- 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
 
 in 2008 witii funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 littp://www.arcliive.org/details/capitallaborOOcliicrich 
 
CAPITAL 
 
 and 
 
 LABOR 
 
 BY A 
 
 BLACK - LISTED 
 MACHINIST 
 
GENERAL' 
 
CAPITAL AND 
 LABOR 
 
 BY A 
 
 BLACK-LISTED MACHINIST 
 
 >I36 
 
 I i 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY 
 
 CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY, 
 CHICAGO. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Few books have an origin and history hke this 
 one. It is nothing more nor less than the com- 
 bined note-book and scrap-book of a SociaHst 
 workingman. 
 
 BLickHsted and searching with bitter experi- 
 ences for a market in which to dispose of his la- 
 bor-power, then toiling long hours at the most 
 exhausting labor when that market was found, he 
 learned the philosophy of Socialism at a school 
 whose lessons make lasting and vivid impressions. 
 Co-operating with events in the work of teaching 
 these lessons there were certain things that he 
 read or heard spoken. 
 
 \Mien he came to see the truth of the Socialist 
 position, he saw that the only way to escape from 
 the life in which capitalism doomed him to live 
 was by helping other working men to see the 
 same truths. Hence this book. 
 
 It is a record of the things which made him a 
 Socialist, and of the things which he found most 
 effective in teaching his fellow-workers to become 
 Socialists. Along with these things he has put 
 the arguments and thoughts which arose from his 
 experience as laborer and Socialist agitator. 
 Under these conditions it is manifestly impos- 
 
 117 
 
6 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 sible to give credit for all the material taken from 
 other writers. Many times, indeed, the wording 
 has been vastly changed while the substance still 
 remains. The writer has simply taken from the 
 vast storehouse of Socialist literature the weapons 
 he needed, forging them into such new forms as 
 would best suit his purpose, even as he was ac- 
 customed to forging the steel with which he works 
 in his daily tasks. 
 
 Having gathered together the material in this 
 manner he then worked at his trade to earn the 
 money necessary to put it before the world. Now 
 it is sent forth to do its work as best it may. He 
 dare not sign his name lest he be once more set 
 adrift from his slavery into a freedom that leaves 
 him only free to starve. 
 
 Such a book, gathered, published and sent forth 
 in this manner, should certainly not be without ef- 
 fect upon the class for whom it was writen. It 
 should challenge the attention of every producer 
 of wealth, and I believe its reading will compel 
 him to see that his place is beside the author and 
 the millions of other workingmen who are seek- 
 ing to hasten the progress of social evolution to- 
 ward the time when the conditions portrayed in 
 this book and endured by the writer and his class 
 shall have forever passed away. 
 
 A. M. Simons. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Genius and Profit 9 
 
 Nothing Succeeds Like Success 10 
 
 Chauncey M. Depew Wants to Expand 12 
 
 Depew's Prosperity 18 
 
 A Startling Array of Facts 21 
 
 Civilization 22 
 
 Combine Against the Government 23 
 
 To Mr. Roosevelt 25 
 
 A History -making Term 29 
 
 What Do They Offer Hhn In Return ? 31 
 
 As to the Flag 32 
 
 How the People Are Outraged and Robbed 33 
 
 Bishop Potter, of New York, on the "Rich and Poor" 37 
 
 How Capitalism Redeems its Pre-election Promises 42 
 
 No Hope for the Traveling Men 45 
 
 Victims of Trusts 46 
 
 Sketch of the Hellish Conditions Prevailing in the Coal 
 
 Regions of Pennsylvania 50 
 
 The Capitalistic Law of "Natural Selection" in Its Rela- 
 tion to the Labor Market 56 
 
 Capitalism Decides the Fate of the Man Over Forty 58 
 
 A Tale Told by a Victim 64 
 
 The Curse of Profit 67 
 
 Have We Too Much? 68 
 
 "Am I My Brother's Keeper?" 72 
 
 Capital Against Labor 75 
 
 Co-operation 79 
 
 The Capitalist and His Specific 80 
 
 This World of Ours 84 
 
8 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 Democracy Exposed 94 
 
 We Should Govern, Not Our Ancestors 97 
 
 Our Manifest Destiny 103 
 
 What Is Labor's Share 107 
 
 Benevolent Philanthropists Ill 
 
 Experience Teaches 113 
 
 Railroad Experiments 118 
 
 Machine vs. Man 119 
 
 The Worker's Ten Commandments 124 
 
 Organization the First Expression of Intelligence 126 
 
 The Union Label : Its Use and Significance 131 
 
 Attacks the Union 132 
 
 India's Dark Picture 135 
 
 Profit Regardless of Results 136 
 
 A Soldier's Pen Picture of Life in the Philippines 137 
 
 "Can't Change Human Nature" 142 
 
 "A Fable" 144 
 
 The Rays of Socialism 145 
 
 Why American Workingmen Should Be Socialists 148 
 
 Poverty and Its Cure, as Viewed from the Standpoint of 
 
 a Socialist 158 
 
 Wage System and Slavery 164 
 
 The Church and the Workingman 176 
 
 Religion and Churches 183 
 
 The New Religion 187 
 
 A Question for the Prohibitionists to Consider 190 
 
 Slavery 193 
 
 An Invitation 196 
 
 What Can I Do for the Cause 202 
 
CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 ^ ry 
 
 GENIUS AND PROFKE!*l£-!lii!^^ 
 
 Genius has always served the world without 
 mercenary incentive. Says Robert Blatchford : 
 *'If a prize is offered for a new machine, will a 
 man of no genius make it ? No. He will try for 
 the sake of the prize, but he will fail for the lack 
 of brains. But no prize being offered, will the 
 man of genius, seeing the need of a new ma- 
 chine, invent it ? He will. History proves that he 
 will invent and does invent it, not only without 
 hope of gain but even at risk of life and liberty. 
 It seems then that genius, without mercenary in- 
 centive, will serve the world ; but that mercenary 
 motives without genius will not." 
 
 Under Socialism will genius serve the world 
 without mercenary motive ? Most certainly it will, 
 and more completely than it does to-day, for the 
 reasons already mentioned, and further because 
 Socialism wdll be favorable to the development of 
 geniuses. For every ray of genius developed to- 
 day a wealth of capacity is stifled. We find men 
 liberally endowed among the very dregs of socie- 
 ty. Socialism would secure to all the opportunity 
 for the full development of their latent powers. 
 Surround men with a suitable environment and 
 genius will go forward by leaps and bounds. 
 
 With this development would come increased 
 inventions — a new era of mechanical improve- 
 
10 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 ments would dawn. Socialism would substitute 
 machines for men in every department of produc- 
 tion. 
 
 NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS. 
 
 The task of the reformer is a difficult and 
 thankless one. The pioneers of every movement 
 begun in the interest of humanity have met oppo- 
 sition from all quarters, including those in whose 
 behalf the reform was demanded. People as a 
 rule are wedded to custom and are slow to com- 
 prehend the necessity for change. But once the 
 reform idea has been realized, none are so loud 
 in its praises, or so ready to avail themselves of 
 its advantages, or even to credit themselves with 
 having helped to bring it about, as some of those 
 who were its opponents from the beginning. The 
 movement to abolish negro slavery in this coun- 
 try illustrates this fact. The little band of anti- 
 slavery agitators were ridiculed and abused on all 
 sides for attempting to overthrow a system that 
 was upheld up the constitution, sanctioned by the 
 churches and endorsed by a majority of the peo- 
 ple. 
 
 In spite of opposition the reform idea 
 prevailed, and to-day the abolition of slav- 
 ery is rightly regarded as the greatest 
 achievement in our history. No one would now 
 dare to advocate a return to the old system. So 
 has it been with the ideas advanced in the labor 
 movement. In the various stages of its progress 
 one reform after another has been secured only 
 through aggressive and persistent agitation, yet 
 
NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS II 
 
 no one would now suggest the surrender of any 
 of the ground gained. No labor reform idea met 
 with stronger opposition than the one to reduce 
 the hours of labor. But repeated reductions have 
 been made, and the individual who would now 
 seek a return to the longer work-day would be 
 considered crazy. Wq remember the time when 
 a labor union, if noticed at all, was looked upon 
 with derision. To-day it commands respect. 
 Where, but a few years ago, there were in this 
 country but a small number of national trade- 
 unions, some of them of doubtful stability, hun- 
 dreds of strong national unions are affiliated with 
 the American Federation of Labor, the great 
 labor army, which has become a power which can- 
 not be ignored. The unions overcame opposition. 
 Success won supporters for their cause. 
 
 But the task of the trade-union is far from be- 
 ing ended. On the contrary it has scarcely be- 
 gun. The rapid changes that constantly take 
 place in our methods of production requires con- 
 tinued efforts on the part of the unions to main- 
 tain the rights of their members. Looking back 
 over the marvelous hundred years that have 
 passed away forever you cannot but wonder what 
 the new century will bring. Well, as you sow, so 
 shall you reap. \\q know that the world will 
 be nearer the great scheme of International unifi- 
 cation, as the trusts are slowly evolving in cycle 
 motion with Father Time. The curtain has just 
 rung down on the greatest century since the crea- 
 tion of the world. The twentieth century is ush- 
 ering in a new play and America is the stage. 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW WANTS TO EX- 
 PAND. 
 
 Senator Depew, the silver-tongued orator of 
 the RepubHcan party, in his speech in the Phila- 
 delphia convention, said : "What is the tendency 
 of the future ? Why this hammering at the gates 
 of Pekin? Why this marching of troops from 
 Asia to Africa ? Why this parade of people from 
 other empires and other lands ? It is because the 
 surplus productions of the civilized countries of 
 modern times are greater than civilization can 
 consume. It is because the over-production goes 
 back to stagnation and poverty. The American 
 people now produce $2,000,000,000 worth more 
 than they can consume, and we met the emergen- 
 cy, and, by the providence of God, by the states- 
 manship of William McKinley, and by the valor 
 of Roosevelt and his associates, we have our mar- 
 ket in Cuba, we have our market in Puerto Rico, 
 we have our market in Hawaii, we have our mar- 
 ket in the Philippines, and we stand in the pres- 
 ence of 800,000,000 of people, with the Pacific 
 as an American lake, and the American artisan 
 producing better and cheaper goods than any 
 other country in ihe world, and my friends, we 
 go to American labor and to the American farm 
 and say that with McKinley for another four 
 years, there is no congestion for America." 
 
 Senator Depew forgot to say, that of the total 
 wealth of the United States those who created it 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW WANTS TO EXPAND I3 
 
 own but one-tenth of it. He forgot to say that 
 laborers in our iron mills, our sweat-shops, and 
 farms die at an average age of 33 years from ex- 
 posure, overwork and insufficient nourishment, 
 and that the non-producers, who get nine-tenths 
 of all that the laboring people produce, live to an 
 average age of 63. He forgot to say that the 
 railroads are stocked for six billions more than 
 they cost, and that while the railroad kings receive 
 princely salaries, the workers on those roads get 
 an average of but $1.15 per day, and are laid off 
 half the time. He forgot to say that one- eighth of 
 the people of this country own seven-eighths of all 
 the wealth, and that the working people are grow- 
 ing poorer and poorer every day. Instead of pro- 
 viding for a more just distribution of the great 
 wealth our half-starved working men have piled 
 up for the capitalists. 
 
 Chauncey would expand. He would open up 
 the doors of the Philippines and China and other 
 countries, and compel them to buy this $2,000,- 
 000,000 of goods that the rich have filched from 
 the working people, or if they do not open their 
 doors, we will kill them, under the providence of 
 God and the statesmanship of Theodore Roose- 
 velt. Hark, ye slaves of the coal mines ; ye half- 
 starved operatives in the factories or sweat-shops ; 
 ye diggers and delvers with the hoe, with bended 
 form and slanting brow ; hark, ye hayseeds with 
 mortgages on your homes ; ye are producing more 
 than ye can consume; ye are producing a *'con- 
 gestion," come now and vote for the "Rough 
 Rider,*' Roosevelt, who under the providence of 
 
14 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 God is going to raise a great army of your boys 
 and send them around the world to find markets 
 for this vast surplus wealth you are creating (of 
 which you get but one-tenth). This will force 
 your wages still lower, for if we can send the 
 product of American labor to your conquered 
 provinces, they can send their products here. If 
 our laborers can go there, theirs can come here, 
 and there will be a readjustment of wages. In 
 Japan and China, >n Hawaii and the Philippines, 
 the laborers get from 5 to 50 cents per day. The 
 imperialistic policy carried out will bring an even- 
 ing up of wages, under which arrangement yours 
 must go lower. 
 
 There is a ''congestion" now in America, says 
 Senator Depew. We are producing too much. 
 The people will become indolent from such a sur- 
 feit of riches. Vote the Republican ticket, says 
 the Senator, and there will be no further "conges- 
 tion," and the exploiters of the American labor- 
 ers will unload some of the vast wealth which has 
 become a burden to them. It was secured by gi- 
 gantic trusts, and displacing working men, and 
 watering stocks, and railroad extortion, and 
 sweat-shops, and class legislation in the interests 
 of the few, but vote the Republican ticket, and 
 God, assisted by the Rough Rider, will force the 
 heathens to take the surplus oif the hands of the 
 exploiters, and the American laborer can go on 
 creating more surplus at from 50 cents to $1.15 
 per day. 
 
 Chauncey, in his speech at the National Repub- 
 lican Convention, said, "I remember when I used 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW WANTS TO EXPAND 1 5 
 
 to go abroad — it is a good thing for a man to go 
 abroad — I used to be ashamed, because every- 
 where they would say, 'What is the matter with 
 the Declaration of Independence, when you have 
 slavery in your land ?' Well, we took slavery out, 
 and now no American is ashamed to go abroad. 
 When I went abroad afterwards, the ship was full 
 of merchants, buying iron and buying steel, and 
 buying wool and buying cotton, and all kinds of 
 goods. 
 
 '*Now, when an American goes around the 
 world, what happens to him when he reaches the 
 capital of Japan ? He rides on an electric rail- 
 way, made by American mechanics ; when he 
 reaches the territory of China he reads under an 
 electric light, invented by Mr. Edison, and put up 
 by American artisans. When he goes over the 
 great railway across Siberia, from China to St. 
 Petersburg, he rides on American rails, in cars 
 drawn by American locomotives. W^hen he goes 
 to Germany he finds our iron and steel climbing 
 over a $2.50 tariff, and thereby scaring the Kaiser 
 almost out of his wits. When he reaches the great 
 exposition at Paris, he finds the French wine- 
 maker saying that American wine cannot be ad- 
 mitted there, for the purpose of judgment. When 
 he goes to old London he gets for breakfast Cali- 
 fornia fruit, he gets for lunch biscuit and bread 
 made of W^estern flour, and, when he gets for 
 dinner 'roast beef of old England' taken from 
 the plains of Montana, his feet rest on a carpet 
 marked 'Axminster — made in Yonkers, N. Y.' " 
 
 In striking the above keynote of American capi- 
 
l6 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 talism, Chauncey Depew fails to say, that, when 
 the American goes to New York he finds hun- 
 dreds of thousands of human beings huddled to- 
 gether in tenement houses, which are not fit for 
 the beasts of the field to house in — where four or 
 five persons eat, drink, sleep and live together in 
 a single room. He also fails to mention that when 
 he goes to New York, or any other large city in 
 the United States or in Europe, he finds workmen 
 and women, in sweat-shops with only 20 to 100 
 cubic feet of breathing space for each individual, 
 and from which cause the atmosphere becomes 
 vile and overcharged with noxious and poisonous 
 matter, which breeds disease and death to the 
 workers. 
 
 Is the United States prosperous? If not, why 
 not? 
 
 It is asserted by politicians that the people of 
 this country are very prosperous. Is the claim 
 well founded? I contend, it is not. I concede 
 that a few are amassing wealth rapidly, but the 
 many can hardly make ends meet, while millions 
 are slowly, but surely, sinking into poverty. 
 
 In 1850 the total wealth of the United States 
 was $8,000,000,000. The producers had posses- 
 eion of 62 J per cent of tt. In 1900 the total 
 wealth was estimated at $100,000,000,000, and 
 the producers own but 10 per cent of it. 
 
 In 1850, as shown by the census of the United 
 States, we had to each million of inhabitants, 673 
 insane, 580 criminals. In 1890 we had 1,698 in- 
 sane to the million, and 1,349 adult criminals. In 
 those forty years insanity had increased 700 per . 
 
 1 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW WANTS TO EXPAND 1 7 
 
 cent and crime 600 per cent. In 1890, of the 82,- 
 329 convicted adult criminals, 71,225 had com- 
 mitted offenses against property rights, while only 
 10,104 had committed crimes against the person. 
 This is accounted for on the ground that the peo- 
 ple were growing poorer. 
 
 It is very apparent that the distribution of prop- 
 erty is not equitable. The people who produce all 
 wealth now, own but one-tenth of it, and the 
 idlers, the non-producers, are possessed of nine- 
 tenths of all the wealth. There are many sharp 
 schemes for cheating the producers out of their 
 earnings, but I will, in this article, name but one 
 of them. The railroads cost in their construction 
 but six billions of dollars, but they were stocked 
 for twelve billions, and are operated so as to earn 
 dividends on that vast sum. 
 
 Ex-Governor Larrabee of Iowa — unquestiona- 
 bly good authority — says that they cost less than 
 $25,000 per mile, i3Ut were stocked up for $60,000. 
 
 The presidents and vice presidents of the roads 
 receive $9,000,000 salary per year. Five millions 
 are paid for "law expenses" and for lobbying leg- 
 islative bodies, and then $375,000,000 profits are 
 made. In 1897 nineteen hundred miles of rail 
 road were constructed and they were capitalized 
 at $212,000 per mile. Russia builds her railroads 
 at an average cost of $10,000 per mile, and gives 
 the public excellent service. In Belgium, the gov- 
 ernment owns the railroads and a working man 
 can buy a ticket, good for six trips a week, of 
 forty-two miles at fifty-seven cents. In the Uni- 
 ted States 800,000 men are employed in railroad- 
 
l8 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 ing (not in constructing) ; 184,404 are trackmen 
 and receive on an average $1.15 per day of twelve 
 hours, and are laid off half of the year. Many of 
 the presidents receive from $25,000 to $100,000 
 per year as salaries. 
 
 One-half of the Americans own practically 
 nothing. One-eighth of the people own seven- 
 eighths of all the wealth. Is it any wonder that 
 insanity and crime are increasing? 
 
 DEPEW'S PROSPERITY. 
 
 Chauncey tells the American workingmen that 
 they produce annually $2,000,000,000 more in 
 products than they consume, and that they pro- 
 duce cheaper products than any other working- 
 men in the world. Do you hear that, Mr. Work- 
 er? With the pohtical ballot at your disposal; 
 you work cheaper than any of the wage slaves in 
 the old despotisms of Europe ; and your abund- 
 ance of food, clothing, fuel and shelter are two 
 billion dollars annually more than you can con- 
 sume. Did sixty million American workingmen 
 authorize Mr. Depew to make this statement to 
 their capitalistic masters who composed the Re- 
 publican National Convention at Philadelphia ? If 
 they did not, and Mr. Depew assumed to speak 
 in their behalf, he forgot to mention one import- 
 ant item which is of great concern to the Ameri- 
 can workingmen, and that item is the first count 
 in the indictment Socialism has drawn against the 
 capitalist system of production ; namely, the steal- 
 ing of eighty-three per cent of every dollar's 
 worth of products produced by the working 
 
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW WANTS TO EXPAND IQ 
 
 class. Mr. Depew and his capitalist cronies can 
 chuckle at the fool workers buying back a dol- 
 lar's worth of their stolen products, on the install- 
 ment plan, with 17 cents. By the way, Workers, 
 Mr. Depew knows that the working class will 
 never consume what they never get. He also 
 knows that those invisible threads of capitalism 
 which bind the workers to their capitalist mas- 
 ters, are like the spider webs — unseen to both vic- 
 tims — however, science and genius are casting 
 light upon the invisible threads, and the long, 
 dark night of slavery and poverty, suffered by the 
 working class in the midst of the greatest abund- 
 ance ever known on this earth, is nearing its end. 
 Their freedom is foreshadowed in the concentra- 
 tion of the means of existence in the hands of a 
 few persons, called capitalists, and the develop- 
 ment of the trust is a signal warning to the intel- 
 ligent workers to organize themselves under the 
 banner of International Socialism, capture the po- 
 litical powers, and emancipate themselves from 
 wage slavery. Then the products produced by 
 the workers will be theirs instead of the idle capi- 
 talists. 
 
 Hurrah, for the trusts ! They are clearing and 
 paving the way to establish the workingmen's co- 
 operative commonwealth. 
 
A STARTLING ARRAY OF FACTS. 
 
 The total wealth of the United States, according 
 to the estimates of the government's official Statis- 
 tician, is sixty-two billions of dollars. Upon this 
 wealth is a bonded and mortgaged indebtedness 
 of over forty billions of dollars. The annual in- 
 crease of this debt, by interest alone, is not less 
 than three billions of dollars. The interest on this 
 is an annual tax on every man, woman and child 
 in the whole country of $34.30, or on every fam- 
 ily of five persons, of $171.50. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the producers, the actual 
 working people, pay it all, but they do not yet 
 understand the means by which this monstrous in- 
 justice is accomplished. We have eight billions 
 of dollars bonded indebtedness held abroad on 
 which we pay annually three hundred and twenty 
 million dollars interest. 
 
