The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1915-12-31

Give Stability to Wage Farmers Are
Usually Opposed by Shortsighted
servatives-Progress Is Hamper
ed by intolerance.
We are indebted to the New Republic
for several quotations that are herein
used They are particularly appropri
ate at this time, when there are thou
sands of men without employment and
with little chance that they will have
employment.
The helpless despair that accompa-
MES inability to provide for oneself
and family is not understood by one
who has never experienced it,, There
are some things that cannot be realized
without experience, and even then
when they do not affect us personally
we do not quite understand the depths
of misery that follow certain happen
ings
What does 1t mean to be out of work,
homeless and hopeless, condemned to
wander from place to place, with little
hope of work and wages, and what
more does it mean TO the man who
leaves a family destitute while he does
his best to earn living for it and
finds nothing to do? Is it any wonder
that such men are desperate, that they
accept any chance that offers for their
temporary advantage? Is it any won
der that now and then one of them
purposely will violate the law for the
simple sake of being relieved of his
own care during the time he is in jail
or the workhouse serving his sentence?
And when these unemployed men,
made desperate by conditions that are
no fault of theirs. get together it is no
wonder they feel the protection and
sympathy of companlonship of their
kind and become radical in thought
and act Then we refer to them as the
dangerous classes. They are danger
Gus from the viewpoint Of those who
are better off. They may decide that
they were put into the world to live.
not to die without chance, and they
sometimes show a disposition to- take
by force the chance that was denied
them, bat organized society is com
posed Of larger number backed by
greater resources. and it squelches the
assists the man out of his troubles
There has lRen disposition to be
little the number of the unemployed
and to assert that the situation was
exaggerated but Investigations have
proved that the number was underesti-
mated. OF this situation we quote from
the New Republic:
''Th0se reckless demagogues who re-
Gently proclaimed that 100000 workers
were idle III New York city must real
ize today how timid is mendacity. for
their wild exaggerations' have proved
to be gross underestimates. and the
truth is far worse than they ever dared
imagine We have now before US the
results of three independent investiga-
tions-by the mayors committee ON
unemployment the Metropolitan Life
Insurance company and the United
States department of labor-and these
Investigations show that in the early
months of 1915 100000 to 100000 wage
earners in the city were simultaneous
ly unemployed. to say nothing of those
workers who were kept OH part time
or were employed irreguarly.
IF such men are dangerous 1t is be
cause they are at once without habits
and without hope. Society never total
ly fears the man with steady job
however infertile, for such a man is q
slave to habit. When the employed
man awakes in the morning he does
not think Of brawls and revolutions
but of breakfast and his daily task
He moves to his work in obedience tC
a habit as unconscious and ingraineC
as that which forces you each morning
to put your left shoe on first or t.
button the hAttons Of your vest IL
some particular unreasoned succession
Even the slave is held as much by habi
as by force. But the unemployed man
If he is unemployed long enough, tend.
to become habitless, as he also tends t.
become hopeless. He has no reverence
for a government under which b,
starves or for a social system int
which he does not fit Despite hi
weakness, he is dangerous, and 1t i
well that he is dangerous, for if h
were not dangerous we should, despit
our philanthropy, let many more mel
and women rot in the streets or in tn
foul little holes that our official report
call dwellings If the unemploye,
were still more formidable we shoul,
have long since learned how to hel
them-and ourselves"
The New Republic sums up the stu
alton as follows:
"We are far away indeed from eve
an approach to a solution of the unen
ployed problem. While we sugges
broad schemes for Industrial change
we find even the most obvious and in
mediate reforms-those which cost lii
tie and will effect correspondingly littl
opposed by conservatives on th
grounds of economy. personal liberty
the bill of rights and Magma Charts
We speak of great transformations G
society, but find it almost impossible
get a system of labor exchanges @
government insurance of the unen
ployed, to sag nothing of such a thor
oughgoing regulation of industry a
would decasualize labor and givf st;
bility to the wage earning group in a
industries
N