The Commonwealth. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1911-1914, 1913-11-06
BULLETIN or THE SOCIALIST
EDUCATIONAL BUREAU
STUDY CLUB.

J m OucalH Nofkcf8 IN American HIS
tory might doubt tho authenticity of
some of the statements made were IL
mot for the fact that the author gives
the sources of his Information in every
case. Is It any wonder that the black
records of working class oppression
have been suppressed in capitalist
school histories? Capitalism, having
something to lie about. must have it's
idols for worship In public places. The
oppressors of the poor when good and
dead and properly attired in the garb
of departed saints make the finest
kind OF idols. The reader of these
two chapters will find these idols
shattered, at least some of them shat
tered and that badly.
In our last study we saw how the
masters contrived to slip between the
workers and the soil of America vari-
Gus pieces of paper with the scrawl Of
kings thereon and which gave to
worthless courtesans the royal right
to rob. This lesson deals with the
process of that robbery. Here was the
way that the problem presented itself
to the silk soX and the silk sockesses:
Given the soil and natural resources
of a virgin continent, how are we 60
ing to get rich out of it without DO
ing a lick of work?
First they tried the tricks of the
real estate boomer and fooled thou
sands into coming and working their
lives away among mosquitoes and ma
laria. But in spite of censorship of
letters, word slipped through the sea
foam to old England that a bunco
game was being pulled off. After
that only those who knew no better
could be euchered into sailing for CO.
lonial servitude in America.
The world market called for wooden
cloth. Wooden cloth called for sheep,
and sheep demanded much pasture be-
fore they would consent to grow wool.
England became a sheep pasture. The
poor were driven off the land that
they and their fathers had used for
thousand years and the sheep were
driven on. This little industrial
change changed English life more
than we can today imagine. 1t filled
the cities with starving people. 1t de-
veloped police powers heretofore I'M
known. 1t furnished the romantic
idealistic soil out of which grew in
later years such poems as Gray's
Elegy, The Deserted Village, and
Hoods terrible Song of the Shirt At
the same time it furnished fountain
of "free" labor power for colonial land
barons and rum guzzlers that they
were not slow to utilize.
In order that others may work for
me and create wealth for my ease
ment and pleasure I must either fool
them into doing it or force them to
their tasks. 1t may be that myself
and others of my class may call into
being institutions specially designed
for this fooling and forcing of workers
into doing our dirty work. Both in
England and in colonial America these
respectable institutions rose to the &C.
casion. Both the parish authorities
and the government were very anX-
ious to fool or drive the "idle poor"
into going to America.
When fooling no longer produced
sufficient workers for the great
estates in America the bloody hand
of the government helped with will.
The thousands of orphan children and
the children of "paupers" that its
judges sentenced to years of servitude
in America, the other thousands of
Criminals" and Migrants" which
they also sentenced, men and women,
to the tender mercies of INSCRIPTIONS
masters in the New World are
scrawled on the court records of the
times.
This system of enforced servitude
was not even sufficient to fill the de-
mand Thereupon the owning class
hit upon a bright scheme. AS the
years went by and economic pressure
became greater and greater in Eng
land and in Europe generally there
came to be millions who were willing
to risk the new world in spite of the
tales of misery and death which had
come out of it. But these millions had
not the price of a passage. AS ever
the poverty of the workers was the
opportunity of the masters.
By binding himself out for term
of years the worker was permitted to
ride on board a slave ship to the land
of the free. He was known as an in
dentured servant and was sold by the
ship captain upon his arrival in Amer
lea to whomsoever would pay the big
gest price.
Others were shipped across and
given so many days in which to find
a master willing to advance the price
of their passage Failing to find such
master the worker was sold for a
term of years TO the highest bidder.