 There are more than nine million mortgages on 
 American homes and lands. Thirty thousand 
 people own thirty-five billion dollars, or more than 
 one-half of the wealth of the nation. Fifty mil- 
 lion Americans own no homes, and have to pay 
 either rent or interest. 
 
 No man can be free who has to pay another for 
 the bare privilege of living. 
 
 There are three million unemployed in this free 
 and "prosperous" America, or about one-fourth 
 the total population. 
 
 One million two hundred thousand child labor- 
 ers below the age of sixteen years, working long 
 
A STARTLING ARR.\Y OF FACTS 21 
 
 hours in factories and sweat-shops. Two milHon, 
 toiling twelve to sixteen hours a day for such 
 beggarly wages that they must either die of want 
 or live by shame. 
 
 It is learned that twenty-seven individuals or 
 corporations own, in the United States, twenty- 
 two million, five hundred and thirty-two thou- 
 sand acres of land, while three millions of Ameri- 
 can citizens are out of employment. 
 
 Two hundred and forty thousand saloons to 
 breed misery and crime. Twenty-three thousand 
 men and women ivilled and mangled on the rail- 
 roads of this country for the want of proper safe- 
 guards. Ten thousand five hundred murders in 
 1896, a gain of i,ocx) per cent in ten years, while 
 the population gains only one hundred per cent 
 in twenty-five years. This is an average of one 
 murder each hour in the day for every hour in 
 the year. To which must be added 7,000 suicides 
 last year, and these increasing more rapidly than 
 the murderers. Thirty-five thousand little chil- 
 dren dying annually from starvation and want. 
 Twenty thousand people of all ages dying an- 
 nually in New York City alone from want. Two 
 hundred and sixty thousand great financial fail- 
 ures during the last thirty-five years. One mil- 
 lion of failures for men with less than three thou- 
 sand dollars each, small grocers, restaurants, ho- 
 tels, etc., average business men, ''the bone and 
 sinew of the nation.'' Bank embezzlements and 
 failures during 1896, $25,000,000. The fore- 
 closure of not less than twenty-five per cent of 
 the farms and homes of the people. Two hun- 
 
22 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 dred and ten million acres of public lands granted 
 to railroad corporations. These are the bitter 
 fruits of ignorance, apathy, prejudice and parti- 
 sanship on the part of the people by which their 
 rulers have been aided and encouraged to pile up 
 this monstrous iniquity. Forty billion dollars 
 debts. Nine million mortgages. Three million 
 unemployed men. War, famine, litigation, mur- 
 der, suicide and utter loss of faith, all increasing 
 with appalling rapidity. But no punishment, no 
 law can suppress the rising tide of crime and de- 
 bauchery and despair until the cause is removed. 
 
 CIVILIZATION. 
 
 What sort of a civilization and industrial sys- 
 tem is it that never brings peace ? Either we are 
 suffering stagnation, with all the crooks, crimi- 
 nals, thieves and murderers terrorizing us, while 
 starvation and the army of the unemployed fright- 
 en us with the nightmare, or we have "prosperity" 
 and ''trade picking up," with everybody going on 
 strike, and police and militia everywhere trying 
 to fraternize capital and labor with club and bayo- 
 net. 
 
 Capitalism is an utter failure, everywhere and 
 at all times, to give us peace. Its good trade is 
 only one whit less evil than its bad trade. Surely 
 the world will some day get very tired of the 
 whole blind staggery system that does nothing 
 but blunder and stumble along, scattering disorder 
 and misery and ruin at every step, year in, year 
 out, forever. 
 
COMBINE AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 There is a combination of armor-manufacturers 
 and one of ship-builders, both intimately related. 
 The armor factories and the ship yards in these 
 combinations have been paid for, several times 
 over, out of the profits on government contracts, 
 says the New York Journal. The armor-makers, 
 in' recent years, have doubled the price of their 
 products. \\'hen the government, their only cus- 
 tomer, asked for some figures from their books to 
 show that this increase was just, the manufac- 
 turers informed it that it was asking about mat- 
 ters which were none of its business. When they 
 put in bids they did so in open collusion, with no 
 attempt to conceal their conspiracy. At the same 
 time the ship-builders were charging more per 
 ton for ships — in some cases over fifty per cent 
 more — than they had charged fifteen years before, 
 when the prices of all materials were enormously 
 higher. The government had ship-yards of its own, 
 which it had equipped at a cost of scores of mil- 
 lions of dollars. There was a proposition to release 
 it from the grip of the insolent ship-building and 
 armor combinations by having it build some of its 
 ships in its own yards and establish its own armor 
 plant. The idea was popular in Congress but the 
 combination "controlled and awed" the represen- 
 tatives of the people, and the government meekly 
 surrendered to the trusts. After the adjournment 
 of Congress the armor makers put in bids that 
 had manifestly been prepared by a single hand, 
 
24 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 and impudently notified the government that it 
 must divide its orders between two establishments 
 or get no armor, and instead of ordering the con- 
 spirators off the premises and ruling them out of 
 any future competition, the Secretary of the Navy 
 meekly begged them to make another proposition. 
 Why did the ''patriots and statesmen," who so 
 loyally ''represent the people," so bitterly oppose 
 and defeat the proposition to have the govern- 
 ment build and operate its own armor-plate plant ? 
 Because if it should be demonstrated that the 
 people could in that manner reduce the cost of 
 their war ships from one-half to two-thirds, it 
 would be very bad news for some men. 
 
TO MR. ROOSEVELT. 
 
 In the campaign of 1900, Mr. Roosevelt, you 
 claimed that the issue of the campaign was the 
 continued prosperity of the American people, and 
 you pointed to the increase of wages as evidence 
 of the workers' welfare. We would ask you : Is 
 the increase of wages you mention due purely to 
 the benevolence of the prosperous employers? 
 Or is it not rather due to the power of labor or- 
 ganization to restrict ruinous competition in the 
 labor market and thus raise the price of their labor 
 power? If you reply that prosperity has enabled 
 the employers to pay more wages, do you not 
 merely mean that the productivity of labor has 
 been so greatly increased that the employers can 
 accede to the demands of their workmen and still 
 make more profit than formerly? If prosperity 
 is the result of increased productivity of labor, 
 why do you claim the glory ? Or is the Republi- 
 can party the sole inventor of that improved ma- 
 chinery which enables labor to produce more 
 wealth ? You say you wish a continuance of the 
 era of the "full dinner pail;" you believe in pro- 
 tecting American labor from foreign competi- 
 tion. If foreign competition is hurtful, can home 
 competition be good? If competition of any kind 
 is hurtful w^hy do you not advocate Co-operative 
 Socialism ? If you and your party believe in pro- 
 tecting organized American labor, why did your 
 predecessor send Federal troops to Idaho to aid 
 the Democratic Governor of that State in crush- 
 
26 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 ing out the Miner's Union ? If it was to protect 
 property, as you did when you sent the State mili- 
 tia to Croton Dam, N. Y., does that not mean 
 that you will protect the property of the pluto- 
 crats, though to do so you must deprive working 
 men of their liberties and lives ? Is not the bloody 
 record of the labor trouble since the '70s a mass 
 of conclusive evidence that the Republican and 
 Democratic parties both stand ever ready to sac- 
 rifice manhood on the altar of mammon, the god 
 of greed? You speak of working men as a sep- 
 arate part of the people. Does not that admit that 
 there is another part of the people who do not 
 work ? Since people can only get their living by 
 working, begging or stealing, have those who, 
 like your friend Hanna, are not working people, 
 begged or stolen their millions? 
 
 Why has not the Republican party protected 
 the American labor that produced this wealth 
 from these beggars and thieves? If we should 
 admit that the capitalist works, would not you 
 admit that he simply works the people — for all 
 they are worth ? Is such work productive of any- 
 thing but misery and want to the mass of the peo- 
 ple? If you believe that ''all conspiracies to re- 
 strict business or control prices" should be de- 
 stroyed, why have you not used the present laws 
 ,to suppress such trusts as do exist? If the pres- 
 ent laws are inadequate, why have you not advo- 
 cated better legislation ? Or, are labor organiza- 
 tions the only criminal trusts you know of? To 
 this question we demand a particular answer. Not 
 a single combination of capital have you attacked. 
 
TO MR. ROOSEVELT 2^ 
 
 not one solitary trust have you suppressed, though 
 by raising prices and organizing their industries, 
 they have pkindered the people of millions and de- 
 prived thousands of their means of livelihood. 
 
 Yet your party has sent troops to destroy the 
 miners' union in Idaho for merely defending the 
 rights of its members against the aggression of a 
 combination of mine owners. Did you not agree 
 with Cleveland that the A. R. U. was an "illegal 
 combination for the restraint of trade," and that 
 Eugene \ . Debs' imprisonment in Woodstock 
 jail was just. AMiat word of encouragement have 
 you given the coal miners ? What measures have 
 you taken against the owners? Do you not stand 
 for the capitalists and against the workers every 
 time? You say that the Republican party is 
 pledged to the gold standard. Did you not pre- 
 tend in 1896 to favor bimetallism ? If your silver 
 pretensions in 1896 were dishonest, are not your 
 pretensions of enmity to trusts, and friendship to 
 labor, also false ? Did the war for humanity in 
 Cuba demand the slaughter of the helpless natives 
 in the Philippines? Was it necessary to avenge 
 the ]\Iaine by sacrificing the lives of thousands of 
 our volunteers ? Did "our plain duty" dictate the 
 feeding them on embalmed beef, exposing to the 
 deadly fevers of foreign swamps, and debauching 
 them with whisky and disease? Is not the real 
 cause of this criminal aggression the desire of 
 American capitalists to acquire territory in which 
 to invest the wealth they have squeezed from 
 American labor ? You say that you will deal with 
 these people the same as with the American peo- 
 
28 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 pie. Do you mean that the methods of the Ward- 
 ner bull-pen will be in vogue among them? Or 
 will you establish in this country the military des- 
 potism you are endeavoring to establish in the 
 Philippines? Is the imprisonment of Socialists 
 and trade unionists in San Juan the method you 
 will pursue to inculcate American principles of 
 self-government? Finally, Mr. Roosevelt, is not 
 the record of your party replete with crimes 
 against labor, with wrongs against humanity, 
 with injustice to the poor and oppressed of many 
 nations ? Have you not favored in every possi- 
 ble way the aggrandizement of the trusts ? Have 
 you not launched the nation upon a career of 
 colonial expansion to widen their markets and to 
 open for them new fields of investment? Have 
 you not crushed all opposition with a ruthless, 
 brutal hand, whether it was American trade un- 
 ionist, Puerto Rican Socialist, or native of the 
 Philippines ? Do you know of any reason why 
 any working man or any good liberty-loving citi- 
 zen should vote for either of the old parties when 
 he can cast his ballot for a representative of the 
 principles of the Socialist Party, the party of his 
 own class ? 
 
A HISTORY-MAKING TERM. 
 
 If the Declaration of Independence is to be 
 taken as authority, and who among us all, even 
 among the capitalist class itself, dare repudiate 
 it? "these truths are self-evident; that all men 
 (and if that means anything it does not exclude 
 the Boer in South Africa, the Cuban, nor the Fili- 
 pino, nor yet a privileged class in this country), 
 all men are born equal, with certain inalienable 
 (and inalienable, I take it, means natural, inher- 
 ent rights, rights from which you may not be di- 
 vorced) rights, and among these, life, liberty, and 
 the pursuit of happiness." And further, that gov- 
 ernments are instituted among men to guarantee 
 them those rights. That is to say, a government 
 is a protector, a benefactor, or servant. If the 
 government is our protector, evidently it is to pro- 
 tect the weaker members in society from the 
 stronger. The working class, although in a great 
 majority, are economically and politically w^eaker. 
 Socialists maintain, with the framers of the Dec- 
 laration of Independence, that the purpose of gov- 
 ernment is to secure every citizen in the enjoy- 
 ment of these rights, but in the light of our eco- 
 nomic condition we hold, that no such right can 
 be exercised under conditions essentially destruc- 
 tive of life, of liberty and happiness. Against 
 these conditions Socialists protest, declaring that 
 private ownership of the instruments of produc- 
 tion and distribution are the cause, and call upon 
 all wage workers to organize under the banner of 
 
30 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 the Socialist party into a class-conscious body, 
 aware of its rights and determined to conquer 
 by taking possession of the political power; so 
 that, held together by an indomitable spirit of 
 solidarity under the most trying conditions of the 
 present class struggle, we may put a summary 
 end to that barbarous struggle by the abolition 
 of the classes, the restoration of all the means of 
 production and distribution to the people as a col- 
 lective body and the substitution of the Co-opera- 
 tive Commonwealth for the present state of plan- 
 less production, industrial war and social disor- 
 der ; a commonwealth in which the worker shall 
 have the full product of his toil, multiplied by all 
 the modern factors of civilization ; a common- 
 w^ealth in which all shall have at least equality of 
 opportunity. The property the Socialists would 
 take from the capitalist is ''that part of wealth, 
 owned by one man or set of men and operated by 
 another man or set of men, with a view of profit 
 to the owner and wages to the operator ;" that is, 
 they would take only that part of his wealth which 
 is superfluous, over and above what he can him- 
 self operate. Abolish interest, profit and rent. It 
 would in no case take from him his means of liv- 
 ing, but insure him and his employment for which 
 he would receive the full product, if able to work. 
 If too young or too old, or in any way unable to 
 work, he would be the honored charge of society, 
 whose duty it is to protect itself through Its mem- 
 bers. While taking from the capitalist, the ex- 
 ploiting class, the wealth they have taken from the 
 workers and returning it to the workers, it will 
 
A HISTORY-MAKING TERM 3 1 
 
 in return guarantee them for all time the rights of 
 life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, which all 
 their wealth and power does not do. How many 
 reformers there are who hold up their hands in 
 horror of Socialism and cry, unjust, etc., who 
 themselves champion such so-called palliatives as 
 municipal ownership, single tax, income and in- 
 heritance tax, without seeing that the adjectives 
 they apply to Socialism are in every respect true 
 of their own pet schemes. When they speak of 
 taxing heavily, lands, stocks and incomes, they 
 aim at the large capitalist, who, holding the power 
 of government in his hands, can easily evade their 
 laws, even were they able to enact such laws. 
 They entirely lose sight of the thousands of aged 
 citizens, orphans, widows and educational institu- 
 tions whose only means of support are invested in 
 those securities and who would be made paupers, 
 or nearly so, by increasing the already heavy tax 
 on their little holdings, or by forcing the sale of 
 stocks at par for which they paid large premiums ; 
 thereby cutting into their little holdings — provid- 
 ing of course their little scheme works as they 
 would have it work. 
 
 WHAT DO THEY OFFER HIM IX RETURN ? 
 
 The same they offer the worker when they de- 
 prive him of his means of support, his job. They 
 offer him nothing. Since the question of justice 
 is brought into the argument, which is the more 
 unjust — the scheme of the Reformer ( ?) or So- 
 cialism? We might swallow their proposed nos- 
 trum as many an "ostrich" does if it would in anv 
 
32 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 way benefit the worker. But it would not. But 
 that is another story. It is not a question of jus- 
 tice, it is a question of power. 
 
 How are we going to survive the further de- 
 velopment of capitalism, which Spencer foresaw 
 in his boyhood ? When the wealth is in the hands 
 of a few and one man can with the aid of machin- 
 ery supply the needs of ten, what is the dispos- 
 sessed nine to do who have no means of living? 
 They will not meekly crawl off into a hole and die 
 like poisoned dogs. They will turn like the pro- 
 verbial worm and demand their own. That is 
 why the Socialists call upon them to organize 
 now, and take intelligent, political action before it 
 is too late. 
 
 AS TO THE FLAG. 
 
 Mr. McKinley's fervid inquiry : 'The flag; who 
 will haul it down?" has provoked some peculiar 
 and disgusting revelations. For instance, the 
 Springfield Republican, an independent newspa- 
 per of wide circulation and influence, contained 
 the following: ''What will especially surprise 
 many people in the United States is that this busi- 
 ness (of female prostitution in Manila) has been 
 taken under the ofificial recognition and supervis- 
 ion of the United States Army Authorities, after 
 the manner of certain European Continental cities. 
 It is, according to Mr. Johnson, the New York 
 Voice's special Commissioner to the Philippines, 
 'conducted under the supervision of a regular de- 
 partment of the military government, the depart- 
 ment of Municipal Inspection.' Two whole streets 
 
A HISTORY-MAKING TERM 33 
 
 are entirely taken up with houses of ill-repute,' 
 writes Mr. Johnson. At night these two streets 
 are filled with drunken soldiers, rioting, veiling 
 Americans, and half-naked women. In this set- 
 tlement there is scarcely a house of prostitution 
 which is not decorated with American flags, in- 
 side and out. Some of them have American flags 
 painted clear across the front of their establish- 
 ments. All have glaring signs of American beers 
 either inside or out. "The flag, who will haul it 
 down ?" Sentiment is all right, as far as it goes, 
 but when it involves such a grave departure from 
 right principles as is noted above, there are few 
 decent Americans w^ho will feel like standing by 
 IMcKinley's sentiment in reference to the flag. 
 If the ensign is a "flaunting lie," or if it stands for 
 governmental protection of Sulu slavery, polyg- 
 amy, and of other vices and unspeakable crimes, 
 will the American people, jealous of their own 
 rights, and their own good fame, dare to let it 
 stand ? 
 
 HOW THE PEOPLE ARE OUTRAGED AND ROBBED. 
 
 There are 28,000 Englishmen in India, holding 
 official positions, and drawing salaries amount- 
 ing to $75,000,000 a year. The natives of India 
 have no control whatsoever, in any shape or form, 
 over their own taxation ; they have no voice in the 
 expenditure of the taxes they pay. The taxation 
 of the land is so heavy that farms are rapidly 
 going out of cultivation. In the central provinces 
 the land tax is one-half of the produce of the 
 land. Under the native rule, in the years when 
 
34 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 the land lies fallow, it is taxed one-eighth. In the 
 British provinces fallow land is taxed to the full. 
 The net revenue in India to-day is $305,000,000. 
 Of this amount $125,000,000 is raised by the land 
 tax. Salt, which is a necessity of life for the 
 people and their cattle, is taxed 1,000 per cent 
 on the value of the salt. Half of the total net rev- 
 enue of India is drained out of the country. A 
 yearly sum of $150,000,000 is taken by England 
 from the peasantry of India, and nothing is given 
 in return. Eleven hundred retired Colonels draw 
 over a million a year in pensions from the Indian 
 revenue. 
 
 The people of India are the poorest peasantry 
 in the world. The average income per day is less 
 than 2d. Since the great famine of 1876-7, we 
 have abstracted $2,500,000,000 from India, and 
 this has prevented the development of the re- 
 sources of the country. Hence, we have the fam- 
 ine of to-day. India is practically in a state of 
 bankruptcy, caused by the drain of its wealth to 
 England. In the best seasons the peasantry have 
 only enough to barely support life. In the prov- 
 ince of Madras there are always twenty million 
 of pauper peasants. It should be remembered 
 that one hundred and fifty million of the popu- 
 lation of India are dependent upon agriculture. 
 England is the absentee landlord of India. 
 
 England is not only a heartless robber, but a 
 hypocrite as well. She is rich, cruel and self- 
 righteous. A year or two ago, when Emperor 
 William of Germany visited Queen Victoria and 
 sat down at her table, there was spread on that 
 
A HISTORY-MAKING TERM 35 
 
 board plate to the value of ten millions of dollars. 
 Victoria was lauded to the skies as a wise and 
 pious Christian Queen, and doubtless she was a 
 well-meaning, harmless old lady, but the system 
 of laws and economics that made her a queen and 
 pensioned a little army of her relatives, at the ex- 
 pense of working people, is the same system that 
 has made six hundred thousand paupers in En- 
 gland. It is the same system that makes one- 
 fifth of the people of London so distressingly poor 
 that when their wretched life ends, they are laid 
 in paupers' graves. Just now there are Ameri- 
 cans who see great superiority of the British gov- 
 ernment over all others, yet the naked truth is 
 that that government and' her business methods 
 are the most wicked among civilized nations. A 
 few decades ago England forced the infamous 
 opium traffic on China at the cannon's mouth, and 
 the evil that resulted to the people of that country 
 has never been estimated and never can be esti- 
 mated. England killed the Boers, burned their 
 homes and devastated their country, that they 
 might rob those quiet people of their gold 
 mines and of their liberty. Instead of feeding the 
 starving people of India, whom they have robbed, 
 they are spending their money in destroying a 
 weak republic in Africa, and are preparing to 
 grab a portion of China, while they go to the 
 whole world and beg other people to contribute 
 money with which to buy food for the victims in 
 India. Let all honest men and women be done 
 with hypocritical cant about "Christian England." 
 Let every true American refuse to give his sane- 
 
36 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 tion to the proposed alliance of that country to 
 this, sought by the great capitalists now in control 
 of our government. 
 
 England, with her king, her dukes, her lords, 
 her titled nobility, and her paupers, her grasping 
 greed, her hatred of democracies, her inhumanity 
 in dealing with the Boers and with India, is a 
 modern Babylon, and is Christian in name only. 
 Under the universal reign of Socialism, India 
 would be free, pauperism would be abolished, 
 ignorance and crime would in due time disappear ; 
 kings and lords and robber millionaires would be 
 no more, and in the place of war and cruelty and 
 outrage we would have prosperity and peace. 
 
BISHOP POTTER OF NEW YORK ON THE 
 "RICH AND POOR." 
 
