Year: 1877

Before the skiImish with the strikers was
well over THE TRIBUNE propheSied that the
final result of the difficulty must be the driving
Of undcr-plid and idle workmen out of the
cities and towns and the speedy occupation d
tilage OF vacant lands. Already the working
man has seen for himself this necessity be-
fore him. Cheap as provisions are just now,
wages running from 81 to 81 p per day will
not support a large family without a rigid
economy vcTging on starvation and the man
who has worl, which pays that amount is but one
20 a hundred OF men absolutely without any
work at all. No one can pass through tle streets
of this city, or Of any manufacturing town,
without meeting large numbers of anxious,
hungry idle WOrkmen, who are not yet ready
for cI1me, or even for the folly of taking any
corporation by the throat to compel it to stand
and deliver. They will not this Winter get the
work they have been used TO do. That fact
grows palmer every day. They must either
beg, or starve, or dig. Beggary will not be a
lucrative profession, owing to the tramps. No
American takes cheerfully to starving. The
last alternative is thrust on them, and we are
glad to see the wOrkingmen IN some of their
recent conventions face the issue bravely.
The blatant Communists had less to say, and
the shrewd, honest wOrkmen came to the front
with busincss-likc plans of relief.


The first of these, proposed in convention
here and in Philadelphia, is cooperative
union for the purchase of pro Visions fuel, etc
scheme which every labOrer can appreciate
who paws by the bucket at the rate of $15
per ton for coal, while his well-to-dO neighbOr
is paying So. But permanent relief lies III
Che formation of Land and Home Associations
of which the plan is, in brief TO have a So
ciety consisting of active and silent members !;
the active members the workman who wants
to go with his family to a farm and home
on the public land; the silent member,
the man who is willing to assist him
to go. Committees are to wait on wealthy
and benevolent people to ask them to invest
their money at six per cent as silent stock
holders. Congress Is To be approached to pass
an act by which the working classes can be
furnished rations for one year after their en-
tering on the public land, with seed and mplc-
ments for cultivation, the loan to be repaid
within three year. 1t is calculated that peo-
ple can he supported on the land at ten cents
per capita.


There may be mistakes in the details of
this plan, but the movement is "A healthy
and rational one 1t shows that the face
of the worllingman Is turned at last in
the right direction. Why, IN heavens name,
should he and his family starye and loaf, and
take at last to begging OF thieying in the sti-
hng alleys Of New-Yorl, when there are vast
tracts of land waiting for him with health,
peace and plenty on them2 He cannot, how
ever, 90 without money; cannot get living
out of the land inside of year. We know OF
no better way for well-to-do people to tighten
the present difficulty than by becoming
silent members" in some such as
sociation, and no better investment for
man of small capital than to found little
colony with some of his honest, idle neigbbors
"a blacksmith, a carpenter, miller, school