The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-07-15
Industrial Anarchy


agree with the Rev. E. G. Howard, pastor of the
First English Lutheran church. We can not
agree with the Rev. Howard, however, when he
declares that competition is driving men down,
down, down."
! A little reflection on conditions about us and
some study of underlying economic law will con-
vince most anyone that not competition, but the
lack of it is what is submergng in the
depths.
There is practically no competition left in in
,dustry in the United States. Nearly every
branch of industry is controlled by monopoly.
The railroads, lumber agricultural machinery,
steel and iron, tobacco, and on through the
countless units of nations industry, all are
controlled by monopoly. Even money and cred
it, the very life blood of free industry, is con-
troaled by the monopoly lords of Wall street.
In many industrial centers of the country,
men are walking the Streets searching unavail-
ingy for employment. At the same time in
places such as Richmond it is impossible at the
present time to secure enough laborers. And
during the harvest season when men are out of
work in the big industrial centers the farmers
see part of their crops lost for want of harvest
hands.
Labor is subjected to false competition
catspaw with which to lower the general average
of wages. Only the sensible manufacturers and
the labor unions stand between large bodies of
laborers and constantly fuctuating wage scale.
And yet, bad as are present conditions they
are better than they were in the past. And if
the future did not hold the promise of the COM
ing of nationwide equality of opportunity, sui
eide means of escape from present day indus
trial intolerance and cruelty would be God-sent
right.
If the people will only study and prepare
themselves by more thorough understanding of
economic principles, then, if they will but stand
shoulder to shoulder and unflinchingly face the
enemy, the monopoly lords, they can bring about
renewal of their industrial freedom.
They need never expect economic freedom as
a matter of course or that it will come to them
as gift. They will never obtain it until through
study and knowledge they know what - rial
freedom is and how to obtain it.
There'l come day when only the shiftless
will walk the streets jobless. Industrial employ
ment will be so organized and systematzed that
every man willing to work will be guaranteed
job. They call it government unemployment
insurance in England where actual social reform
is spreading like wildfire while we still mouth
about the tariff and that divine inspiration that
determined national constitution to be so
perfect that it should never. never be changed.
There'll come day when wage cutting will
be thing of the past. And sensible manufacture
ers, who realize that every cut in wages
means just that much lessening in the country's
consumptive power will find that they pro-
tected from their short sighted, wage-cutting
competitors by minimum wage law.
There'll come day when all unnatural
monopoly such as the steel and tobacco trusts
will perish from country. No longer able to
beat efficient competitor through the
power to buy the same raw material at cheaper
price simply through an immoral system of re-
batting discounting, they will have to justify
their right to exist by producing under true and
fair competitive conditions. They call the anti
rebate or non-discount system the uniform or
equal price principle.
The day for these things will come when the
people awaken and help themselves AS long as
they are supne, lazy minded, pleasure-bent with
no thought for the morrow, they will continue to
rot in present conditions of industrial anarchy.
When they do awaken, as they will when they
have been thoroughly enough oppressed and we'll
nigh ridden to death by the monopoly hogs. they
will overthrow the oppressive system. And they
will find in that day of industrial and economic
freedom that not private property but the rebate
discount system has been the cause of all their
suffering.
And when every man will receive his share of
the total private property of the nation-that
amount which his legitimate efforts alone can
capitalize-the hue and cry raised by the Social
lists against profits, private property, ETC., will