 Private capital in the means of life and neces- 
 saries of society, like a disease fastened on the 
 human body, is giving evidence of the effects 
 which it produces in the body politic, and, as in 
 the case of the man afflicted with disease, who 
 tries to persuade himself that he is not seriously 
 sick, and who takes every means but the right one 
 in dealing with his disorder, the ruling class is 
 trying to persuade itself, and to get the people 
 to believe, that the symptoms which indicate 
 chronic disorder in our international society, can 
 be dealt with in regular capitalistic fashion to 
 the destruction of the evil and the ultimate benefit 
 of all. Bishop Potter, of New York, had an ar- 
 ticle in the Sunday's Chicago American, of Au- 
 gust, 1900, set up in large type, v/ith many head- 
 ings of larger type over the various paragraphs, 
 and his picture set between two artistic candela- 
 bras in the center of the whole printed matter, the 
 whole designed to catch the eye, and through the 
 eye the mind of the reader who can be awed by 
 the display of ecclesiastical forehead, neck, dress, 
 and signature, to the exclusion of logic, consist- 
 ency and force in the subject under discussion. He 
 writes of "The Teachings of Jesus Concerning 
 the Rich," and the "Power of Wealth," "The 
 Peril of Riches," and "The Dangers of the Rich 
 Man From Which the Poor ]\Ian Is Happily 
 Free." He seems to write from an idea in his 
 
38 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 mind that there is an antagonism to v/ealth exist- 
 ing in society, and then he used the v/ord wealth, 
 as being synonymous with a capitaHst. He does 
 not care to contemplate what would happen should 
 half a dozen rich men disinherit themselves, to- 
 morrow morning giving fifty millions of dollars to 
 the poor, and concludes (after refusing to con- 
 template) that the ''possession of riches is not in- 
 consistent with *our' Christianity, nor alien to it." 
 He notes the power of possession of wealth to 
 stimulate the instincts of cruelty, to extinguish 
 those finer traits which make life sweet and sunny, 
 to make heaven and the life that is to come un- 
 longed for, and after expatiating on the dismal 
 prospect of the rich man standing at the gates of 
 Heaven and looking back on the houses and 
 lands, bonds and bank stocks, etc., he turns off to 
 fit the quotation, "The poor ye have always with 
 you," and "Charge them that are rich in this 
 world's goods," against such as ''Sell all that thou 
 hast and give to the poor," with the result of 
 recognizing that one's views of the inequalities of 
 life must include that of wealth along with those 
 of station, beauty, etc., etc. His idea throughout 
 the whole article seems to be to cover up the rot- 
 tenness which exists, while upholding the private 
 possessions of the great wealth, which, if owned 
 collectively, would cause said rottenness to dis- 
 appear. He flits all around the subject and lights 
 here and there to use this or that beak of scrip- 
 ture to extract whatever comfort he can from 
 "the conformity of 'our Christianity' with the pos- 
 session of wealth," to ease the conscience of the 
 
BISHOP POTTER ON THE ''RICH AND POOR ' 39 
 
 possessors. ''And so wealth, money, whether you 
 possess it or crave it, or are seeking after it, is 
 yours, like space, and air, and sunshine, which 
 God has given to His creatures to desire, to em- 
 ploy, to enjoy, in His fear and as His stewards." 
 "If you hear wild and foolish denunciations of it, 
 despise them as they deserve." Who will be 
 "taken in" by such nonsense ? The "man of God" 
 is upholding a Hell on Earth. He is upholding 
 the private possession of what is as necessary to 
 life as air and sunshine — the wealth of the earth, 
 and stands sponsor for its possession by those 
 who, by the cruelty, which he says its possession 
 stimulates, may inflict and do inflict starvation 
 on those within their sphere of influence. They 
 are able to change the quotation to read, "The 
 starving ye have always with you." Yes, wealth 
 is here on the earth, and like space and air and 
 sunshine is for all men to enjoy, and if God has 
 thus given it, as the Bishop says, why does he 
 uphold its possession by the few at the expense of 
 the numberless ? Does he not know that, in order 
 for them to be millionaires, there must also be 
 thousands robbed of their inheritance of the 
 wealth of the earth and their labor, to make up 
 the millions? Why does he refuse to contem- 
 plate the pandemonium, etc., which would reign 
 in Xew York should a dozen rich men disinherit 
 themselves of fifty millions to be distributed to 
 the poor, while upholding the system under which 
 these fifty millions were gathered together? ^lil- 
 lions of people, children, women and men, were 
 compelled to toil, starve and die so that these 
 
40 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 dozen men might become millionaires, and the 
 Bishop and his colleagues not only contemplated 
 the process but witnessed it. They saw "the idle- 
 ness, the licentiousness, the fierce hatreds, etc., en- 
 gendered '*under the process of a few dozen men 
 accumulating millions, and as Christian men they 
 acted not to miake the condition of the miserable 
 mass better, but worse. They acted according to 
 the interests of the class which is benefited by the 
 degradation of the masses composing the oppo- 
 site class and encouraging them (the working 
 class) to use less and less of what they succeed in 
 getting of their products, so that the class of 
 millionaires might benefit. 
 
 When the Bishop's writings appear before 
 those who understand the hypocrisy, or ignorance, 
 or the motive which led him to unburden him- 
 self of this load of rubbish, they become 
 disgusted to contemplate how many will 
 take his advice to despise those who point out 
 the injustice of this system, which makes it pos- 
 sible for society to hoist such a parasite on a ped- 
 estal, where he may influence the ignorant to blind 
 their eyes and stop their ears to shut out the truth. 
 He is supposed to represent the author of ''Sell 
 all thou hast and give to the poor," and he sanc- 
 tions selling the poor the bare necessities of life 
 and taking, therefore, their life's blood through 
 excessive toil and anxiety for the morrow : 'The 
 poor ye have always with you," and he upholds 
 the system which changes it to "the starving;" 
 "Charge them that are rich in this world's goods," 
 and instead of "charging" them he is simply tak- 
 
BISHOP POTTER ON THE RICH AND POOR 4I 
 
 ing what they will give him to act as their tool in 
 deceiving the workers into continuing their own 
 slavery. Yes, Mr. Bishop, we know "that wealth, 
 like space and air and sunshine" is ours to enjoy, 
 and that is why you hear, not wild, but scientific, 
 denunciations of its private possession as capital 
 by the few to exploit labor. That is whv we are 
 calling on those who recognize this injustice and 
 those who are victims of it, to unite, to cast off the 
 scales from their eyes, that they may see that it 
 is theirs to enjoy, when they lose their chains, 
 which their ignorance binds, and which your class 
 seeks to weld more firmly. When they refuse 
 > our services and unite with their class at the bal- 
 lot box, to strike for the possession of what is 
 theirs to enjoy, thev will get it. Then will be real- 
 ized a quotation which your class has convenient- 
 ly overlooked, "Bear ye one another's burdens," 
 and the burdens will be light indeed, especially 
 for those who now drag the chains of wage sla- 
 very. Work and vote with the Socialists to bring 
 such a condition about. 
 
HOW CAPITALISM REDEEMS ITS PRE- 
 ELECTION PROMISES. 
 
 Shortly after the shouts of triumph over Re- 
 pubHcan victory died away, and long before the 
 ballots registering the endorsement of the "full 
 dinner-pail" policy had been counted, McKinley's 
 native State contributed the following significant 
 comment upon the folly of the dupes of capital- 
 ism: 
 
 Steubenville, O., Nov. 8, 1900. — The man- 
 agement of the National Steel Co.'s Mingo Junc- 
 tion plant, to-day offered the men a new scale of 
 wages that makes reductions in the existing rates 
 of from 20 to 61 per cent. The new scale is based 
 upon new methods of working, which makes 
 twelve hours a day's work, and renders the tasks 
 so hard that none but the biggest men can stand 
 the twelve hours' strain. The offer of the new 
 scale comes of the determination of the company 
 to resume operations, after being closed six 
 months. The mills have been surrounded by a 
 high board fence surmounted by electric wires 
 and spikes. Everything is ready for a fight, as it 
 is expected that the men will resist the reduction.. 
 — Chicago Record. 
 
 Let us see: What bait was it that the Repub- 
 lican politicians held out to the working men be- 
 fore election ? What was the printed legend with 
 which thousands of bill-boards and fences were 
 decorated in the interests of McKinley and Roose- 
 velt ? What motto did the numerous "Working- 
 
HOW CAPITALISM REDEEMS PROMISES 43 
 
 men's Republican Clubs" plaster upon the win- 
 dows of their club rooms, and hand across the 
 streets of our great cities? Was it not "Prosper- 
 ity, Plenty of Work and High Wages?" And 
 now the National Steel Co. starts in to redeem 
 the promise in true capitalistic fashion. As was 
 foretold by Socialists, weeks prior to the election, 
 the necessity for "re-adjustment" of wages would 
 dawn upon the capitalist class immediately after 
 Nov. 6. And here it comes. Twenty to sixty per 
 cent reduction, on the existing rates and a "new 
 method of working." Thus do the crafty owners 
 of the means of production make good the first 
 article in their promise. The new arrangement 
 undoubtedly means prosperity for them. Regard- 
 ing the second clause in the pre-election promise, 
 dealing with "plenty of work," no one can justly 
 accuse the owners of the means of production of 
 neglecting the fulfillment of this invaluable privi- 
 lege. If the "new methods," involving "twelve 
 hours" and a task so hard that "none but the 
 strongest men can stand the strain," does not fill 
 the bill in every respect, the working men who 
 voted for it are certainly hard to please. 
 
 It cannot be denied that the measure of "plenty 
 of work" is to be kept "heaped full and running 
 over." As to the workers, their share is the fight, 
 for which we are told "everything is ready," so 
 far at least as the other party is concerned. The 
 electric wires and spikes are all in place, the work- 
 ing men who are "expected to resist" have gra- 
 ciously "left themselves naked to their enemies," 
 the police, militia, regulars, judges, and every 
 
44 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 Other power in the land are standing by ready to 
 supplement the efforts of the National Steel Co., 
 in case the electric wires, spikes, etc., fail to suffi- 
 ciently protect the property of the prosperous 
 ones from the blind attacks of the dupes whom 
 they had lured into disarming themselves through 
 promises of ''high wages" and ''full dinner- 
 pails." Yes, "everything is ready." Let the bat- 
 tle commence at once. Perhaps the vanquished 
 will learn that in their anxiety "not to throw their 
 votes away," they have in reality not only thrown 
 themselves defenceless, but actually armed those 
 whom they proposed to fight. By all means let 
 the scrap proceed. There is nothing to it. Capi- 
 talism wins in a walk. 
 
NO HOPE FOR THE TRAVELING MEN. 
 
 Baltimore, ^Md., Oct. i6, 1900. — Theodore Mar- 
 burg, the capitahst, and brother of \Vm. ^Marburg, 
 of the tobacco trust, dehvered a speech on trusts 
 at a meeting of commercial travelers here, yester- 
 day, which caused a sensation. He said, in part : 
 "1 have little consolation to offer the traveling 
 man. There is nothing at present that indicates 
 his rehabilitation. To talk of abolishing trusts 
 is as idle as to talk of abolishing newspapers, or 
 of breaking up the great trunk Imes and restoring 
 the many small systems that previously existed. 
 ''The trust was born primarily of the fierce com- 
 petition between American manufacturers. If 
 the tariff in any way conduced to it, it was only 
 by building up manufactures in America and 
 providing the conditions for competition. It was 
 the competition, not the tariff, which produces the 
 trusts." As at present loosely organized, the 
 trusts present many objectionable features. These 
 can be in a measure removed by organizing the 
 trusts under a national law. We can demand of 
 them publicity of accounts. We can recover for 
 the people a part of their profit in the form of 
 public revenue. 
 
 The displacement of the traveling man is the 
 result of an economic movement quite disconnect- 
 ed from politics. He will not better his condition 
 by voting for Bryan. What Bryan's victory would 
 involve would be a great business depression, 
 which would simply deprive the traveling man 
 
46 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 of what opportunity he may now possess to find 
 employment in other fields." Marburg came into 
 prominence in politics after the Republicans had 
 won the State and elected Lowndes Governor and 
 Hooper Mayor. 
 
 'The average commercial traveler fears that he 
 will lose his grip if the trust mania is not stopped 
 soon." — Buffalo News. 
 
 Well, what of it? Is not the job looking for 
 the man," as McKinley said ? 
 
 If the commercial man does lose his grip, can he 
 not get a grip on something else, say a pick and 
 shovel, for instance? Average labor is in de- 
 mand, is it not ? No man who really wants work 
 need remain idle, at least we have heard that re- 
 mark made so often that there must be some foun- 
 dation for it. What is the matter with the com- 
 mercial traveler, anyhow ? He is a hustler. Then 
 let him get out and hustle. This is a free country, 
 where a man can always sell his labor power, pro- 
 viding he can find a purchaser. If the drummer 
 fails in this, the only suggestion we can offer him 
 is that he get a grip on the principles of Social- 
 ism, and then the "trust mania" will not trouble 
 him any longer. But whatever he may think now, 
 ''to this conclusion must he come at last." 
 
 VICTIMS OF TRUSTS. 
 
 The coal trust keeps wages down and the other 
 trusts force the cost of living up. 
 
 "The cry of agony that goes up from the great 
 anthracite coal fields is a cry wrung from the 
 white lips of a ruined people, against the heartless 
 
NO HOPE FOR THE TRAVELING MEN 47 
 
 trusts. While the miners are making ready for a 
 struggle that may fill the cemeteries of Pennsyl- 
 vania and bring sorrow and privation to half a 
 million persons, the newspapers owned or con- 
 trolled by the mine owners are slandering the men 
 and their leaders and treating their grievances 
 with jesting scorn. I have been going from mine 
 to mine, in the company of Homer Davenport, 
 the Journal's distinguished cartoonist, in an hon- 
 est effort to give the actual facts to the whole 
 country. 
 
 "We have eaten in the cabins of the miners and 
 have, in every case, gone to original sources for 
 information. The miners themselves and their 
 wives and children are the best witnesses. Noth- 
 ing I have to say is based upon the statements or 
 arguments of labor agitators. But the one 
 mighty fact which stands forth in this scene of 
 I confusion and penury is the appalling changes 
 I* which the trusts have worked in the condition of 
 the mining population within two years. The 
 strike is simply an industrial hemorrhage. It is a 
 I local symptom of a disease that is attacking the 
 I whole body. I find as an established fact, which 
 [ may be investigated and verified in an afternoon 
 j by any citizen who cares enough for his country 
 to take the trouble, that the trusts have so in- 
 creased the costs of living that the miners of the 
 great anthracite coal region have been forced to 
 give their wives and children less to eat and less 
 to wear in order to make their wages cover their 
 expenses. 
 
 "The coal trust keeps the miners' wages down, 
 
48 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 while the other trusts keep forcing the cost of 
 Hving up. The result of this scientific squeezing 
 is dreadful to contemplate. The coal railroad 
 stock and bondholders and the mine holders are 
 making greater profits than ever. But the min- 
 ing population is sinking into a condition of hope- 
 less semi-starvation. Decent miners are com- 
 pelled to send children ten and twelve years of age 
 to work in the blackened breakers. There is no 
 help for it. With the trust closing in around the 
 miners' homes from opposite directions, he must 
 send his little ones to slave in the mines or let 
 them starve. Can the American look unmoved 
 upon this unequal contest between a multitude of 
 hard-pressed miners and the trust system ? Have 
 sordid influences so deadened and perverted us 
 that our sympathies will not quicken at the sight 
 of so much undeserved and preventable suffering? 
 Is the cry of half a million persons in anguish 
 and industrial bondage to be answered by a sneer 
 or a jest, or a cheap accusation that the proposed 
 strike is inspired by political motives? Accom- 
 panied by Mr. Davenport, I visited many of the 
 mining settlements in the neighborhood of Ha- 
 zleton. Near McAdoo is the gray huddle of 
 crooked shanties, known as Old Honey Brook. 
 The distant landscape is green and pleasant to 
 look upon, and the fragrance of the pines comes 
 faintly over the stark hills of coal refuse and the 
 gloomy chasms that surround the wretched place. 
 Little rills of dirty water trickle among ihe shan- 
 ties, and goats and geese wander here and there 
 in the sun-scorched stretches of sprawling streets. 
 
NO HOPE FOR THE TRAVELING MEN 49 
 
 The shanties are old and full of cracks and cran- 
 nies, yet they are crowded with men, women and 
 children. We were in one of those dread theaters 
 of want and death, in which human greed, work- 
 ing through the trust system, damns and denies 
 the claims of civilization on American soil. We 
 were there to learn the truth and to teli it. From 
 house to house we went. There was not a person 
 in Old Honey Brook so lacking in intelligence that 
 the cruel lesson of the trust system had not been 
 learned. In the street we met a brown-skinned 
 Hungarian woman, whose husband worked in the 
 nearest mine, while she worked as a baker. She 
 was a clear-eyed, intelligent woman, prematurely 
 aged by toil, bare-footed and dressed in the cheap- 
 est of gingham. 'Yes,' she said, 'it costs a quarter 
 more to live than it did a year or a year and a 
 half ago. Everything is dearer — meat, flour, cof- 
 fee, sugar, tea, tobacco, clothes, shoes and oil. My 
 husband gets no more wages than he did when 
 prices were low.' Presently we were seated at the 
 table of a veteran miner, with his wife and three 
 daughters. The whole trust question, stripped of 
 its mask, was laid bare in a few minutes. 
 
 ''All the statesmen and hair-splitting doctrinar- 
 ies who serve at the shrine of the trust were an- 
 swered in that humble place. 'Here,' said the old 
 miner, turning to his wife, 'tell these gentlemen 
 what the trusts have done for us, and they will tell 
 the American people about it. Give them the 
 prices the trusts make us pay for the necessaries 
 of life. It is about the same in the mining region, 
 I suppose, as in the rest of the country. Wages 
 
50 CAPITAL AND L.\EOR 
 
 have not risen. We were just able to live on our 
 wages before, but the trusts have lifted the prices 
 so high that most of us have to eat less. I could 
 not live if my son and two of my daughters were 
 not working. No married man with children can 
 live on a coal miners' wages now, unless his chil- 
 dren work, too.' The miner's wife gave me a 
 list of prices showing how the trusts have raised 
 the cost of living." — Jas. Creelman, in the New 
 York Journal. 
 
 SKETCH OF THE HELLISH CONDITIONS PREVAILING 
 IN THE COAL REGIONS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 (Drawn from a capitalistic source.) 
 The following account, taken from "Public 
 Ownership," is by far the best we have yet seen 
 of the great miner's strike. The facts are taken 
 verbatim from the report of the capitalistic Pub- 
 lishers' Association : "The story of the grievances 
 and sufferings of the miners of Wyoming valley 
 would fill a book : The chief grievances may be 
 summed up as follows : The company stores.' 
 They are unlawful under a special definite statute 
 of Pennsylvania. The companies deny that such 
 a thing as the company stores exists, but it is a 
 mere juggling of words, as they are called 'sup- 
 ply' stores. The stores supply the miners with 
 the necessaries of life and the account is deducted 
 from the men's wages at the end of each month. 
 The prices in company or 'supply' stores range 
 from lo to 40 per cent higher than in outside 
 stores — a fair average would be 25 per cent. The 
 men do not have to deal with the supply stores if 
 
NO HOPE FOR THE TRAVELING MEN 5 1 
 
 they think they can buy cheaper elsewhere, say 
 the operators. ' But it is a fact that the man who 
 persists in deaHng elsewhere suffers excessive 
 dockage, is given bad breasts to work in, is limit- 
 ed on cars, and in a dozen other ways is disci- 
 plined. 
 
 '* 'The monthly payment of wages.' The opera- 
 tors say it is done to keep the men from squander- 
 ing their money. There is a statute in Pennsyl- 
 vania requiring that all laboring men be paid at 
 least once in two weeks. There seems to be a 
 law here to cover every one of the men's com- 
 plaints, but the companies appear to regard stat- 
 utes, as applied to them, in the light of jokes. 
 The only other explanation heard for the failure 
 to pay twice a month is that it saves book-keeping 
 and thus obviates a lot of expense and trouble for 
 the operators and company stores. 
 
 ** The mine bosses.' 
 
 They have almost dictatorial power ; they abuse 
 that power. They are kings away down in the 
 bowels of the earth. Some of these bosses go so 
 far as to compel their subordinates to suffer in- 
 dignities which would make a Zulu commit sui- 
 cide. It is a shameful thing to write — but right 
 here, in Scranton, a city of 100,000 inhabitants, 
 there is at least one mine boss who uses his little 
 brief authority to compel his men to yield to his 
 desires their wives and daughters. It is W. B. 
 Colver, the reporter for the Publishers' Press, 
 who makes this statement (not a 'wild-eyed' So- 
 cialist). 
 
 "Docking and Measuring." 
 
52 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 The operators say, that "wages are the same 
 now as they always have been ; that is, a man gets 
 as much per ton." But a car is a "ton." And for 
 years the cars have been steadily growing larger. 
 There have been strikes or threats of strikes and 
 the operators have granted concessions. Straight- 
 way an extra two or three inches of plank is add- 
 ed to the sideboards of the car. The Pennsylvania 
 statutes declare that a miner's ton shall be 2,240 
 pounds. The cars now in use hold 3,400 pounds 
 and must be heaped up four and six inches high, 
 so that after taking away the slate and dirt the 
 company has one and one-half tons of clean, mar- 
 ketable coal. For mining this the men get on an 
 average 92 cents per car. That is how the coal is 
 measured. Then comes the dockage. After a car 
 has been filled, it is hoisted out of the mine to the 
 top of the breaker. Here it is dumped. The 
 breaker boss, who is another despot as tyrannical 
 as the mine boss, has a docking clerk at the top 
 of the breaker. This man — often one who has 
 never been in a mine and knows nothing about the 
 business — glances at the car of coal, or fails to 
 glance at it, if he sees fit, and marks on the board 
 'half car docked, or 'quarter car docked,' as he 
 sees fit. The men are docked about 15 or 25 per 
 cent, and sometimes much more, on all the coal 
 they dig. 'Short time and division of labor.' 
 This, next to the powder grievance, is the chief 
 complaint of men. Of course the inhuman in- 
 dignity to wife and daughter cannot be classed 
 nor compared to ordinary evils. The men go into 
 the mines at 6 130 or 7 o'clock in the morning. 
 
