world, among ad-
vanced and backward nations, of
white or colored race, of autocratic
or of democratic government?
There Is one feature in common in
all these diverse disturbances. They
, are all sudden violent efforts Of the
common people to throw off the yoke
Of government and possessing caste
or class. and to claim a determining
voice in the management Of their af-
fairs. And first among their affairs
stands the ordering of industry.
At the root of the great tidal move
ment of popular discomfort sweeping
over the whole world, now for the
first time in human history brought
into close. quick intercourse, lies a
demand that the workers shall have
a chief share of the control and the
fruits of industry. This Is no new
discomfort, no new demand. The
serfdom and poverty of the workers
have always been a poisonous sore in
every society. The workers have al
ways witnessed a large share Of the
product of industry taken from them
in rents, taxes, profits and other pay
ments to those whose contribution to
the painful work Of production SEEM
ed little or nothing; they have always
found themselves compelled to labor
upon terms practically dictated by
their masters. They saw this, but
they did not understand 1t, and they
were almost always impotent to alter
it. Now for the first time, simultane-
ously in many parts Of the Industrial
world, a clearer consciousness OF the
nature and magnitude OF this OPP
preston has been dawning, with a
new belief in the power Of the people
TO secure its liberation.
A century and q quarter ago, In
portion of q few western countries
there appeared a first bright flicker OF
this hope of popular freedom:
Bliss was 1t In that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven
This fire Of political revolution, how
ever, spent its force in political and
military achievements, which hardly
affected the main conditions Of labor.
This was due, partly to the complete
failure to recognize the interdepen-
dence Of political and economic liberty
and the futility Of any endeavor to give
seperate effect to the former, partly
to the rapid reshaping Of economic
conditions in the course Of the indus
,rial revolution which confused all ef-
forts rightly TO interpret and attain
economic liberty.
The lesson had to be learned that
knowledge Is power, and that an ig-
norant democracy is not a danger but
an impossibility. Not yet sufficiently,
but to some considerable extent that
lesson is learned. This seething 'un-
rest" with its agitation, strikes, riots.
and revolts, is a necessary firstfruit
of popular education. / saw the other
aay IN a Tory newspaper a denuncia-
tory placard in which the coal strike
was presented as a beast of prey with
the inscription, Characterization. y
This word rightly describes what is
taking place. The lower orders all
ever the world, in proportion to the
degree Of their enlightenment are re-
fusing to remain under" they are
rising in revolt against the narrow
and sordid conditions Of their life. In
this conservative nation 1t has taken
nearly two generations Of carefully
stinted popular education to open
the eyes, raise the desires, inspire the
will needed for the struggle. The edu-
cation Of the street, the free library,
the club and trade union, the news
paper, this gathered fruit Of the tree
of knowledge, has made them as
one Of us knowing good and evil, 7"
and they are not content to have the
evil for themselves and leave the
good for others. They have seen life
open before them q land Of promise,
and they mean to enter 1t.
Such knowledge and desire would
however have been Of little avail had
not other economic conditions been
favorable. In the great fundamental
industries (excepting agriculture) the
concentration of capital, by elimina-
ting or regulating competition, has
brought into being various forms Of
monopoly menacing the public and
demanding the interference OF states
and governments. The capital in each
great industry Is organized and against
this organized capital Is set In con-
scious opposition a concentrated and
organized mass Of labor. Political
democracy has given to the workers a
potential weapon Of citizenship in re-
inforce their trade unions. According
as circumstances press and favor, they
are disposed to WELD one or other Of
these weapons, or both, in order to at
tain their ends. Those ends are not
clearly figured in their minds or wills.
nor are the methods of attaining them.
Thus violent force will be sandwiched
with pacific bargaining, workers will
now clamor for legislation In their
favor, now cry Hands off, no state
interference" They will be now for
Socialism, now for syndicalism
Though political and economic educa-
ton are beginning to exercise more
influence than formerly among the
workers, and their now enthusiastic
leaders are plying them with ideas and
1T nevertheless seems certain that this
newly aroused will Of the people" Is
destined to work irregularly and ex-
perimentally, sometimes violently.
For, though 1t Is becoming more
and more a conscious process, that
clear consciousness only comes In mo-
ments and in patches, and Is not and
can not be wholly rational. The indi-
vidual or the group in any Of these
critical acts of change often can know
little more of the motive and directing
force than a wave of the ocean does
of the tide which bears it on, to quote
Hugo's fine metaphor. This new
surging of forces towards economic
democracy transcends both the COM
prehension and the close guidance OF
those who move in 1t as followers or
leaders. This Is at once the hazard