White Pine news weekly mining review. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1910-1920, 1912-05-12


where in the application of the prin-
ciple.
For the grim fact stands out be-
yond denial that the men who are
the workers of the nation, and the
women and the children dependent
upon them, are not today given the
opportunities that are their proper
birthright in free America; and that,
struggle as they will, save as they
may. lift their voices in protest as
they dare. they cannot obtain from
our industrial hierarchy much more
than a mere living wage.
" And, on the other hand, it is
equally true that the wage of capt.
tai is high, that the class of idle
rich has grown out of all proper
ton, and that it has taken upon
itself a power and an arrogance un-
surpassed in the industrial history
of the world.
Somewhere there is something
wrong. | speak as a rich man. /
speak as a representative of the
class of which l write and to which
in particular l address myself. We
can no longer blind ourselves with
idle phrases nor drug our co%nsciences
with the outworn boast that the
workingmen of America is today the
highest paid artisan in the world.
We know those lying figures we'll.
Many a time | myself, in personal
argument, have shown that the
American workman receives from
one and a half to three times as
much as his English cousin at the
same trade; but we know now that
it means nothing.
I'VE are learning (instead of
envying the American workingman
his LOTT to pity more deeply that En-
glish cousin. We are learning, too,
that what We give our workers in
wages We take back from them in the
high cost of necessities, in food, in
clothing, in medicine, in insurance
in a hundred devious ways, all
with n tendency-to keep the liy-
ing margin down.
Many centuries ago two great
Greek philosophers, Aristotle and
Plato, predicted that the time would
come when the tools of wealth pro-
reached such an advanced stage
of development that it would be-
come unnecessary to enslaye anybody
for the sake of allowing one class to
devote itself to the pursuit of cul-
ture.
Aristotle and Plato were not
Missionaries. Their dreams, so far
as the methods are concerned, are to-
day realities; but alas. how different
the result, Instead of emancipa-
ton We have welded about the
necks of the people the chains of
industrial slavery. 1t is true that
the form of slavery. the direct ex-
ploitation of the bodies of men,
has been wiped out in every
civilized nations, but is it not equally
true that since our own great strug-
gle for freedom from the pollution
of chattel slavery We have but
stepped out of a process of direct
exploitation of a few unclaimed
slaves into a process far more ex-
pansive and embracing far more
people-nainely, the indirect ex-
ploitation of wage-workers for the
benefit of capital!
1.-The fruit of the genius of the
inventors of the world is plucked
not by the hands of the worker,
but by the hands of the COM
p~aratively small and personally in
significant class who by virtue of
the genius of their fathers or by
virtue of mere chance, administer
the tremendous power of capital.
THE evolution of the ages, then,
has brought about this strangely
ironical condition. Humanity is
face to face with a God-giyen OPP
portunity to acquire and apply
knowledge. The wealth producing
machinery of the world has the
capacity to give to all men the OPP
portunity of enjoying leisure.
knowledge and culture are the
proper birthright of humanity to-
day. Even In the face of obstacles,
knowledge and culture spread
among the people. Only one great
obstacle remains to block the full
fillmanf of tho nrophocv 90 tho