NO HOPE FOR THE TRAVELING MEN 53 
 
 The manager or superintendent orders that a cer- 
 tain number of cars be sent down to be filled that 
 day. If there are a hundred men and three hun- 
 dred cars, one would suppose that each one would 
 get three, but not so. One boss may do as he sees 
 fit. and he does. His favorites get the easy-work- 
 ing 'breasts,' or faces. They also may get eight 
 or ten cars to fill for their day's work, while the 
 luckless miners, objects of the bosses' dislike, are 
 sent to a hard, narrow tunnel, and may get but a 
 single car for the day. When that car is full they 
 must stop. Each miner has a helper who is paid 
 bv the day. The helper's time goes on, wdiether 
 the miner has one car or ten, so that it may hap- 
 pen that a miner is actually poorer when he quits 
 work than when he began. One miner showed 
 me his statement for the last two weeks in April. 
 He got $4.27 for the two weeks' work. The same 
 man got yy cents for the first half of June, and 
 $9.75 is the best he has made in any two weeks 
 for four months. Xo matter when the men get 
 their cars filled, they must stay in the mine, in 
 black, stifiing, damp and chilly solitude until time 
 for closing the mines. ]\Iany a man sits crouched 
 in his tunnel six hours for the privilege of work- 
 ing three hours. 
 
 "The 'Powder Question' is a most serious one. 
 The men are charged $2.75 per keg for powder 
 that costs ninety cents. That powder may mine 
 them less than enough to pay for itself. That all 
 depends upon the mine boss. The men are al- 
 lowed to work one, two, three, or four days a 
 week, half a day or all day, or not at all, as the 
 
54 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 operators may decide, but they must report for 
 duty every day." 
 
 Read this, wage workers, industrial slaves, and 
 reading it, remember that your day is coming 
 when the same conditions shall environ you that 
 now impress the members of your great class who 
 wrest the black diamonds from the bosom of 
 Mother Earth, to heat your homes and drive the 
 machines you are permitted to attend. Think of 
 the inhumanities that capitalism prompts — yea-, 
 compels men to practice upon their kind. Con- 
 ceive, if you can, the condition that compels men 
 to sacrifice their wives and daughters for a mere 
 privilege of working for a bare existence for the 
 pittance of yy cents for two weeks' work. Real- 
 ize that if something is not done, it will not be 
 long until that sum will measure your wages, and 
 that your wives and daughters will be the price 
 of the opportunity to "earn" even this. 
 
 And now, lest there still linger in your mind a 
 suspicion that there are no classes, in "this great, 
 free country," read the continuation of the press 
 reporter's account of the miner's distressing con- 
 dition. Learn whether or not there are classes 
 and class interests : "It is known that the Retail 
 Dealers' Association of the entire district has 
 agreed to cut off all credit as soon as the strike 
 begins. This is because they have been notified 
 by the wholesalers that the retailers themselves 
 can expect no credit." Of course the company 
 stores will shut down on the men at once. 
 
 Now, perhaps you will know that the capital- 
 ists are class-conscious. The big merchants cut 
 
NO HOPE FOR THE TRAVELING MEN 55 
 
 off the credit of the small retailers, and force them 
 to shut down on their customers (in this case, the 
 striking miners), in order to starve the latter 
 into submission to the exactions of the mine own- 
 ers and operators, who are members of the capi- 
 talist class to which the big wholesalers belong. 
 Oh, no, there are no classes, and the capitalists 
 are not class-conscious. 
 
 Wage workers, organized and unorganized, do 
 you see ? What is there left for you to do but to 
 unite, class-conscious yourselves, in a political 
 party — ready at your hand, the Socialist party — 
 and on the political field, where numbers count, 
 wrest from your exploiters the means whereby 
 they oppress you ? Take the reins of government 
 and direct its course to the Co-operative Com- 
 monwealth, where all may labor who will, and 
 none shall eat who will not, where wealth will 
 belong to its makers ; and drones and industrial 
 despots will be known no more. Strike on the 
 industrial .field, because you must, but strike at 
 the ballot-box because there your strike will win. 
 Vote that the government shall own the mines, 
 and that men's wives and daughters shall be pre- 
 served in chastity, and health, for on this rock 
 rests the future welfare of man. 
 
THE CAPITALISTIC LAW OF ''NATURAL 
 SELECTION" IN ITS RELATION TO 
 THE LABOR MARKET. 
 
 The Pueblo Courier, in speaking of the condi- 
 tion of the raih-oad employes in Colorado, has the 
 following: ''The examination of railroad employes 
 is becoming so severe as to arouse a good deal of 
 complaint and discontent, so rigid are the rules 
 now that many men who have given their lives to 
 the railroad service are finding themselves out of 
 a job, and, being unfit for any other avocation, are 
 drifting dangerously near the poorhouse. Of 
 course it is necessary to look to the safety of the 
 traveling public, but what consideration is the 
 railroader receiving? The company or the State 
 can look out for the welfare of the passenger, but 
 are impotent to assure a good condition for old 
 employes who are willing to work. The condition 
 is getting to be a serious question to railroad men, 
 and many are thinking about changing the com- 
 petitive system to one of co-operation, under 
 which all human beings will be assured of the op- 
 portunity of labor and a decent livelihood." 
 
 Within this short paragraph we may find 
 a complete illustration in one particular in- 
 dustry, of the conditions which exist essentially 
 in all, and which are certainly forcing, as the para- 
 graph says, "many to think about changing the 
 competitive system to one of co-operation." It 
 shows conclusively that labor power is a commod- 
 
CAPITALISTIC LAW AND THE LABOR MARKET 57 
 
 ity to be bought on the market, the rigid examina- 
 tion complained of being merely the capitalist 
 method of selecting the most suitable raw material 
 which that market affords. The labor power which 
 has been used continuously in this industry, and 
 which is now being superseded by more efficient 
 labor power, finds a complete analogy in the anti- 
 quated and worn-out locomotives and other rolling 
 stock which now lie unused on the scrap piles of 
 the railroad companies, after being replaced by 
 more efficient machinery of production of the same 
 nature and for the same purpose. ''It is necessary 
 to look to the safety of the traveling public." 
 Why, certainly. That is the source from which 
 dividends materialize. But the same necessity 
 also compels the company to supersede their old 
 employes, by younger, stronger and more efficient 
 ones, for exactly the same reason. 
 
 The "traveling public," in this case, may be 
 said to be the passive factor, while the labor pow- 
 er, applied to the transportation of their persons 
 or goods, is the active one in the wealth produc- 
 tions of railroads. It is necessary, if the best re- 
 sults (measured in dividends), are to be attained, 
 that the active factor be at least equal in efficiency 
 to the average labor power, or, if possible, above 
 it. Consequently the old employe finds himself 
 ''drifting dangerously near the poorhouse," just 
 as the old locomotive gravitates towards its final 
 resting place on the scrap heap. And herein lies 
 the difference between the employe and the worn- 
 out machine — the former can think. And as he 
 "drifts" he thinks, and his thoughts will neces- 
 
58 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 sarily turn towards Socialism, as those of his 
 masters did towards supplanting him by more 
 profitable labor power when his efficiency fell be- 
 low normal. Yes, conditions, and conditions alone, 
 move the masses of men to think, and that think- 
 ing always has for its object the material interests 
 of the thinker. The utter indifference with which 
 the capitalist abandons his worn-out tools to star- 
 vation will be met with an equal indifference upon 
 the part of the exploited ones towards any alleged 
 ''rights" in the means of production which the 
 capitalist, through "legal" ownership, regards as 
 his individual private property. 
 
 CAPITALISM DECIDES THE FATE OF THE MAN OVER 
 
 FORTY. 
 
 It may not be a very original remark, or one 
 that adds anything to the general stock of human 
 knowledge, to observe that there is one thing 
 which every individual human being, without ex- 
 ception, is doing at the same time, that is, growing 
 old. In the Chicago Chronicle of July 8th, 1900, 
 an editorial, entitled, ''Shall We Asphyxiate 
 Them ?" appears. It deals with the man who has 
 passed the age of forty, and for whom it states 
 that the commercial world has no possible use, 
 while younger and more vigorous manhood can 
 be procured to carry on the work of the world. 
 As the man over forty has the same physical ne- 
 cessities of food, clothing and shelter, as his fel- 
 lowmen who have not yet attained the undesirable 
 age, and as his forty years are coming to be re- 
 garded as a positive drawback to his capacity for 
 
CAPITALISTIC LAW AND THE LABOR MARKET 59 
 
 making profit for the other fellow, the Chronicle 
 interrogates its readers as to what shall be clone 
 with the man who has passed two score, and, true 
 to its capitalist nature, assuming that the present 
 economic system is permanent, sarcastically in- 
 quires whether we shall asphyxiate him. 
 
 Whether the man over forty would peacefully 
 submit to this process, and who the *'we" are who 
 are proposed as his executioners, the Chronicle 
 does not inform us. But as the owner of that pa- 
 per is a banker (who, by the way, indorsed the 
 Building Contractors in their fight against the 
 Trades' Union), it is fair to conclude that the 
 "we" in this case implies the capitalist, the em- 
 ploying class, the same fellows to whom the man 
 past forty vainly applies for work, and who, 
 knowing that his profit-making power is impaired 
 by age, and that if he lives he must still be fed, 
 thus reducing their profits, propose that he shall 
 be deprived of his (to them) useless life. 
 
 But let the Chronicle speak for itself : '^Another 
 great railroad corporation has pronounced against 
 old men, not such very old men, either, for the in- 
 hibition extended to men over forty. The man 
 who has reached that age may not be newly em- 
 ployed in any capacity. The company will not, 
 however, discharge him if he is already in its em- 
 ploy. This much concession to old and faithful 
 servants. But other corporations are not so con- 
 siderate. Instances are numerous and well known 
 of wholesale discharges of old men. The em- 
 ployer is usually frank about it. He declares that 
 he can get more and better work out of young 
 
60 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 men than he can of old men. He is in business 
 to make money, and not from philanthropic mo- 
 tives. Hence he proposes to get the most work 
 for the least money whenever he can. That is 
 the business view of it. He does not desire to mix 
 charity with business. A Chicago philosopher of 
 some reputation once declared, after profound re- 
 flection, that every man who reaches the age of 
 forty should be taken out and killed, but he based 
 his conclusion not upon the uselessness of such 
 men, but upon the theory that at the age of two 
 score ''men become satisfied with the status quo 
 and are consequently clogs upon the chariot 
 wheels of progress." But whether the philoso- 
 pher was right or wrong, there is some reason to 
 anticipate that we may eventually have to adopt 
 this program. It would be cruel to allow the vet- 
 erans of forty and over to starve to death, and it 
 is likely to be a heavy charge to feed them. The 
 obvious expedient is, put them out of the way as 
 dogs are dispatched by the pound-keeper. For 
 business is business. The "survival of the fittest" 
 means the fittest up to thirty-nine years old. The 
 others are out of it." 
 
 This sarcastically proposed remedy is, strange 
 as it may seem to a superficial observer, thorough- 
 ly logical from the point of view of such organs of 
 capitalism as the Chronicle, and it is an ominous 
 sign of the inevitable bankruptcy of that accused 
 system. The Chronicle desires to maintain capi- 
 talism and capitalism robs the working man of 
 his labor power during his prime, and then at 
 forty turns him adrift. The Republican robbers 
 
CAPITALISTIC LAW AND THE LABOR MARKET 6l 
 
 recognize this difficulty, and make a pretended at- 
 tempt to meet it by some vain talk of an old age 
 pension, but that simply means (if it has any 
 meaning, taking into account those who propose 
 it), that the superannuated workman must be fed 
 at the expense of the capitalist class, and "busi- 
 ness is business," as the Chronicle remarks. The 
 problem is not solved and the proposition for as- 
 phyxiation still stands. 
 
 True to their class interests, the capitalist press 
 always considers such questions from their class 
 standpoint. That their proposed victims should 
 ever take the initiative in averting their own de- 
 struction by overthrowing the system which pre- 
 sents this puzzle to their masters, is never even 
 hinted at. But the Socialist will see to it that this 
 "problem" is removed from the consideration of 
 the capitalist by continually urging the removal 
 of the causes which bring it into existence. They 
 will relieve the Republicans and Democrats of the 
 trouble of solving it, by asphyxiation or other- 
 wise. To the working men for whom this para- 
 graph is printed we would say: You, like all 
 other men, grow old. When past forty, you will 
 be a ''problem" for your masters, candidates for 
 possible asphyxiation, or probable starvation, both 
 of which are perhaps more likely than that you 
 will become the recipient of an old age pension — 
 for that leaves the "problem" still there. Although 
 your masters speak sarcastically in considering 
 your fate in the future, the "problem" is, after 
 all, for yourselves to solve. When you under- 
 stand its' terms vou will see that it means a strug- 
 
62 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 gle for existence. That you will quietly get off 
 the earth at the bidding of your masters is not 
 very probable. You will have to see as they do, 
 that "business is business," and that your particu- 
 lar business is to stay on the earth as long as you 
 can, even if you have to kick the self-appointed 
 arbiters of your destiny off it, in order to remain 
 upon it yourselves. You can cease to be a ''prob- 
 lem" for their consideration, only by joining with 
 your fellow-workmen for the abolition of the sys- 
 tem which throws your worn-out body on the 
 streets to starve, when your masters can no longer 
 extract the average profit from it. 
 
 In deliberating thus upon how to dispose of 
 you, 'they in reality give you your choice between 
 asphyxiation or starvation on the one hand, and 
 socialism on the other. Which will you have? 
 As your masters say, "It is the survival of the fit- 
 test." Are you fit? Are you going out at thirty- 
 nine, or would you like to stay and see the show a 
 little longer? 
 
 Capitalism is the only issue before the Ameri- 
 can people, and before every other people of west- 
 ern civilization. It can be met by one principle 
 only — Socialism. Either capitalists and capital 
 will own the people or the people v/ill own the so- 
 cial capital. The trusts will own the masses, or 
 the masses will own the trusts. The former is 
 capitalism; the latter Socialism. On a thousand 
 details we may differ, and many such details will 
 have to be threshed out, but on the fundamental 
 principle those who care for men before the 
 money must and will unite. What the people 
 
CAPITALISTIC LAW AND THE LABOR MARKET 63 
 
 socially need, the people must socially own. That 
 is, social ownership is the original resource, and 
 private ownership is the product of one's toil. 
 
 What compensation did poor old Mergenthaler 
 get? The inventor of the typesetting machine 
 which bears his name, died in New York, a com- 
 paratively poor man. His invention was the 
 greatest revolution in the printing trade since the 
 invention of the power press, and realized the 
 dreams of thousands who had worked upon the 
 problem of a mechanical substitute for hand labor 
 in the composing room. But, like so many of his 
 class, ^lergenthaler had no head for business, and 
 when he put the products of his brains into a com- 
 bination, as his contribution to the capital stock, 
 he was soon frozen out and the men of money 
 controlled the machine which he had spent so 
 many weary years in perfecting. 
 
 And all this was done in a perfectly lawful 
 manner. Indeed, the character of the men who 
 did the freezing is hi itself a guarantee that every- 
 thing connected with the deal was most legitimate 
 and business-like. Such men as Whitelaw Reid, 
 the great editor, and one-time candidate for Vice 
 President of the United States, would not stoop 
 to swindling methods. Perish the thought. But 
 the fact remains Lhat Mergenthaler invented the 
 machine, was frozen out and died poor, while 
 Whitelaw Reid and his fellows invented nothing, 
 did the freezing out, and have already amassed 
 millions from the brain work of the dead man. 
 How much better it would have been for the in- 
 ventor had he lived under a system in which the 
 
64 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 government (the whole people) would compen- 
 sate him for his addition to the mechanical won- 
 ders of the age, and reserve their use and all their 
 benefits to all the people. As it is now, Mergen- 
 thaler has gone practically unrewarded, thousands 
 of printers have been thrust out of a livelihood, 
 with no compensation for the years spent in learn- 
 ing their trade, and a band of idle capitalists are 
 reaping the benefits. But the idle printers have 
 at least the opportunity to study in their many 
 leisure hours. 
 
 A TALE TOLD BY A VICTIM. 
 
 In the popular conception, the progress of what 
 is called civilization, is frequently measured by 
 the amount of improved machinery and labor-sav- 
 ing devices in use by the community in discussion. 
 Those who use tools of production which are up- 
 to-date, are generally conceded to be in a more 
 advanced stage of development, and as a rule 
 this conception is true enough. But along with 
 this, another idea takes form, that the owners of 
 these improved tools are consciously assisting the 
 march of progress, and that partially for this rea- 
 son these improved tools are brought into action. 
 Nothing is more false than this idea. The first 
 and only question which arises in the mind of the 
 capitalist, when an invention is brought under his 
 consideration is, ''Will it pay me ?" 
 
 That it sometimes happens that a new labor- 
 saving appliance may, through peculiar circum- 
 stances, offer no such immediate inducement to 
 the capitalist, the following account by a disgust- 
 
CAPITALISTIC LAW AND THE LABOR MARKET 65 
 
 ed inventor amply demonstrates : One of the best 
 mechanical engineers in New Orleans told an in- 
 teresting story, apropos of the tribulation of in- 
 ventors. "During the year of 1897," he said, "I 
 got up a little device which greatly simplified the 
 working of a certain type of pump. I took out a 
 patent that cost me in the neighborhood of three 
 hundred dollars, including attornev's fees, and 
 finally submitted the thing to a big manufactur- 
 ing concern in the North. The proprietors at 
 once conceded the merit of the invention, and of- 
 fered me $500 down, and a royalty of $1.25 on 
 each one used. The cash payment amounted to 
 nothing, for it really fell short of covering my 
 time and expenses, but the royalty was generous 
 and I figured it out that it would yield me an in- 
 come of $3,000 or $4,000 every year, perhaps 
 longer ; it depended on how soon something better 
 entered the field. Accordingly I accepted the 
 proposition and transferred all my right. Now, 
 how much do you think I have actually received ? 
 Not a penny. No. I have not been cheated ; at 
 least all the accounts have been perfectly straight. 
 The trouble is they never put the device on the 
 market. They simply stuck the patents and draw- 
 ing in a pigeon hole and there they remain to this 
 day. Why did they do it, did you ask ? To save 
 money. The public is very well suited with the 
 pump as it stands, and it is doubtful if they could 
 get any more for it with my improvement added. 
 Such a step would merely cut down the profit, so 
 they prefer to let well enough alone. It was nec- 
 essary, of course, to get my invention safely 
 
66 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 shelved or it might have been taken up by some 
 enterprising rival, and the only earthly reason for 
 spending $500 on the thing was to put it out of 
 the way. It was rather rough on me, to be sure, 
 but the experience was valuable, and I will not 
 get caught that way again. My case is by no 
 means exceptional, either. Dozens of inventors, 
 all over the country, have had exactly the same 
 experience." It will be noticed that the buyers 
 of the products of this man's brains were quite 
 ready to recognize the merits of his invention. 
 The question is, "Will it yield me profit?" could 
 not be answered in the affirmative ; but it might, 
 nay, certainly would, have yielded a profit to some 
 rival, therefore the proper method was to buy the 
 right of its use, and then promptly lav it on the 
 shelf. 
 
 The inventor, in telling the story, does not think 
 he was cheated, which shows that he must still 
 have an abiding faith in ''business" morality. The 
 most curious part of the narrative is that this in- 
 ventor was shelved, but it is rather extraordinary 
 that he was not able to see this before surrender- 
 ing his product. If he will only look a little more 
 closely into the nature of this transaction, he will 
 understand that the inventor, as well as all other 
 workers who possess nothing but the power of 
 labor, brain or hands, are both equally defense- 
 less against the capitalist exploiters. Capitalism 
 will only employ inventors when profit accrues, 
 just as they will only employ labor power under 
 similar conditions. The place of the inventor is 
 in the ranks of the Socialists, where, along with 
 
CAPITALISTIC LAW AND THE LABOR MARKET 67 
 
 his exploited fellow-workmen, he can fight for 
 the overthrow of their common enemy, the capi- 
 talist class. Regarding his last statement that his 
 is no exceptional case, we are inclined to believe 
 that he is correct. The capitalist will religiously 
 suppress anything that will not yield profit, and 
 there is no doubt that, like the dog in the manger, 
 he will prevent his rivals from profiting by any 
 invention that he himself cannot use. That is the 
 nature of the beast, and if this inventor wishes to 
 see the product of his brain become a social value, 
 he must strike for the abolition of the system of 
 individual ownership of the means of production, 
 by which his efforts are paralyzed. 
 
 THE CURSE OF PROFIT. 
 
