The Commonwealth. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1911-1914, 1913-09-25
ORGANIZATION NEWS /
BULLETIN OF THE SOCIALIST
EDUCATIONAL BUREAU
STUDY CLUB.

In our last lesson we studied briefly
the methods OF the capitalist histor-
ians, their great man theories, their
battle stories which they mistake for
history. and their utter neglect of the
study of the industrial development of
a people. As we study along we shall
see how they magnify the killers and
sheer at the creators, how they
blather about political talk shops and
work shops. AS we study along we
shall see why they do this We shall
see that their class interests are best
served by this way of writing history
In the present lesson which we shall
limit to Chapter | in Oneals Workers
in American History, we shall see how
the master class of the old world in
spite of the fac talk of their writer's
and their hero-made histories COM
PEELED the workers to flee from ter
rible oppression in the old world to be
greeted with further torments in the
new. We shall see the fine protesta-
tons of Luther in their true light
We shall see that the Protestant Re-
formation was but the sanctimonious
expression of trading class ideals on
one hand and greed for church lands
on the other hand. Thus we shall see
that the material interests of men and
classes of men shapes them and their
institutions to what they are.
Economic Results of the Black Death.
The scene opens with the Black
Death, that terrible scourge of pow
erty and ignorance which swept off
one-third of the workers of Europe
in the middle of the fourteenth cen
fury. There were workers left but
not enough to feed the masters. Mil
lions of dead men were on silent
strike. Harvests rotted in the autumn
rains. The living workers through
the clouds of medieval superstition
saw their chance. They demanded
more pay. The masters resorted to
law The government was, as it has
ever been, the armed expression of
the masters will. This government
tried to regulate wages by passing laws
in its talk shop or parliament. But
economic law was stronger than talk
shop law and wages in spite of legal
lied tortures of the workers who
asked or accepted more went up.
Because of the mass strike of the
dead men wages scared. A golden age
of labor dawned and Merrie England
for the first and last time was merry
and well fec. ney hal the eight
hour day in the trades. The dead
could not scab.
The Golden Age.
For a century this golden age lasted
"Be fruitful and multiply" said the
priest and the workers multiplied in
the face of roast beef and stuffed
goose. But this very multiplication
was what the masters wanted Slowly
but surely the job-conflict grew. A
race of well-fed free men is trans
formed into race of beggars driven
from the soil to perish miserably by
the roadside and rot in the sleepy
English sun. All over Europe this
process of crushing the workers by
separating them from the soil went
on under various forms. There are
two armies that any master class
must have in order to subjugate the
workers completely. One is the
drilled and uniformed army of the
killers. The other is the staggering
starving army of the unemployed. By
the year 1875 all over Europe both
these armies were at the disposal of
the masters.
Study the entire chapter over, TAX
ing notes and looking up references
You will find it hard to get at the
labor facts of this period, but get what
you can from everywhere. Marx
gives some pertinent facts. Cheney's
Industrial History of Englands gives
some. Rogers in his Six Centuries Of
Work and Wages gives valuable data
These works are in all good libraries.
Remember as you study that the es-
sential facts are labor facts-the
processes of production and the rela-
ton of the workers to that product
Why the Peasants Were EVicted.
With the opening up of the world
market after the discovery Of new
worlds there arose a great demand
for wooden cloth. Persecution of the
workers of what is now Holland and
Belgium drove many of the best weav-
ers in the world to England. True,
they still used the hand loom; but
! ahiuapipn in