 I feel sure that the time will come when people 
 will find it difficult to believe that a rich commun- 
 ity, such as ours, having such command over ex- 
 ternal nature, could have submitted to live such a 
 mean, shabby, dirty life as we do. And, once for 
 all, there is nothing in our circumstances save the 
 hunting of profit, that drives us into it. It is 
 profit which draws men into enormous, unman- 
 ageable aggregations, called towns, for instance ; 
 profit which crowds them up when they are there, 
 into quarters without gardens or open spaces ; 
 profit which will not take the most ordinary pre- 
 cautions against wrapping a whole district in a 
 cloud of sulphurous smoke ; which turns beauti- 
 ful rivers into filthy sewers ; which condemns all 
 but the rich to live in houses idiotically cramped 
 and confined at the best, and at the worst in 
 
68 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 houses for whose wretchedness there is no name. 
 I say it is almost incredible that we should bear 
 such gross stupidity as this ; nor should we if we 
 could help it. We shall not bear it when the 
 workers get it out of their heads, that they are but 
 an appendage to profit-grinding, that the more 
 profits that are made the more employment at 
 higher wages there will be for them, and that, 
 therefore, all the incredible filth, disorder and de- 
 gradation of modern civilization are signs of their 
 prosperity. So far from that, they are signs of 
 their slavery. 
 
 When they are no longer slaves, they will claim, 
 as a matter of course, that every man and every 
 family should be generously lodged; that every 
 child should be able to play in a garden close to 
 the place his parents live in ; that the houses 
 should, by their obvious decency and order, be or- 
 naments to nature, not disfigurements of it. - All 
 this, of course, would mean the people — that is, 
 all society — duly organized, having in their own 
 hands the means of production, to be owned by no 
 individual, but used by all, as occasion called for 
 its use, and it can only be done on those terms. 
 
 On any other terms people will be driven to 
 accumulate private wealth for themselves, and 
 thus, as we have seen, to waste the goods of the 
 community and perpetuate the division into 
 classes, which means continual war and waste. 
 
 HAVE WE TOO MUCH.^ 
 
 While we, the great American people, are 
 "hammering at the gates of Pekin," as Mr. Depew 
 
CAPITALISTIC LAW AND THE LABOR MARKET 69 
 
 says, in order to dispose of that $2,000,000,000 
 worth of products which we cannot consume, 
 would it not be well to see if there are some con- 
 sumers among us, even yet, who could do with a 
 trifle more? Here, for instance, are two cases 
 picked at random from a Chicago paper : No. i. — 
 "Forced by destitution to the verge of insanity, 
 and shivering with cold, Airs. Emma Muhs, of 
 178 North Green street, left her seven children, 
 including an infant but a few weeks old, and wan- 
 dered muttering and moaning through the streets 
 until taken in charge by the West Chicago Avenue 
 Station. She wore a wretched old wrapper, her 
 feet were bare and bleeding, and her hair hung 
 uncombed and unfastened. The officers conveyed 
 her to the detention hospital, and an hour later 
 took four of the children to the same institution. 
 The baby, covered with sores, and scarcely alive, 
 was taken to the Foundlings' home. Robert and 
 Willie, aged 4, were given homes by relatives at 
 71 Bissell street. Homer, 13 years old; Emil, 
 aged II, and the two little girls are still at the de- 
 tention hospital, and will be brought before Judge 
 Tuthill in the Juvenile Court. Mrs. Aluhs' hus- 
 band, who was a teamster, was killed not long ago 
 by falling from his wagon." 
 
 No. 2. — "In an alley back of Princeton Avenue, 
 near 37th Street, Airs. Sarah Elliott, loi years of 
 age, was found by the police after having been 
 evicted from a small room, which she occupied 
 alone, in that neighborhood. The woman was 
 crouching in the shadow of a barn, and was shiv- 
 ering with cold under the meager protection of 
 
70 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 a ragged blanket. She had begged the landlord 
 to wait a few days, when she believed that money 
 would reach her from grandsons fighting in the 
 Philippines. Her plea was refused. Mrs. Elliott 
 was born in the north of Ireland, and came to this 
 country more than forty years ago. Her daugh- 
 ter, who is now an old woman, is sick at the 
 county hospital. In spite of her great age the un- 
 fortunate woman is active and has retained all of 
 her faculties. She was too proud to beg and had 
 been without food for twenty-four hours. She 
 was taken to the poorhouse at Dunning." 
 
 Incidents like these, which, although so com- 
 mon as- to pass almost unnoticed, and which yet 
 might be multiplied indefinitely, give the lie di- 
 rect to the smooth, glibly lying hypocrite who, at 
 the Republican convention, gabbled so eloquently 
 of the inability of the American people to con- 
 sume the surplus, created by the labor of the com- 
 munity. Could the unfortunate women and chil- 
 dren above mentioned have consumed anything 
 more in the way of clothing, food and shelter 
 than fell to their lot ? Is the wearing of a 'Svretch- 
 ed old wrapper" an unfailing sign that more cloth- 
 ing has been produced than can possibly be con- 
 sumed ? Can "bare, bleeding feet" be reconciled 
 with the fact that a pair of women's high grade 
 shoes can be turned out in a ''fraction under four- 
 teen minutes," as was the recent boast of a capital- 
 ist shoe factory owner of Chicago? Can these 
 two facts be harmonized, unless upon the suppo- 
 sition that the capitalist production is an insane, 
 irrational system? Read this over again, and let 
 
CAPITALISTIC LAW AND THE LABOR MARKET yi 
 
 the horror of the thing soak into you. ''Forced by 
 destitution to the verge of insanity and shivering 
 with cold/' the mother of seven children wanders 
 moaning and muttering through the streets until 
 taken in charge by police. Baby, a few weeks old, 
 covered with sores and scarcely alive ; father, a 
 teamster, killed by a fall from a wagon a short 
 time before ; rags, hunger and wretchedness, a 
 *'home" consisting of a small room, broken up 
 (not by Socialism, either) ; a woman loi years 
 old crouched in the shadow of a barn shivering 
 with cold under a ragged blanket, and the sons 
 fighting on the other side of the world for the 
 purpose of forcing $2,000,000,000 worth of prod- 
 ucts from 800,000,000 Asiatics. Would you not 
 say that an economic system which gives results 
 like the above is, in reality, a combination of hell 
 and a lunatic asylum ? 
 
''AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?" 
 
 Hello, John. "I have been a Republican since 
 i860, but my party stinks in the nostrils of decent 
 men. If the people are willing to uphold such cor- 
 ruption, as many of the leaders practice, and to 
 condone their dishonesty, God help the country." 
 — John Wanamaker. 
 
 Very commonly we hear men say. Yes, it is a 
 pity that things are so bad ; but it is no fault of 
 ours, and nothing we can do will mend them. 
 Now, John, this is a cowardly and dishonest ex- 
 cuse. It is the old plea of Cain, ''Am I my broth- 
 er's keeper?" No one can shirk his responsibil- 
 ity. We are none of us guiltless when wrong is 
 done. We are all responsible, in some degree, for 
 every crime and sin, and for every grief and 
 shame for which, and by which, our fellow-crea- 
 tures suffer. Do your duty, John. Do not lie 
 to your soul any more. Long have you known 
 that injustice and misery are rife amongst the 
 people. If you have not acted upon the knowl- 
 edge, it is not because you knew it to be useless 
 so to act, but because you were lazy and preferred 
 your ease, or because you were selfish and feared 
 to lose your own advantage, or because you were 
 heartless, and did not really feel any pangs at the 
 sight of the sufferings of others. ''These com- 
 mon sights of the common streets," John, are very 
 terrible to me. To a man of nervous tempera- 
 ment, at once thoughtful and imaginative, these 
 sights must be terrible. The prostitute under the 
 
''am I MY brother's KEEPER T 73 
 
 lamps, the baby beggar in the gutter, the broken 
 pauper in his Hvery of shame, the weary worker 
 stifling in his fihhy shims, the wage sl^ve toihng 
 at his task, the sweater's victim, "sewing at once, 
 with a double thread, a shroud as well as a shirt" 
 — these things are dreadful, ghastly, shameful 
 facts which long since seared themselves upon my 
 heart. "All this sin, all this wretchedness, all this 
 pain, in spite of the smiling fields and the laugh- 
 ing waters, under the awful and unsullied sky. 
 And no remedy ! These things I saw, and I knew 
 that. I was responsible as a man. Then I tried to 
 find out the causes of the wrong, and the remedy 
 thereof. It has taken me some years, John. But 
 I think I understand it now, and I want you to 
 understand it (Socialism), and to help in your 
 turn to teach others. Yes, John, you fellows smell 
 pretty bad. There are awful practices amongst 
 your kind of people. There are those who get 
 rich by taking the coal away from the miner; 
 those who in the factory rob the children of youth 
 and education ; those who conduct sweatshops 
 and reduce men, women and children alike, to the 
 conditions of ignorance, squalor and disease, those 
 who sell the products of the factory and sweat 
 shops, and make their clerks work long hours for 
 short pay. You. John, are one of the latter sort, 
 and you have made a great deal of money dealing 
 out cheap goods through the medium of cheap 
 help. You did it for profit. That is what all of 
 the others did their "business" for. You are just 
 as good as they are. And if the army beef men, 
 and the rotten clothing men, and the armor plate 
 
74 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 men get a little more profit than you do, John, 
 do not get fretful and begin to talk about God. 
 That is just what Republican John Rockefeller, 
 and Carnegie, and Vanderbilt, and all wise capi- 
 talist Johns talk about when they want to wool 
 the people a little more. Dishonesty is a hard 
 word, John. Of course you would not do anything 
 wrong for the world, but these other fellows are 
 terrible grasping, eh, John? God does not seem 
 to be able to do much while you fellows are in 
 charge of "business," John. But some time the 
 people will take a hand in business. Then, good- 
 by, John Wanamaker, and all other God-fearing 
 ( ?) man despoiling cheapjohns. ''Many of the 
 leaders" includes all of the robbers, and you are 
 fairly in it, John. 
 
CAPITAL AGAINST LABOR. 
 
 It is a well-known fact that in all conflicts be- 
 tween capital and labor, the capitalist enters into 
 the strife knowing that he can fill the place of 
 every striker within a few hours. The supply is 
 so great, and the anxiety to obtain work so strong 
 that men will even risk their lives at the hands 
 of the ofttimes desperate strikers in order 
 to gain a position. The capitalist has no fears 
 about getting laborers — the only fear he has is, 
 that organized labor should, by force and vio- 
 lence, prevent his "scab" workmen, as they are 
 termed, from proceeding. These facts must con- 
 clusively refute the statements too often made 
 that "men won't work," and ''there is work enough 
 if men are only willing to do it." Such is not the 
 truth. I can find many instances where good, 
 steady workmen have offered to the foremen of 
 certain establishments ten and twent}'-five dollars 
 and even the whole of the first month's wages, 
 if they would find them employment. 
 
 But how about the "bums," who will not work, 
 even when it is offered to them ? And the reply is 
 worth the thoughtful consideration of all. Let me 
 ask, what is a "bum?" As a rule, you will 
 find him to be a creature degraded by circum- 
 stances and evil conditions. Let me illustrate : A 
 man loses his job by sickness, or some other una- 
 voidable cause. He seeks work, and I have shown 
 you how difficult it is to find it. He fails time 
 and time again. Is it any wonder that he grows 
 
y^ CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 discouraged, and that, picking up his meals at the 
 free hinch counter, sleeping in the wretched lodg- 
 ing houses, associating with the filthy and degrad- 
 ed, he, step by step, drifts further away from the 
 habits of integrity \and industry that used to be a 
 part of himself. He sinks lower and lower, until 
 overcome by circumstances, he is at the bottom of 
 the social layer — a "bum," at once a menace and 
 a disgrace to the city. Instead of blaming and con- 
 demning him, poor fellow, we should look at the 
 circumstances that made him what he is, and en- 
 deavor to remedy them. 
 
 I myself spent six months in 1894 earnestly 
 seeking work, around Chicago and vicinity. Yes, 
 riding Pullman side door Gondolas, and then had 
 to change my name before I got a job, because 
 I was an A. R. U. striker. No, I assure you, it is 
 only a narrow, ignorant, superficial view of affairs 
 that will lead anyone to doubt the existence of 
 such widespread poverty, and the difficulty there 
 is to gain employment. I know thousands of peo- 
 ple will meet my statements with their cool- 
 blooded and virtuous remark that, *'No one can 
 earnestly seek work and not find it," and thus 
 shuffle their own responsibility on some poor 
 wretch who is close upon the verge of one of the 
 three precipices of desperation, despair or crime. 
 Let me emphatically condemn that remark, as in 
 many cases absolutely untrue. 
 
 Nothing better and more practical that I know 
 of has been uttered on this subject than by Robt. 
 G. Ingersoll, in his "Crimes Against Criminals," 
 and from that speech I extract the following: 
 
CAPITAL AGAI^fST LABOR ']'] 
 
 ''Whoever is degraded by society becomes its en- 
 emy. The seeds of mahce are sown in his heart, 
 and to the day of his death he will hate the hands 
 that sowed the seed. * * * A punishment 
 which degrades the punished will degrade the 
 man who inflicts the punishment, and will de- 
 grade the government that procures the inflic- 
 tion. The whipping-post pollutes, not only the 
 whipped, but the whipper, and not only the whip- 
 per but the community at large. Wherever its 
 shadow fall it degrades. * * * \Miat is the 
 condition of this man ? Can he get employment ? 
 Not if he honestly states who he is and where he 
 has been. The first thing he does is to deny his 
 personality, to assume a name. He endeavors by 
 telling falsehoods to lay the foundation for fu- 
 ture good conduct. The average man does not 
 wish to employ an ex-convict, because the aver- 
 age man has no confidence in the reforming power 
 of the penitentiary. He believes that the convict 
 who comes out is worse than the convict who 
 goes in. He knows that in the penitentiary the 
 heart of this man has been hardened — that he has 
 been subjected to the torture of perpetual humiha- 
 tion — that he has been treated like a ferocious 
 beast ; and so he believes that this ex-convict has 
 in his heart hatred for society, that he feels that 
 he has been degraded and robbed. Under these 
 circumstances what is open to the ex-convict ? If 
 he changes his name there will be some detective, 
 some officer of the law, some meddlesome wretch, 
 who will betray his secret. He is then discharg- 
 ed. He seeks employment again, and he must 
 
78 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 seek it again by telling what is not true. He is 
 again detected, and again discharged. And final- 
 ly he becomes convinced that he cannot live as an 
 honest man. He naturally drifts back into the 
 society of those who have had a little experience ; 
 and the result is that in a little while he again 
 stands in the dock, charged with the commission 
 of another crime. Again he is sent to the peni- 
 tentiary, and this is the end. He feels that his 
 day is done, that the future has only degradation 
 for him." 
 
 The convict should feel the protecting power of 
 the State. He should be given a "chance" when 
 discharged. Some of his prison earnings should 
 be given him to begin life anew. This would give 
 him food and raiment, and enable him to get to 
 some other State or country where he could re- 
 deem himself. If this were done, thousands of 
 convicts would feel under immense obligations to 
 the government. They would think of the peni- 
 tentiary as the place in which they were saved — 
 in which they were redeemed — and they would 
 feel that the verdict of ''guilty" rescued them, from 
 the abyss of crime. Under these circumstances the 
 law would appear beneficent, and the heart of the 
 poor convict, instead of being filled with malice, 
 would overflow with gratitude. He would see the 
 propriety of the course pursued by the govern- 
 ment. He would recognize and feel and experi- 
 ence the benefits of this course, and the result 
 would be good, not only to him but to the nation 
 as well. 
 
CAPITAL AGAINST LABOR 79 
 
 CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Invention has filled the world with competitors, 
 not only of laborers, but of mechanics of the high- 
 est skill. To-day the ordinary laborer is, for the 
 most part, a peg in the wheel. He works with the 
 tireless machine — he feeds its insatiable maw. 
 When the monster stops the man is out of em- 
 ployment — out of bread. He has not saved any- 
 thing. The machine invention was not for his 
 benefit. Some time ago I heard a man say that it 
 was impossible for good mechanics to get emplov- 
 ment, and that, in his judgment, the government 
 ought to furnish work for the people. A few min- 
 utes later I heard another say that he was selling a 
 patent for cutting out clothes, that one of the 
 machines could do the work of twenty tailors, and 
 that only a short time ago he had sold two to a 
 great house in New York, and that over forty 
 cutters had been discharged. 
 
 On every side men are being discharged and 
 machines are being invented to take their places. 
 When a great factory shuts down, the workers 
 who inhabited it and gave it life, as thoughts to 
 the brain, go away, it stands there like an empty 
 skull. A few workmen, by the force of habit, 
 gather about the closed doors and broken win- 
 dows and talk about distress, the price of food and 
 the coming winter. They are convinced that they 
 have not their share of what they created. They 
 feel certain that the machines on the inside were 
 not their friends. They look at the mansion of 
 the employer, but have nothing themselves. The 
 
8o CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 employer seems to have enough. Even when em- 
 ployers fail, when they become bankrupt, they 
 are far better off than their laborers ever were. 
 Their worst is the toiler's best. 
 
 THE CAPITALIST AND HIS SPECIFIC. 
 
 He tells the working men they must be eco- 
 nomical, and yet, under the present system econ- 
 omy would lessen wages. Under the great law 
 of supply and demand, every saving, frugal, self- 
 denying workman is unconsciously doing what lit- 
 tle he can to reduce the compensation of himself 
 and his fellows. The slaves who did not wish to 
 run away helped to fasten the chains of those who 
 did. Lo, the saving mechanic is a certificate that 
 wages are high enough. Does not the great law 
 demand that every worker should live on the least 
 possible amount of bread? Is it not his fate to 
 work one day that he may get food enough to be 
 able to work another ? Is that to be his only hope 
 — that, and death? 
 
 Capital has also claimed and still claims the 
 right to combine. Manufacturers meet and de- 
 termine prices, even in spite of supply and de- 
 m.and. Have not the laborers the same right to 
 consult and combine ? The rich meet in the bank, 
 club house or parlor. Workingmen, when they 
 combine, gather in the street. All the organized 
 forces of society are against them. Capital has 
 the army and navy, the legislative, the judicial 
 and executive departments. When the rich com- 
 bine it is for the purpose of "exchanging ideas." 
 If the poor combine it is "conspiracy." If they 
 
CAPITAL AGAINST LABOR 8l 
 
 act in concert, if they really do something, it is a 
 mob ; if they defend themselves it is treason ? 
 
 How is it that the rich control the departments 
 of the government? In this country the po- 
 litical power is equally divided among men. 
 There are certainly more poor than rich. Why 
 should the rich control ? Why should not the 
 poor combine for the purpose of controlling the 
 executive, the legislative and judicial depart- 
 ments? \\'ill they ever find out how powerful 
 they are? A cry comes from the oppressed, the 
 hungry, the downtrodden, from the unfortunate, 
 from the despised, from men in despair, and from 
 women who weep. There are times when mendi- 
 cants become revolutionists — when a rag becomes 
 a banner under which the noblest and the bravest 
 battle for the right. 
 
 How arc we to settle the unequal difference be- 
 tween man and machine ? Will the machine final- 
 ly go into partnership with the laborer ? Can these 
 forces of nature be controlled for the benefit of the 
 children ? Will extravagance keep pace with in- 
 genuity? W^ill the workmen become intelligent 
 and strong enough to become the owners of the 
 machines ? Will these giants, these titans, shorten 
 or lengthen the hours of labor? Will they give 
 leisure to the industrious, or will they make the 
 rich richer or the poor poorer ? Is man involved 
 in the ''general scheme" of things? Is there no 
 pity, no mercy? Can a man become intelligent 
 enough to be generous, to be just, or does the 
 same law or facts control him that controls the 
 animal or the vegetable world? The great oak 
 
S2 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 steals the sunlight from the smaller trees. The 
 strong animal devours the weak — everything at 
 the mercy of the beak, and the claw, and hoof, 
 and tooth — of hand, and club, and brain and greed 
 — inequality, injustice everywhere. The poor 
 horse standing in the street with his dray, over- 
 worked, overwhipped and underfed, when he sees 
 horses groomed to mirror, glistening with gold 
 and silver, scorning with proud feet the very 
 earth, probably indulges in the usual social reflec- 
 tions ; and this same horse, worn out and old, de- 
 serted by his master, turned into the dusty road, 
 leans his head on the topmost rail, looks at don- 
 keys in the field of clover, and feels like a nihilist. 
 In the days of cannibalism the strong devoured 
 the weak — actually ate their flesh. In spite of all 
 laws that man has made, in spite of all advances 
 in science, the strong, the heartless, still live on 
 the weak, the unfortunate, the foolish. True, 
 they do not drink their blood or eat their flesh, 
 but they live on their self-denial, their weariness 
 and want. The poor man who deforms himself 
 by toil, who labors for his wife and children 
 through all his anxious, barren, wasted life — who 
 goes to the grave without ever having a luxury — 
 has been the food for others. He has been de- 
 voured by his fellowmen. The poor woman, liv- 
 ing in the bare and lonely room, cheerless and fire- 
 less, night and day, to keep starvation from her 
 child, is slowly being eaten by her fellowmen. 
 When I take into consideration the agony of civ- 
 ilized life, the failures, the anxieties, the tears, the 
 hunger, the crime, the humiliation and the shame, 
 
CAPITAL AGAINST LABOR 83 
 
 I am almost forced to say that cannibalism, after 
 all. is the most merciful form in which man can 
 exist. 
 
 It is mipossible for a man with a good heart to 
 be satisfied with this world as it is now. No man 
 can truly enjoy what he really earns — what he 
 knows to be his own — knowing that millions of 
 his fellowmen are in misery and want. When we 
 think of the famished we feel it almost heartless 
 to eat. To meet the ragged and shivering ones 
 makes one almost feel ashamed to be well dressed 
 and warm — one feels as if his heart were as cold 
 as their bodies. In a world filled with millions, 
 and millions of acres of land waiting to be tilled, 
 when one man can raise food for hundreds, mil- 
 lions are yet on the edge of famine. Who can 
 comprehend the stupidity at the bottom of this 
 fact ? Is there to be no change ? Are the laws of 
 "supply and demand," invention and science, mo- 
 nopoly and competition, capital and legislation al- 
 ways to be enemies of those who toil ? \\'ill the 
 workers always be ignorant and stupid enough to 
 give their earnings to the useless ? Will they sup- 
 port millions of soldiers to kill sons of other work- 
 men ? Will they always build temples and live in 
 huts and dens themselves ? Will they forever al- 
 low parasites and vampires to live on their blood ? 
 Will they remain the slaves of the beggars they 
 support? Will honest men stop taking off their 
 hats to successful frauds? Will industry, in the 
 presence of crowned idleness, forever fall upon 
 its knees ; and will the lips unstained by lies for- 
 ever kiss the robbers' and imposters' hands ? Will 
 
84 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 they understand that beggars cannot be generous, 
 and that every healthy man must earn the right to 
 Hve ? Will they finally say that the man who has 
 had privileges with all others has no right to 
 complain, or will they follow the example set by 
 their oppressors? Will they learn that force, to 
 succeed, must have thought behind it, and that 
 everything done, in order that they may succeed, 
 must rest on justice?" 
 
 THIS WORLD OF OURS. 
 
 Occasionally the world's plutocracy pauses in 
 its revelry of luxury and power, and with an air of 
 assumed innocence asks : What is wrong ? In the 
 name of justice, what is right? Liberty is being 
 crucified. Patriotism is dying. Justice is de- 
 throned. The rich are reckless in their extrava- 
 gance ; the poor are starving. 
 
 Government, which is supposed to find justifica- 
 tion in principles of reason and humanity, and de- 
 rives its powers from the consent of the governed, 
 has become a tool of oppression. Armed invaders 
 are sent from one country to another to conquer 
 its subjects. The militia is being strengthened. 
 Plutocracy is arming itself for a contest and labor 
 is preparing to accept the battle. Legislative in- 
 fluence is bought and sold, as though it was an 
 ordinary commodity. Courts are corrupted and 
 justice bartered. The ballot, the only instru- 
 ment the people have to protect themselves with, 
 except the bullet, is being tampered with, and to a 
 great extent, controlled by corrupt "rings." A 
 selfish, unscrupulous "ward heeler," or squirrel- 
 
CAPITAL AGAINST LABOR 85 
 
 tailed politician, is considered of more account 
 than a dozen honest voters. Corruption, monop- 
 oly and oppression are everywhere. The people 
 are taxed on everything they handle, whether they 
 eat it, wear it or use it in their different vocations. 
 
 The genius of man discovers new inventions, 
 but the avarice of man at once monopolizes them, 
 and they become agents of oppression, instead of 
 beneficent discoveries. Wealth is concentrating 
 in the hands of the few, and children are begging 
 for bread. The wise are blind ; the church is 
 asleep ; the press is subsidized or hypnotized, and 
 the statesmen are scrambling for a "job." The 
 idle army of workmen is increasing. Directly they 
 will get hungry — ah, they are hungry now. Some 
 are begging; some are stealing; some are starv- 
 ing; but all are verging on that madness which is 
 the sure precursor of revolution. The eyes of the 
 triumphant plutocracy see not the danger, and 
 their hearts heed not the cry of the oppressed. The 
 world is bright for them. Why should they care ? 
 "Am I my brother's keeper?" ''Eat, drink and be 
 merry, for to-morrow you may die." And the 
 world swings around. The gulf is widening. 
 "The conflict is nearing." Plutocracy is prepar- 
 ing Belshazzer's feast. Caesar is crossing the 
 Rubicon. History is repeating itself, and God will 
 wipe out the wrongs of humanity, although it 
 sends back the hands of progress on the dial of 
 civilization. God pity the homeless poor in this 
 world of ours : the weary earth pilgrim with no 
 place to call home. 
 
 God made the beautiful shining lakes, the wind- 
 
86 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 ing rivers, the babbling brooks, crystal springs, 
 and waving forests. He gave them to man. He 
 gave them countless millions of acres of fertile 
 land. Among his princely gifts were rich deposits 
 of gold and silver, lead and iron, zinc and copper, 
 and every metal that could lead to the happiness 
 of manhood. He gave us strong arms, cunning 
 hands and willing hearts. Man accepted the gift, 
 and before his sturdy blows forests were felled; 
 in their places sprung up cities with their golden 
 spires and smoking chimneys, that pierced the 
 blue above. Fertile fields yield their bountiful 
 store of golden grain. The iron horse, shaking 
 the ground beneath, and outstripping the wind 
 above, carries its load of human freight, and de- 
 livers its precious stores in distant cities, bringing 
 back the products of the artisan and the factory. 
 Over the earth is stretched a network of wires on 
 which messages are borne on lightning's wing. 
 All these are the gifts of God and the products 
 of man's labor. God sends refreshing showers 
 and the beautiful sunshine and coaxes Mother 
 Earth to yield her bountiful stores. Soft winds 
 kiss the beautiful flowers, whose myriads of colors 
 please the eye and gladden the heart. 
 
 But amidst all this plenty and beauty there is 
 much sadness. ''Man's inhumanity to man makes 
 the countless thousands mourn." The rich have 
 seized the lands. The poor have no homes. The 
 flowers do not bloom for them. The beautiful 
 palaces which they build with their own hands af- 
 ford them no shelter. The song of the babbling 
 brook is hollow mockery. Of the beautiful har- 
 
CAPITAL AGAINST LABOR 87 
 
 vests they get a more sustenance, and many beg 
 that. The laws protect the rich and allow them 
 to rob the poor. Each day the rich are growing 
 richer, and the poor poorer. Usury and extortion 
 are sapping the industries of the nation. What 
 fond memories are connected with the word home. 
 "There's no place like home." There a man's pa- 
 triotism is anchored. There in the atmosphere of 
 its wholesome influence, his whole being is enno- 
 bled. There, in the sweet companionship of wife 
 and children, his character is cast into a finer 
 mould. There he builds him an altar and wor- 
 ships God. There is exerted the kind influence 
 of mother that will be carried over the golden 
 wires of memory, in years to come, to guide the 
 earning ones when they reach manhood. Looking 
 back through the varying scenes of fleeting years, 
 we behoM the sweet smile of mother, the kind 
 caress of father, and loving confidence of sister or 
 brother. Oh, home. In thy sacred precincts were 
 formed ties of love that will never be broken in 
 life. How cruel to be robbed of home. How great 
 the nation's sin that permits it. 
 
 "Socialism will destroy the family," shriek the 
 defenders of Capitalism, and a lot of fool laborers 
 and otherwise intelligent people are frightened 
 from a further examination of the Socialist posi- 
 tion. It is needless to say that no Socialist ever 
 proposed or dreamed of any such thing, and one 
 might be at a loss to know how the idea origin- 
 ated if it were not for the fact, which has long 
 been recognized, that Capitalism always imputes 
 its own sins to its opponents. 
 
88 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 It is Capitalism, not Socialism, that is destroy- 
 ing all family life. It sends the wife and mother 
 into the New England factories, while the father 
 either cares for the children at home or is driven 
 to the "stag towns" of the West, leaving the 
 women to make up the *'she villages" of the 
 East. Even if they are still allowed to nominally 
 make up a single "home," the father is not al- 
 lowed to get acquainted with his family; his 
 children scarcely know him. Worse yet, the 
 factory invades the "home" and makes it that 
 hell of feverish toil called a sweat-shop. At 
 every point Capitalism pours its destructive 
 venom out upon this supposedly cherished insti- 
 tution. It reduces the incomes of thousands to 
 the point where marriage is an impossibility on 
 the part of men and prostitution a necessity for 
 the woman. It yearly drives thousands of men 
 to desert their families, upon which, through 
 lack of employment, they have become a burden, 
 not a means of maintenance. It compels a large 
 per cent of the population to live under condi- 
 tions where children are born only to be killed 
 by their surroundings, and sets a premium on 
 infanticide through child insurance. Nor is this 
 state of afifairs confined to the manual laborers. 
 The clerk in the department store may have the 
 amusement of flattering himself that socially he 
 belongs to the Capitalist class, but he is plainly 
 told that he must not act upon that supposition 
 to the extent of marrying and making himself a 
 home. In all professional lines the same ten- 
 dency is seen. Wages are calculated upon the 
 
CAPITAL AGAINST LABOR 89 
 
 basis of what it takes to support a single indi- 
 vidual at the standard which the employer thinks 
 is necessary to be profitable to his business, and 
 no arrangements are made for the "home." With 
 the school-teacher this fact is even more bru- 
 tally stated. The woman teacher is frankly told 
 that, while she may have a husband, she must 
 not enjoy the luxury of children. Furthermore, 
 the salaries of the male teachers are kept at a 
 point where marriage is impossible, and if he 
 dares to marry a woman teacher, her salary stops 
 and the "home" is again attacked. Some time 
 ago one teacher was forced to make the awful 
 choice between her child and her means of living 
 and caring for that child. In the end she was 
 not even allowed the choice, and when she had, 
 as it were, sacrificed the society and care of her 
 child for the power to feed it, the powers decided 
 that she still might have some feelings of moth- 
 erly interest in it, and so discharged her that both 
 might suffer together. 
 
 Capitalism, after robbing its victims, charges 
 them with murder. It is by no means a new de- 
 vice of capitalist society to charge the unfortun- 
 ate victims of the wage system with crimes which 
 in themselves can easily be traced to the necessi- 
 ties of profit-making, as the following extract 
 from a New York paper will illustrate : "Of the 
 children who passed through the Gerry society's 
 hands last winter 1.708 were insured," said Su- 
 perintendent Jenkins that day. "Many of these 
 children, I am confident, were insured to be kill- 
 ed by neglect, or otherwise, so that those who 
 
90 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 insured them might pocket the money. In child 
 Hfe insurance," continued Mr. Jenkins, "a parent 
 or guardian or other person — for it does not mat- 
 ter to the insurance company who takes the 
 poUcy — bets the insurance company that a cer- 
 tain child will die within a certain time, for all 
 of these policies are made for a certain time, at 
 the end of which they may be renewed. The 
 company bets that the child will not die within 
 the specified time. The insured puts up a stated 
 sum when he registers his bet. If the child fails 
 to die the money is lost by the payer and re- 
 tained by the company. If the child dies the 
 company loses the bet and pays the money." 
 What sort of people are they who hold stock in 
 such companies ? They are the same crowd who 
 support Gerry societies, the same hypocritical 
 gang who constantly inveigh against gambling, 
 the same type of people who get up the ''cru- 
 sades" against pool rooms, and form themselves 
 into societies for the suppression of crap shoot- 
 ing. The same canting, Pharisaical crowd that 
 Jesus denounced as ''straining at a gnat and 
 swallowing a camel." These wolves in sheeps' 
 clothing, whom the sight of a stack of poker 
 chips fills with holy horror, have no scruple what- 
 ever in taking a hand in a game where the stakes 
 are laid against the lives of the unfortunate off- 
 spring of the plundered victims of capitalist rob- 
 bery. Agents, the most plausible and persua- 
 sive that can be secured, are constantly sent 
 round to urge upon the parents the necessity of 
 making provision for fatalities to which their 
 
CAPITAL AGAIXST LABOR 9 1 
 
 children are exposed. The more successful these 
 agents are the more profit for the stockholders. 
 \Vhen fatalities occur it is found convenient to 
 charge the working class with deliberate infan- 
 ticide for the sake of gain. This talk of insuring 
 the lives of children for the sole purpose of ob- 
 taining the premium has been rife for many 
 years, and it most frequently crops out when 
 the dividends due the stockholders show signs of 
 diminution. If it could be substantiated, there 
 would be no trouble in revoking the charters of 
 such insurance companies. 
 
 The great mortality among the children of the 
 working class, whether insured or not, is one of 
 the most striking evidences of the murderous 
 character of the capitalist system. If an analysis 
 were made it would most probably be found that 
 where the mortality is excessive the workers are 
 too poor to make even an attempt to insure. The 
 truth is that capitalism murders the children of 
 the workers and its upholders then charge the 
 luckless parents with the crime. The "company" 
 is a convenient scape-goat, upon which the sanc- 
 timonious capitalist stockholder can lay his por- 
 tion of the guilt involved in the charges. The 
 company bets — the godly stockholder does not 
 approve of betting — but the tastes of profits are 
 too sweet for him to forego. Therefore all will 
 be well if only the cloak of ''legality" can be 
 thrown over the whole proceeding, and a more 
 suitable name found for this commercial gamble. 
 in which the lives of children are used as coun- 
 ters in the game. The ingenuity with which 
 
92 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 capitalism covers up the traces of criminality has 
 also created a wide selection of "respectable" 
 names under which this particular form of profit- 
 making can operate, and those who thrive by it 
 still retain the odor of sanctity. And when the 
 competition amongst the rival gamblers becomes 
 too severe, and dividends consequently de- 
 crease, it is found quite easy to accuse the work- 
 ing class of making away with their own children 
 and the "legitimate'' profit of the "company" at 
 the same time, and it is not unlikely that the lat- 
 ter is, in the eyes of its accusers, the greater crime 
 of the two. 
 
 Is this the true position then? Is capital the 
 friend of labor? Are the sweaters, the usurers, 
 the land grabbers, the stock-exchange gamblers, 
 the patentee monopolists, the property-lords, the 
 syndicated exploiters, the subsidized upholders 
 of capitalism — are these, I ask, the friends of the 
 workers? If they are, why do we mutter against 
 them behind their backs, though we cringe when 
 they look at us ; and why are we always com- 
 plaining of the station in life in which it has 
 pleased Providence and our good friends to place 
 us for our own good? If they are not; if, so far 
 from being the friends, they are the inveterate 
 enemies of the workers ; if we regard them as 
 oppressors ; if, as we exclaim at excited moments, 
 they have stolen our birth-rights, and still con- 
 spire to keep us from our heritage ; if we secretly 
 hate and detest them and their infamous system 
 of exploitation — why in the name of all the gods 
 at once, do we continue to palter with them? 
 
CAPITAL AGAINST LABOR 93 
 
 Why do we not come out and declare that we 
 hate the capitahsts and their aUies with a never- 
 dving hate ; that we have no thoughts, no feel- 
 in^^s. no interests, no aspirations in common with 
 them ; that there is eternal war between us— 
 war, remorseless and unsparing? 
 
DEMOCRACY EXPOSED. 
 
 How many thousand times have you heard of 
 the ''J^ff^^sonian Democracy?" What was Jef- 
 ferson's idea of Democracy? It is all put by him 
 in just fifty-nine words in his inaugural address, 
 and here are those fifty-nine words : "A wise 
 and frugal government, that shall restrain men 
 from injuring one another, shall leave them 
 otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of 
 industry and improvement and shall not take from 
 the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This 
 is the sum of good government, and this is neces- 
 sary to close the circle of our felicities." 
 
 But suppose some leader could go far ahead 
 of Jefferson, as Jefferson went ahead of his pred- 
 ecessors. Suppose we had a leader who would 
 say and mean what follows : "Friend, I do not 
 limit myself to Jefferson's views or to Jefferson's 
 plans. He believed and our early Democrats be- 
 lieved that letting people alone to fight, compete 
 and work out their own salvation would bring 
 happiness and contentment at least to a majority. 
 That belief was very pretty. But unfortunately 
 we know now that the mere policy of giving 
 every man a chance, and the Devil take the hind- 
 most does not make happiness and contentment 
 for a majority, or even for a reasonable minority. 
 We know that the extra cunning of some men, 
 the bribable nature, the intense selfishness of a 
 great majority, means inevitable hardship and 
 want for more than half the people. I say that 
 
DEMOCRACY EXPOSED 95 
 
 in this country there is or could be produced 
 enough for All. I mean with your help and 
 authority to see that it is produced, and once 
 produced, to see it fairly divided. I am not satis- 
 fied with a government that takes from the 
 mouth of labor the bread which it has earned. 
 I want a government that shall say. Bread alone 
 is not good enough for the mouth of labor. 
 When labor which produces gets only bread, 
 while parasite, cunning and capital, which ex- 
 ploit and plan, get cake and pie and jam. Democ- 
 racy is a failure. A government which can only 
 boast that it does not take bread from the mouth 
 of labor has but little to boast of. I think as 
 little of it as I should of a nurse girl if I heard 
 her boasting that she never stole the milk from 
 the baby, I would say to her, 'If that is your 
 only recommendation, get out.' I would substi- 
 tute for 'the wise and frugal government' de- 
 scribed by Jefferson, a 'wise and generous gov- 
 ernment.' Would I have government discour- 
 age brains and energy? No, but does a father 
 discourage brains and energy when he whips his 
 boy for kicking his little sister? He makes a 
 man of him. I would improve the energetic, In- 
 telligent strains of Americans by kicking de- 
 cency into them. 
 
 "I go by what I see, not by fine generalities. 
 I see a few thousands dying of over-eating and 
 over-drinking, or shivering with nervousness, 
 racked by watching useless piles of money. I 
 see millions leading dull, gray lives ; wants halt 
 satisfied ; ambitions killed. We are a free people 
 
96 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 with nine men in every ten haunted by fear of 
 losing employment. Pretty freedom ! We are 
 a people of unlimited producing resources kept 
 poor and pinched by laws of supply and demand. 
 Who made those laws? The people. Friend, I 
 shall sum up the supply and demand situation 
 in a way that will be called anarchy by all save 
 perhaps about seventy-nine million of our inhab- 
 itants." 
 
WE SHOULD GOVERN, NOT OUR ANCES- 
 TORS. 
 
 I have very little to say of George Washing- 
 ton, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. 
 They were great figures in our history ; but they 
 are dead now. And while old party speakers 
 seem to hold communication with them and 
 claim to know just what they would do now, 
 what their policy would be, how they would deal 
 with the Philippine question, the Cuban and the 
 Chinese, I am somewhat inclined to think it a 
 pipe dream, spiritus trimenti rather than an oc- 
 cult demonstration. I care as little about what 
 they would do as a modern newspaper man does 
 for the truth. The trouble with us is, we are 
 like the Chinese — we are ancestor worshipers. 
 The first thing we do when a new question arises 
 is to hunt up our patron saint and find out what 
 he would do, interpret his ideas to suit our own, 
 and then swell up and say, ''Jackson or Jeft'erson 
 said so," and then expect the people to smite 
 their breasts and say, 'Tvismet, fate, God is good ; 
 it must be so." But rather let us read up and 
 study, and then say, 'T say so and I defy you to 
 contradict." Don't shove the responsibility on a 
 dead man. I know more what should be done 
 to-day, and so do you, than any man who died a 
 hundred years ago. We are all looking for prec- 
 edents instead of trusting to our knowledge ot 
 the subject and acting accordingly. 
 
 Do not scoff at new ideas. Remember that 
 
98 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 everything we have was a new idea once ; that it 
 fought its way up through just such antagonism 
 as Sociahsm has to-day. Do not blame a man 
 for his beliefs ; he cannot help them. He simply 
 acts along the line of least resistance, according 
 to his knowledge. Do not think that we imagine 
 we are exceptionally intelligent ; we are not. We 
 have simply been compelled to recognize, by 
 such circumstances as the trusts and the neces- 
 sity of large capital to carry on enterprises, that 
 things are not as they were formerly. The en- 
 tire industrial system has undergone a revolu- 
 tion. No longer does one man make an article, 
 but often it takes one hundred men. Instead of 
 being an independent producer of an article, he 
 is dependent on many others. He no longer 
 markets his goods, but is dependent on others 
 to do it for him. 
 
 Socialists are not going around to get fun out 
 of this. It is a serious matter. I want Socialism 
 because I believe that I can get a great deal 
 more happiness out of that system of society. 
 And because George Washington did not know 
 that such things as steam railroads, electric cars, 
 telephones, telegraphy and other modern im- 
 provements were going to be invented, and 
 therefore failed to make due calculation of their 
 effect on twentieth century society, I do not see 
 the necessity of my submitting to the economic 
 changes they have produced. To tell the truth, I 
 have but very little respect for the crimes of my 
 fathers. For instance, I read of franchises being 
 given for ninety-nine years. Think of that. It 
 
WE SHOULD GOVERN, NOT OUR ANCESTORS 99 
 
 means that a set of scoundrels in office can bind 
 three generations to servitude without any hope 
 of redress. What would you think if some man 
 were to come around and present you a note 
 contracted by your grandfather and request that 
 you pay it ? I do not believe that one generation 
 has a right to shove their debts upon another. I 
 do not believe in shoving the responsibility ot 
 your ideas upon a dead man. The sooner peo- 
 ple break up their little idols and step boldly out 
 into the sunlight of facts, and are no longer 
 guided by superstition and traditions and rabbit 
 feet, leave these things behind and look at actual 
 conditions, the quicker we will get out of the 
 economic nightmare and long-headed larceny. 
 
 Workingmen, speak out. Do not hold the 
 language of slaves. Tell the capitalist class what 
 you mean. Ask nothing of them as a favor. 
 Claim your rights. Demand them. Tell the 
 capitalist class that you will no longer submit to 
 their dictates. I never could bear to see any one 
 who wanted to sit down and stand up at the 
 same time. That is why it makes me so impa- 
 tient to see a workingman looking anxiously for 
 a betterment of his condition and still shouting, 
 "Hurrah, boys !" with either of the old parties. 
 
 Both the Democratic and Republican parties 
 are catering to, and always have catered to the 
 poor man's patronage with many great and no- 
 ble promises, only to be broken after election. 
 They have posed as the poor man's great friend, 
 only that they might hold him while capitalists 
 robbed him of his labor, his home and his fam- 
 
lOO CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 ily. Through poverty they have made our par- 
 ents paupers, our wives drudges, our sisters and 
 daughters prostitutes and sent our children to 
 their graves at a premature age. They have 
 made of us thieves, hars, gamblers, criminals, 
 tramps and drunkards wallowing in the slime and 
 filth of the gutters and not w^orthy the name 
 Man. They have done all this in the name of 
 friendship. 
 
 Here are some "friends of labor," as evidenced 
 by their records: Roosevelt invented a steel- 
 barbed club to be used in putting down strikes. 
 Stevenson refused his miners the privilege of 
 organizing. Governor Steunenberg (Democrat), 
 of Idaho, imprisoned striking miners in a bull 
 pen and subjected the men, their wives and chil- 
 dren to outrages which would have done credit 
 to savages. Mr. McKinley sent troops to Idaho 
 under General Merriam, to break up the Miners' 
 Unions. 
 
 Andrew Carnegie addressed the Young Men's 
 Bible Class of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church 
 on the night of Jan. i8, 1900, on ''Stepping 
 Stones to Success in Business." He said in part: 
 "As a young man I had the best education in 
 the world with which to begin life. I was born 
 to the blessed heritage of poverty. I hope I 
 speak to poor young men to-night. It is my 
 earnest hope that none of you are burdened with 
 the care of riches. In these days we hear a lot 
 about poverty, but it will, indeed, be a sad day 
 when poverty is no longer with us. Where will 
 your inventor, your artist, your philanthropist. 
 
VvE SHOULD GOVERN, NOT OUR ANCESTORS lOI 
 
 your reformer, in fact anybody of note, come 
 from ? They all come from the ranks of the poor. 
 God does not call his great men from the ranks 
 of the rich. To my mind, the first thing for a 
 yoimg man starting out in life is to determine 
 to do more than his simple duty. Do not be 
 afraid of your employer. When you know you 
 are right,' stick to it, and fight it out with your 
 boss. The boy who can beat me in an argument 
 is the boy whom I want in my employ. He is 
 the boy who will some day get into the firm. I 
 say to fight it out with your employer when you 
 are right. He may want a partner some day. 
 He will go home and tell his wife about you. He 
 will talk" about you and — who knows — he may 
 have a pretty daughter. There are several quali- 
 fications which the successful young man must 
 have. First, he must be honest. He must be 
 moral and he must be sober. I tell you that the 
 young man who drinks can never be successful. 
 You cannot trust a drinking man. He must not 
 gamble. I want to say that I had just as soon 
 trust the man who gambles at ^Monte Carlo as 
 the man who gambles in Wall street. Then he 
 must never do anything wrong in business — not 
 even if an employer wants him to. He must 
 stand up for his own rights and be a man. The 
 successful man is not the man who is proficient 
 in one thing and lacking in another. He must 
 be a good all-around man, capable of doing all 
 things well. There has been much discussion 
 recently as to the advantages of wealth and what 
 enjoyment can be obtained from it. The pleas- 
 
102 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 ure enjoyed from riches is the good we can do 
 our fellow men. Of every $i,ooo given to chari- 
 ty $950 might as well be thrown into the sea. 
 It IS bad poUcy to aid the submerged man. Give 
 your aid to the man who is fighting with his head 
 above the water. There are three classes of 
 young men who start out in life : First, there is 
 the one who says he aims to acquire riches. Then 
 there is the one whose ambition is to obtain a 
 vainglorious reputation. He is the young man 
 who would step in front of a cannon to attract 
 the attention of men. And, by the way, this 
 shooting business is bad business. I do not be- 
 lieve in taking a shot at a man, and worse, going 
 out of your own country to do it. 
 
 "No man could ever get me to g:o out of my 
 own country to kill a man. I believe that the 
 only time to kill is when your native land — your 
 own home — is in danger of invasion. The third, 
 and the man who will be successful, is the man 
 who starts out in life with self-respect, and who 
 is true to himself and his fellows. He is the 
 young man who cannot fail to win." At the 
 conclusion of his address, Mr. Carnegie was in- 
 troduced to those present by John D. Rocke- 
 feller. 
 
 For unadulterated badness in advice, this 
 speech probably excels anything yet put forth 
 by a defender of capitalism. Imagine a boy 
 beating his employer in argument in hope of get- 
 ting a partnership in business ! Imagine a man 
 being moral in commercialism! Think of a man 
 "never doing anything wrong in business !" Of 
 
WE SHOULD GOVERN, NOT OUR ANCESTORS IO3 
 
 course in "business" nothing is wrong, but think 
 of the blow-hole armor-plate Carnegie sold the 
 United States, and think of Homestead and then 
 read the speech again. 
 
 OUR MANIFEST DESTINY. 
 
 The labor problem, the relation of the work- 
 ingmen and the trust magnates is speedily be- 
 coming the dominant issue of political cam- 
 paigns. The capitalist class has been in power 
 for some time past, and so far from proposing 
 any solution beyond court injunctions and riot 
 guns, has seemed to desire the contentment of 
 workingmen with the present conditions of in- 
 dustrial slavery. The middle class also preaches 
 contentment with the competitive wage system 
 to the working class, but desires to enlist its dis- 
 content to repress that outgrowth of competitive 
 capitalism, the trust. 
 
 From neither of these classes can any solution 
 of the labor question come. Both stand for cap- 
 italism and the continued subjection of labor to 
 capital. The working class, alone, offers a rem- 
 edy. Its alignment marks the class struggle 
 which the private ownership of the means of 
 production and distribution brings upon society. 
 
 The capitalist regime divides society into two 
 classes, necessarily antagonistic : One which is 
 enabled to enjoy property without work ; the 
 other, forced to give up a portion of its product 
 to the possessing class. The working class, 
 alone, by the exertion of labor power, manual or 
 mental, produces all wealth. The capitalist class, 
 
104 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 by force of legal extortion, takes the greater por- 
 tion of that wealth from its rightful owners. 
 Through the ownership of the means of produc- 
 tion and exchange this class compels the vast 
 majority to contribute to its support; to be rob' 
 bed or to *be starved. This is our law, capitalistic 
 law. The division of labor and the mechanical 
 genius of mankind have knit society into a close- 
 ly related whole. To-day, in truth, ''wealth is 
 the creature of society." Yet their control of the 
 political system enables a mere handful to direct 
 this social wealth into their private pockets. 
 What is the plain remedy? The working class 
 is in the majority. Organized as a distinct class 
 party, it can free itself from the slavery of the 
 system of wage labor by striking at its cause, the 
 system of property. At the polls it can take 
 possession of the political power. Only through 
 the organization of property on a collective basis, 
 administered collectively in the interests of the 
 whole people, can society escape from the abuses 
 of the present system. Capitalism afifords the 
 material element for the change. Economic des- 
 potism can become economic freedom by legal 
 recognition of the industrial revolution v/hich 
 capitalism has brought about. When each could 
 hold the hand tools necessary for production, each 
 was free to produce and all were useful members 
 of society. The advent of the machine revolu- 
 tionized the character of production. Hand la- 
 bor was displaced and each was no longer free 
 to produce, for all were not able to own the im- 
 proved means of production. Competition among 
 
WE SHOULD GOVERN^ NOT OUR ANCESTORS IO5 
 
 the dispossessed gave proprietors an advantage 
 which rendered them masters of the situation 
 and enabled them to withdraw from the produc- 
 ing class. Society thus became split into con- 
 tending classes ; the producing class, or proleta- 
 riat, forced to dispose of its labor power in the 
 open market under conditions of competition 
 created by the continuous displacement of la- 
 bor : on the other side, the useless capitalist class, 
 the bourgeois, small in number, but great in 
 power through ownership of the means by 
 which the proletariat could exert its labor power 
 in order to produce the necessities of life. By 
 this process individual property is eliminated 
 m.ore and more, while the continued concentra- 
 tion of capital gives the actual form of collective 
 ownership. 
 
 The organization of production in the modern 
 "trust" gives us an almost perfect tool for social 
 production. Recognition of the social character 
 of these gigantic forces is the only preliminary 
 necessary to their adjustment to procure a sys- 
 tem of distribution which will subserve individual 
 ends for the benefit and not at the expense of so- 
 ciety. The emancipation of the working class 
 as the government of the great majority means 
 the regeneration of all society. The progress of 
 civilization has followed upon their recognition 
 of the social value of economic organization. 
 The working class has perceived the revolution 
 in the material basis of present society brought 
 about through collective production, since its 
 propertyless condition renders it sensitive to in- 
 
I06 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 dustrial changes. Its demand for collective own- 
 ership marks the line of progress. The cause of 
 the working class is one with the course of evo- 
 lution. The principles of the Declaration and the 
 Preamble of the Constitution have been rendered 
 mockeries by industrial changes. ''The right to 
 life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," as the 
 birthright' of all, without economic equality, is 
 an empty phrase. And these documents, which, 
 back of and more fundamental than constitution 
 or statute, declare the objects which justify our 
 existence as a nation, have their significance ob- 
 scured and lost. No equality of opportunity ex- 
 ists under that oft-boasted "freedom of contract" 
 which gives choice between starvation or, in the 
 more fortunate instances, reduced the standard 
 of living and the dictates of masters. 
 
WHAT IS LABOR'S SHARE? 
 
 Governmental statistics show that it is con- 
 stantly growing smaller. "The question of 'What 
 is labor's share in production?' is one that is of 
 greatest importance to the working class, the 
 analysis of which will reveal the fact that the 
 working class is forced to a recognition of the 
 bare fact that labor's share is becoming less each 
 year," says the Carriage and Wagon Workers' 
 Journal. A comparative study of the statistics 
 of this country will show^ how great labor's share 
 in the profit has been and what it is now. Al- 
 though the amount of wealth is constantly in- 
 creasing, as will be seen from the foU0\ving, 
 taken from statistics compiled by tJ*^^overn- 
 ment, it will also be seen ho\\^i^dIy labor's 
 share is decreasin g: ^J ^ 185^^116 wealth of the 
 nation was $8,ooc^paooo.^^^ie producers' share 
 was 62J per cent ; non-OrKoducers' share, 37I per 
 cent. In i860 the we^h hitreased to $16,000,- 
 000,000. The producersXshare fell to 43J per 
 cent ; non-producersr share increased to 56^ per 
 cent. In 1870 the/wealth was $30,150,000,000; 
 the producers' share was 33 2-3 per cent ; non- 
 producers' share w^as 6^1-3 per cent. In 1880 
 the wealth increased to $48,000,000,000. The 
 producers' share went down to 24 per cent, while 
 the non-producers' increased to 76 per cent. In 
 1890 the wealth was further increased to $61,- 
 000,000,000, and the producers' share fell to 17 
 per cent, and the non-producers' increased to 83 
 
I08 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 per cent. The greater the amount of wealth 
 production increased, the greater the correspond- 
 ing decrease of the producers' share in that 
 wealth. 
 
 In the early days of these statistics production 
 was chiefly carried on by hand labor ; the facto- 
 ries and mills that are now so numerous were 
 then but few. With the rapid progress of the 
 introduction of machinery and inventions in the 
 productive industries, the power of these in- 
 creased twofold, tenfold, yes, twentyfold accord- 
 ing to the state of .perfection of the improved 
 machine. With this increased productivity came 
 also the army of the unemployed ; at first but few 
 in number, but constantly increasing as the ma~ 
 chine became more perfect until the army of the 
 unemployed was estimated at anywhere from 
 three to four million. With the gigantic strides 
 which the concentration of capital is now mak- 
 ing, one may ask himself, ''Wiiat will be labor's 
 share when the census of 1900 is taken ?" At any 
 rate it can be asserted without fear of contradic- 
 tion that labor's share will have still further de- 
 creased. The trust question is pressing more and 
 more to the front. The power of competition is 
 dwindling fast away ; now only remains a small 
 fraction of the entire productive industry untrust- 
 ified. While the trusts and the trust papers are 
 singing the joys of prosperity, the working class 
 is feeling its condition more keenly than ever. 
 
 Their share in all this is but a job at pauper 
 wages. It is certain that the workers will come 
 to understand their true position. The organized 
 
WHAT IS labor's SHARE? IO9 
 
 workers even now, to some extent, realize that 
 the struggle, on the economic field, must be sup- 
 plemented by political action. The stronghold of 
 capitalism at its present time is its economic 
 power ; its weakest, and growing ever weaker, 
 because of the continued crushing out the 
 small capitalist, forcing him into the ranks of the 
 working class, is the ballot. Here they are out- 
 numbered, and here it is where the workers can 
 gain an easy victory and here a victory gained 
 will but add strength for the economic battle. 
 Effort in this direction, along clear-cut, uncom- 
 promising, class-conscious lines, will increase la- 
 bor's share in the product. While it is true in 
 certain trades, even now, wages have been raised, 
 yet when the increased productivity, through 
 more perfect machines and through the concen- 
 tration of capital, is taken into consideration, it 
 will be seen that when the next balancing-up 
 takes place that labor's share, on the whole, has 
 decreased. Organization is essential ; more so 
 than ever. The fact cannot be too strongly em- 
 phasized, but it also is a fact that every tactical 
 point through which it is possible to increase la- 
 bor's share should and must be taken advantage 
 of in the outward march for labor's emancipation. 
 Yes, dear workingman, keep out of politics ; 
 you should know nothing about the manipula- 
 tion of government. Leave this to the sharp- 
 headed politicians. They will show you that 
 capital is greater than God Almighty ; that it has 
 the alienable right to goad you into desperation, 
 and if you dare to resent its dictates, no matter 
 
no CAPITAL AMD LABOR 
 
 how diabolical such may be, how easily it can 
 have you punctured with bayonets and cold lead. 
 Sure, workingman, keep out of politics, and sup- 
 pose yourself to be dead. 
 
 Socialists are often reproached because they 
 refuse to unite with reformers in progressive 
 measures, and thus advance step by step. They 
 are accused of wanting "the whole hog or none." 
 Let us plead guilty ; we do want the whole hog. 
 But this is not so much a matter of choice with 
 us ; it springs rather from a clear perception of 
 the fact that no matter what we might be satisfied 
 with, we shall get either the "whole hog" or 
 nothing at all. No other course is open to us. 
 There are no halfway measures and there is no 
 such thing as improving the condition of the la- 
 boring class under the present system, except in 
 a very superficial sense, altogether different from 
 what reformers, so termed, try to make us be- 
 lieve. This can be shown in a few words." A 
 house divided against itself cannot stand." The 
 government cannot endure permanently "half 
 slave and half free." This declaration of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln's in the opening speech of his his- 
 torical debate with Stephen A. Douglas was the 
 keynote, the "paramount" issue that united the 
 scattered forces of the opposition to the appar- 
 ently invincible Democracy for the succeeding 
 Presidential campaign of 1861 ; that is, unite the 
 aggressive men who fought for principle and the 
 rights of man. True, the question was appealed 
 to the highest finite power to settle, which half 
 was the whole, and the reward decided that the 
 
WHAT IS LABOR S SHARE? Ill 
 
 nation should exist as a whole, and free. The 
 paramount issue was thus settled after long plans 
 of debate and compromise, but a fearful price 
 was paid for the compromising. 
 
 A parallel condition of affairs exists to-day in 
 the nation, and the fiat has gone forth that it 
 cannot exist nine-tenths wage slaves and one- 
 tenth capitalistic masters. The Republican party 
 has descended from its high estate as the cham- 
 pion of liberty, the defender of the down-trodden 
 and oppressed and the champion of the weak, 
 and is now the apologist for the rich, the power- 
 ful and unscrupulous. Just so was the Demo- 
 cratic party in 1858, the mouthpiece and defender 
 of the chattel slave power ; it scorned and laughed 
 at the apparently hopeless efforts of the men and 
 women of that day to at least stay the foot of the 
 man-hunter, and arrest the hand that yielded the 
 lash. The truth was crushed to earth, and still 
 the cry went up, *'How long, O Lord, how long?" 
 Abraham Lincoln then appeared as a national 
 figure, and, thundering forth the declaration that 
 heads this article, forced the campaign of conser- 
 vative democracy into such positions, and such 
 utterances, that the ultra-proslavery States could 
 not accept Douglas as their standard bearer in 
 '61. The Democracy divided and went down to 
 defeat before the army of earnest men and women 
 fighting under the banner of equal rights of all 
 before the law. 
 
 BEXEVOLEXT PHILAXTHROPISTS. 
 
 Xow and then you may read in the public press 
 
112 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 that this or that "philanthropist" has given a few 
 thousand, or perhaps a few hundred thousand, 
 dollars to some university, library or church. 
 Then follows a long detailed history of the "gen- 
 erous" donor and an enumeration of his gifts to 
 the community. You may also read that the 
 ''better class" are trying to elevate the working- 
 man and improve his rude and coarse manners, 
 in order that he may remain content with the 
 conditions which enable them to pose as his 
 benefactors. And what is expected from you 
 workingmen in return? You are expected to 
 show your appreciation of their "goodness" and 
 charitable kindness by humbly and thankfully ac- 
 cepting what they have seen fit to give you. You 
 workingmen, you, the producers of all wealth, 
 you should assume a humble and reverential at- 
 titude toward those who have never done one 
 stroke of productive work in their lives, and 
 whose only task is that of appropriating to them- 
 selves four-fifths of what you produce, when they 
 apparently return a small portion of that plunder 
 for your alleged benefit. 
 
 These sums which you read of as being do- 
 nated to schools, libraries and churches are given 
 for what purpose? To benefit you? Not at all. 
 Your children merely go to these schools to fit 
 themselves to become still more efficient wage 
 slaves for their philanthropic masters, who never 
 give up control of these schools or what is taught 
 there. You go to the churches to hear a servant 
 of the same class tell you that you must not only 
 be content with present conditions, but also thank 
 
WHAT IS labor's SHARE? II3 
 
 the Lord for sending you such charitable and 
 kind-hearted benefactors. In the hbraries you 
 may read the Hterature provided by the fore- 
 thought of your masters, which assumes that the 
 present system is permanent, and which, under 
 the pretext of ''thrift, enterprise, determination," 
 etc.. urges you on to give your utmost energy in 
 assisting to accumulate profit for them, while 
 holding out a hope, destined to prove false in the 
 vast majority of cases, that you may one day be- 
 come an owner of wage slaves yourself. I am not 
 able to discuss that subject very largely because 
 my education in that direction is very limited, 
 and indeed my education in general is a very 
 limited one, because my time since my boyhood 
 was mostly occupied in struggling for a living, 
 working hard when I had a job and working 
 hard to get a job when out of one. But from 
 personal experience and. observation I have learn- 
 ed that those who survive are usually the slick- 
 est : and it is therefore my firm opinion that in 
 the present struggle of capital against labor, the 
 slickest will survive. 
 
 EXPERIENCE TEACHES. 
 
 Experience teaches that the lessons which the 
 workers in many cities of the United States are 
 receiving during the epidemic of strikes and lock- 
 outs are an educational force whose future guid- 
 ance for those concerned cannot be underesti- 
 mated. That the dominating factor in present 
 society is the material interests of the capitalist 
 class is receiving distinct corroboration every day 
 
114 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 in the sweeping court injunctions against the re- 
 bellious workingmen, the shotguns in the hands 
 of the police force, the unmasking of the alleged 
 "friends of labor,'' and is confirmed by the im- 
 perious necessity of maintaining the interests of 
 the capitalist at all hazards, by the injudicious 
 declarations of members of the ruling class, who 
 proclaim their intentions "to starve the working- 
 men out," to smash their organizations, and de- 
 prive them of the possibility of uniting theii 
 strength by insisting upon dealing with them as 
 individuals or unconnected trade groups. All 
 this will bring home to many of the workers the 
 irresistible logic of the Socialist. 
 
 The actions and declarations of the capitaHst 
 class at present are the material proofs of the 
 correctness of the Socialist position, and these 
 proofs cannot fail to become a powerful aid in 
 helping the working class to grope their way out 
 of the political darkness in which their masters 
 seek to keep them, into the full light of Socialism. 
 Every act of the ruling class to preserve their 
 supremacy brings into light the power implied 
 in the possession of the machinery of the govern- 
 ment, and helps the workers to see that whatever 
 class wields that power, the victory of that class 
 in the economic field is absolutely assured. And 
 further, the present existing troubles cannot fail 
 to impress upon them the truth that whether the 
 political complexion of the ruling class in any 
 locality where the labor struggle becomes in- 
 tense be Republican, Democratic or Populist, 
 the powers of the state are invariably used in the 
 
WHAT IS labor's SHARE? II5 
 
 interests of the propertied classes, and against the 
 workers. This truth they will learn, not by theo- 
 retical demonstrations but by practical experi- 
 ence ; not by the misfortunes of the isolated 
 groups of workers here and there, but in the uni- 
 versal and loudly proclaimed intentions of their 
 exploiters to use at all times and at all places the 
 power which the possession of government gives 
 them to resist the demands for better living con- 
 ditions on the part of the producers. 
 
 The fact of the class struggle, which at present 
 is showing its reality with distinctness in numer- 
 ous cities throughout the country, and which the 
 ruling class try to conceal by announcing that 
 their side of the conflict stands for the preserva- 
 tion of "law and order,'' cannot fail of recogni- 
 tion by a large number of workingmen who, 
 taught by bitter experience the folly of arming 
 the enemy with weapons which make his victory 
 secure and their own defeat certain, will inevita- 
 bly be drawn into the Socialist movement, which 
 alone stands for the political and economic su- 
 premacy of the working class. 
 
 The privations and the misery which have been 
 the lot of many thousands of the workers in the 
 conflicts at present raging will not have been 
 suffered in vain, if from them there results a 
 class-consciousness which will express itself in 
 a vote so large that in it the upholders of the 
 present system of capitalist robbery may see the 
 hand-writing on the wall, which indicates the end 
 of their class supremacy and the coming of an 
 economic era in which the securing of the full 
 
Il6 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 product to the producer will put an end forever to 
 economic classes and the struggles which spring 
 from them. And that this forecast will most 
 probably be realized, we see little reason to 
 doubt. 
 
 In the following, taken from the Chicago Rec- 
 ord, it will be interesting to see what measures 
 the unions will be able to take in order to coun- 
 teract its effect: It is said that the steamship 
 companies have sent copies of Chicago wage- 
 rate cards, which were posted in the street cars 
 and elevated trains, to all parts of Europe where 
 the vessels touch, and have caused them to be 
 displayed where mechanics live. W. S. Behel 
 said: ''The arrival of the next three or four 
 steamers will cause some people to open their 
 eyes," and another contractor chimed in, "Yes, 
 and the men who come cannot be turned back 
 if they have five dollars in their pockets." There 
 is good business in all of this for transportation 
 companies. The capitalist classes will search 
 every nook and corner of the earth for cheap la- 
 bor, and if this latest move upon their part will 
 only justify the triumphant remark of Mr. Behel, 
 that "some people will have cause to open their 
 eyes" over this matter, it will be a lesson in So- 
 cialism to the workingmen that will bear good 
 results in the future. The "men cannot be turned 
 hack if they have five dollars in their pockets.'* 
 Union men may rest assured that they cannot be 
 turned back even if they have only five cents in 
 their pockets. When capitalism is on the hunt 
 
WHAT IS labor's SHARE? II7 
 
 for cheap labor, a little thing- like that will not be 
 allowed to stand in the way of their securing it. 
 
 The immigration laws are not macLe in the 
 interest of the working class, but in that of their 
 masters, and the enforcement of such laws is also 
 in the hands of the latter. 
 
 It is theirs to loose and to bind, to receive or 
 reject as their interest dictates, and they are 
 now about to give the working class another 
 additional proof of the results of folly at the bal- 
 lot box. We contend that while the means of 
 production are owned and controlled by private 
 individuals that strife between labor and capital 
 will not cease, cannot cease, because each is sim- 
 ply striving for what is considered its own wel- 
 fare ; that millionaires will multiply slowly and 
 paupers rapidly ; that wealth must continue to 
 accumulate in a few hands, robbing labor of its 
 just reward; that poverty and its legitimate off- 
 spring, crime, suicide and insanity, will ever in- 
 crease ; that labor will be more and more the 
 slave of capitalists ; that corruption in high places 
 will grow more and more brazen-faced and fear- 
 less ; that government will be utterly subservient 
 to the power of wealth ; that the masses will be 
 reduced to a condition worse than chattel slavery, 
 a condition in which the word liberty is but a 
 mockery ; that the right of franchise will be sub- 
 verted by the dictation of trust magnates, as is 
 obvious from all present tendencies ; that a gov- 
 ernment for the people and by the people is im- 
 possible. 
 
 It is this private ownership that amasses mil- 
 
Il8 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 lions in a few hands, that robs labor of the fruits 
 of Its toil, that gives the capitalist class the power 
 to dictate, to legislatures, to executives and to 
 courts ; and the exercise of this power is the 
 source of the evils above enumerated. "Millions 
 are the source of all evil" and milUons come from 
 private ownership of the means of production. 
 Hence, we strike at the root of the evil, at the 
 cause, and not at the effect, and demand that their 
 private ownership, this "trust socialism," must 
 be abolished, and that the means of production 
 be owned and operated by and for the whole peo- 
 ple, and not by and for the millionaire. 
 
 RAILROAD EXPERIMENTS. 
 
 The Boston and Maine Railroad has been 
 making a series of experiments with a device 
 known as a trimming car, and which bids fair to 
 largely do away with the class of railroad laborers 
 who use the pick and shovel. The trimming car 
 has successfully done the work of four hundred 
 men and did it so neatly and thoroughly as to 
 give promise of greatly reducing the cost of rail- 
 road construction. In a recent test of the trim- 
 ming car a thirty-mile section of the roadbed was 
 trimmed in four days at a cost of $75 a mile. To 
 have done the work by hand would have required 
 375 men and an expenditure of $2,025 P^^ ^^Y- 
 When this new machine comes into general use 
 on all the roads it will throw a few railroad hands 
 out of employment, and the majority of them will 
 swear at the machine while tramping the streets 
 looking for some other job. Very likely some 
 
WHAT IS labor's SHARE? II9 
 
 of their own rank invented the machine, and he 
 will probably get a job running it for a while ; 
 but of the surplus wealth produced by the saving 
 of expenses he will not receive a cent. That will 
 all go to the owner of the machine. 
 
 Here is. then, another illustration of the truth 
 preached by the Socialists, namely, that the wel- 
 fare of the working class depends on the owner- 
 ship of the tools of production and distribution. 
 So long as these remain in private hands, they 
 tend simply to throw more laborers out of em- 
 ployment, and produce more wealth for the cap- 
 italist class ; while if they were owned and oper- 
 ated by the laborers as common property, they 
 would be the means to lighten their labor and in- 
 crease their comforts. _ This is such a simple 
 proposition that it seems that even a blind person 
 could see it. But do the majority of the working- 
 men see it? If they did they would not be such 
 fools as to vote as they do. They know some- 
 thing is wrong, but they do not know^ what it is, 
 and instead of voting themselves and their class 
 into power, they curse their luck, and go on a 
 strike only to lose it. Then when election comes 
 around they vote to keep their masters in power 
 and to keep themselves in slavery. 
 
 MACHINE vs. MAN. 
 
 It is no consolation to be told that improved 
 machinery makes more work, even if true. A 
 Chicago paper recently contained a full-page ar- 
 ticle with the title, "Employment for Labor In- 
 creased by Labor-Saving Devices." In it the old 
 
120 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 arguments were all rehearsed to show that the 
 improved methods of production displaced no 
 one. As these have been disposed of over and 
 over again by Socialists, it seems useless to dwell 
 upon them now. But the curious thing about it 
 is that it is always taken for granted, both by la- 
 borers and capitalists, that if it were true every- 
 thing would be all right. 
 
 It is only a part of the careful training which 
 capitalism has given to the mind of the laborer to 
 make him easy to rule, that he is taught to be- 
 lieve that in and of itself "employment" is the 
 thing most to be desired. If his toil has not been 
 lightened, if his masters can still find a place to 
 make profit out of his exertion, he never stops 
 to think that there can be anything wrong. At 
 this point the wage slave is the greatest fool of 
 all the slaves who have lived. No negro would 
 have accepted a sufficient excuse for considering 
 the cotton gin a good thing because it kept more 
 chattel slaves busy. No' galley slave of ancient 
 Rome would have declared in favor of a machine 
 for ship propulsion on the ground that he could 
 use it more hours than he could the old-fashioned 
 oar. Yet over and over again, in unions as well 
 as in the fashionable clubs for economic discus- 
 sion, the only question argued concerning the 
 effect of the machine upon the laborers is the one 
 as to whether it displaces labor. If this point is 
 decided in the negative, then the laborer is sup- 
 posed to have no reason for complaint. Of course 
 this is only an illustration of the old, old story of 
 the class struggle and the two methods of looking 
 
WHAT IS labor's SHARE? 121 
 
 at a thing. When industry is looked at from a 
 capitaUst point of view, the great good to be se- 
 cured is to keep the wage slave employed. It is 
 through their work that the capitalist lives. 
 Hence, their work is a good thing in itself. Bui 
 how about the laborers ? Is not the thing which 
 he really desires, leisure, not work ; rest, not toil ; 
 rec/eation, not labor? He does not want more 
 hours to exert his strength, he wants more time 
 to enjoy himself. 
 
 How' idiotic it is, then, for him to accept as a 
 justification for the introduction of the machine 
 that it does not throw anybody out of work. 
 \\'hy, that is just what it should do. Every time 
 a machine is made somebody ought to have more 
 leisure. Every invention should lighten the bur- 
 dens resting upon the shoulders of the workers. 
 Every improvement in production should mean 
 shorter hours of toil, a longer childhood, earlier 
 retirement from work, better opportunities for 
 culture, education and refinement. It ought to 
 mean fewer women in the workshop, more com- 
 forts in the home. It should be the means of 
 abolishing some particularly obnoxious form of 
 labor or of creating new enjoyments for the 
 workers. From this point of view, then, let us 
 look at the above article. 
 
 No manufacture offers a more striking illustra- 
 tion of the apparent displacement of man by ma- 
 chine than the textile industry. \Mth the power 
 loom the weaver now weaves one hundred and 
 eighty picks in a minute, while with the old hand 
 loom he could weave but sixty. When the power 
 
122 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 loom was first introduced one weaver was re- 
 quired for each loom, but recent improvements 
 have made it possible for one operator to attend 
 to ten looms. That is to say, that each loom does 
 three times as much and each man attends to 
 ten times as many looms, so that each worker 
 produces thirty times as much cloth as with the 
 old hand loom. Now before this machine was in- 
 troduced people did not go naked. Indeed, the 
 laborers were clothed in strong, warm home spun 
 that kept the cold out as well as the more fash- 
 ionable ready-mades of to-day. So there is no 
 reason why all should not be thirty times better 
 clothed than then, or else they should now work- 
 only twenty minutes a day where they worked 
 ten hours before. Now neither of these things 
 have taken place. 
 
 On the contrary the women and children have 
 been forced into the mills instead of the man, and 
 more laborers with their families suffer for cloth- 
 ing than perhaps ever before in the history of the 
 world. The Socialist points out that the reason 
 for this is that the machine is the property of the 
 capitalist class which takes from the worker all 
 that he produces above his cost of living and 
 hence reaps all the benefits of the improved meth- 
 od of production. But let us go on with the im- 
 provement described in the article referred to. 
 "The ring frame improvements in the spinning 
 process have displaced that line of labor to such 
 an extent that but one-third the number of oper- 
 ators formerly required is now necessary. With 
 the single spindle hand wheel one spinner could 
 
WHAT IS labor's SHARE? 1 23 
 
 Spin five skeins of Xo. 32 twist in fifty-six hours. 
 The modern mule spinning machine, containing 
 2,124 spindles, produces with the assistance of one 
 operator and two small girls, 55,098 skeins of the 
 same thread in the same time. "With the old 
 loom one weaver could weave forty-two yards of 
 coarse cotton cloth in a week — now a single oper- 
 ator can turn out three thousands yards of the 
 same product in the same time. The Commis- 
 sioner of Labor computes that in the manufacture 
 of cotton goods alone, improved machinery has 
 reduced muscular labor fifty per cent in the pro- 
 duction of the same quality of goods." Will any 
 one say that the laborers have reaped the full 
 benefit of these wonderful improvements, if they 
 are still kept busy all the time at the same rate, or 
 even a trifle more than they were before the in- 
 ventions were made. Yet that is what capitalism 
 proposes, and those who vote for capitalist parties 
 agree that it is correct. The Socialist declares 
 that these inventions should belong to the work- 
 ers who made them and are using them, and that 
 they, and they alone, should reap the full benefit 
 of the powers of production. He declares that 
 when a laborer finds a way to produce ten times 
 as much with the same amount of labor, the toil 
 of the w^orld should be decreased and the com- 
 forts increased. He insists that it is not work, 
 but results, that he is after, and hence he wishes 
 to secure and utilize all the powers of production 
 and distribution in the interest of all producers. 
 
THE WORKERS' TEN COMMANDMENTS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Thou shalt join a union of thy craft and help to 
 pass laws for thine own special benefit, and not 
 for a few obstinate and perverted leaders. 
 
 II. 
 
 The meetings thereof thou shalt attend, and 
 pay thy dues with regularity. Thou shalt not 
 attribute unholy purposes to thy brother in union. 
 Beware of the fact that though thou be honest, 
 "there are others." 
 
 III. 
 Thou shalt not take thy neighbor's job. Thou 
 shalt not labor more than eight hours for one 
 day's work, nor on the Sabbath, nor on any of 
 the holy days (holidays). 
 
 V. 
 
 Thou shalt not hire out thy offspring of ten- 
 der years. 'Toverty and shame shall be to him 
 that refuseth instruction to his children." 
 
 VI. 
 
 Thou hast but one interest and it is the interest 
 of thy brother. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Thou shalt not live in a hovel, nor feed on the 
 husk that the swine doth eat. Take thou not 
 alms from the unrighteous, lest it bemean thee. 
 
THE workers' ten COMMANDMENTS I25 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Honor the female sex, for on this rock rests 
 the future welfare of man. 
 
 IX. 
 Waste not thy life in the chase after the ethe- 
 real, lest thy substance be filched from thee. 
 "The Lord helps those who help themselves." 
 Thou helpest thyself best by helping thy brother 
 workers in the union of labor. 
 
 X. 
 
 Thy brother's welfare is thy concern ; therefore 
 shalt thou have care for him and his. Associate 
 thyself with thy brother worker, that thy pay 
 may be heightened, thy hours of labor shortened., 
 and the days of thy life and the lives of all may 
 be lengthened and brightened. "Those who wait 
 for leaders will always be misled." "Freedom 
 with perils is safer than tyranny with its assur- 
 
 ances." 
 
ORGANIZATION THE FIRST EXPRES- 
 SION OF INTELLIGENCE. 
 
 Workingmen are not always right in what they 
 attempt, but organization is the first expression 
 of their inteUigence. Organized labor is the pro- 
 moter of public peace and happiness, for it is a 
 fact that where labor organizations are strongest, 
 there strikes are most infrequent. With the great 
 aggregation of capital on the one hand, what 
 hope would there be for the people were it not 
 for the balancing influences of the labor organi- 
 zations? What hope is there for the welfare of 
 the republic in the action of the Astors, the Van- 
 derbilts and the Rockefellers ? If they would pay 
 thousands to marry their daughters to a title, 
 what would they give to possess a title them- 
 selves? *Tt has and always will be the mission of 
 the poor to preserve the republican form of gov- 
 ernment." The labor question is one of the most 
 important confronting the world. It is being 
 discussed by the pulpit, the press and the diplo- 
 mat. Political parties vie Avith each other in 
 adopting labor planks, whether they expect to 
 carry them or not. Organization is seen on every 
 hand. There are boards of trade exchanges, the 
 builders' exchange, bankers' associations and 
 railroaders' associations. Even the doctors have 
 their association and feel badly toward a member 
 who does not live up to the tenets of the society. 
 The lawyers have a union, although they call it a 
 bar. "The judge of the court is the walking dele- 
 
ORGANIZATION 1 27 
 
 gate of the union, and he is quick to call for the 
 working card of a man who attempts to practice 
 law in his court without a diploma, as they call 
 their working card.'' Unions are found only in 
 civilized countries. They do not have them in 
 China or India. 
 
 The strike is the weapon of defense of the la- 
 bor organization. While we do not encourage 
 strikes, workingmen would be foolish to give 
 up that strong weapon. If the labor unions 
 should declare against strikes the capitalist would 
 soon be doing all the striking for us. Labor 
 wants more. It is entitled to more and will get 
 more of the products of its toil. It is a crime 
 against the citizenship of the future to make men 
 and women work more than eight hours per day. 
 
 We want the children taken out of the work- 
 shops and factories and educated. It may be new 
 to some of you, but it is a fact that when Con- 
 gress passed the bill annexing the Sandwich Isl- 
 ands and the Island of Hawaii, slavery existed in 
 those islands, and it was only by the untiring 
 efforts of the committee on legislation of the 
 American Federation of Labor that a resolution 
 was finally passed abolishing slavery in the isl- 
 ands. It is the prayer of the labor unionist that 
 the flag shall never wave over any but a free peo- 
 ple. We ask no favors, simply our rights, and 
 it is our rights we are going to have." 
 
 To a workingman it is a puzzling fact that the 
 question is never asked, **Why should a physician 
 join a medical society?" ''Why should a lawyer 
 affiliate himself with the bar association ?" "What 
 
128 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 induces a business man to pay initiation fees and 
 dues into a chamber of commerce ?" These peo- 
 ple join the society of their business or profes- 
 sion for the standing it gives them, for the ad- 
 vantage of exchange of ideas and community of 
 effort along well-defined lines ; and that the com- 
 mon standard of excellence is raised thereby, and 
 the individuals benefited is never questioned. In 
 practice, the objects of the Trade Unions are 
 identical with those of the association mentioned, 
 and many others, and the inducement for a pro- 
 fessional or business man to join an organization 
 of the character indicated is many times intensi- 
 fied in the case of the workingman. In the keen 
 competition of the business world expenses of 
 production must be kept at the minimum by the 
 employer who would maintain his position. 
 
 Labor receives no more consideration than it 
 is in a position to demand and enforce. This is 
 not the fault of the individual, but of the system, 
 and many times employers are forced against 
 their inclinations by competition to give the 
 screws on labor one more turn in preference to 
 yielding the field of trade to less honorable com- 
 petitors. The hostility of some employers to 
 members of trade organizations rests solely on 
 the ground that union workmen demand what 
 they consider just wages, while the average non- 
 union employe takes what he can get. The one 
 gets his rights through organization, the other 
 suffers through the weakness of individual effort, 
 and the weakness of the latter is the unjust em- 
 ployer's opportunity. Unaided by the co-opera- 
 
ORGANIZATION 1 29 
 
 tion of his fellows the individual laborer would 
 be reduced to a pitiable state by the constant en- 
 croachment of capital in the hands of the capital- 
 ist. United for a common object, the workmen 
 become an effective force ; effective in direct ratio 
 to the thoroughness of their organization. 
 
 United, they are in a position to arbitrate the 
 question of a just division of the profits of their 
 toil supplemented and directed by the capital of 
 the employer. One single man, standing out 
 from his fellows, unaf^liated w^ith the union of 
 his craft, sullenly accepting its benefits, or bawl- 
 ing of his ''freedom from the tyranny of the trades 
 unions," is a breach in the citadel, and every such 
 man but forges the chains to bind himself and 
 his fellows to conditions of serfdom. That labor 
 unions uniformly secure better wages, shorter 
 hours of labor, improved conditions and better 
 treatment for all men engaged in the trade or 
 calling within the spheres of its influence needs 
 no demonstration. No man worthy of the name 
 would enjoy these advantages without willingly 
 joining with that union and aiding in shaping its 
 policy and assisting in defraying the necessary 
 expenses of its maintenance in the highest condi- 
 tion of efficiency. And yet there are individuals 
 who not only do that very thing, but abuse the 
 unions that help to feed them, vilify the leaders 
 and seek favor in the eyes of the employer by 
 claiming their superior subserviency to the boss- 
 es' wishes. Trades unions make for a higher class 
 of workmanship. The most skilled artisans of 
 all trades are to be found in their ranks, and great 
 
130 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 care is used in securing new members, to the end 
 that the standard of excellence is not lowered by 
 the admission of incompetent men. A union card 
 is an excellent guarantee of skill. If the unions 
 could only exercise their powers more fully than 
 they are allowed to do in nearly all of the trades, 
 the apprentice system would be something more 
 than is usually the case; system in theory only. 
 The employer seeks only to produce goods at a 
 low cost. He cares nothing about the instruc- 
 tion of the apprentices. Trades unions care for 
 their sick and needy. Many hundred thousands 
 of dollars are poured from their treasuries annu- 
 ally for charity, and of this the general public 
 never hears a word. It is done silently, sympa- 
 thetically and promptly. They bury the dead and 
 comfort and aid the widows and orphans. 
 
 There is no proclaiming from the housetops. 
 They educate their members on economic lines 
 and without entering partisan politics, teach the 
 workingmen the true significance of the ballot 
 and the most effective method for its use. All 
 social and political reforms of importance spring 
 from and are disseminated through trades union 
 agencies. They are a safety valve for the natural 
 discontent engendered by the fierce competitive 
 system. In European countries, where Labor 
 Unions are suppressed and restricted, red an- 
 archy rears its ugly head. In this country, of 
 comparative freedom, no danger threatens. The 
 wasteful competitive system of the present is not 
 the system of a higher civilization toward which 
 the world is striving. Co-operation in some form 
 
ORGANIZATION I3I 
 
 — community of effort — must take its place, and 
 when the inevitable change comes, the ground 
 for it will be paved and the first steps taken by 
 the Labor Unions. 
 
 The thinking, disciplined, coherent mass of 
 workingmen, embraced in Labor Unions, are the 
 men who will give the movement the first grand 
 impetus. A workingman should join a labor 
 union for his own material and moral good and 
 for the benefit of mankind. Not one valid reason 
 can with candor be urged against it. He owes 
 his allegiance to the union of his craft, in justice 
 to himself, to his fellow-men, to his family and to 
 posterity. 
 
 THE UNION LABEL ITS USE AND SIGNIFigANCE. 
 
 What the Union label stands for, and why it 
 should be generally supported, are well summed 
 up by J. N. Bogart, an organizer of the Ameri- 
 can Federation of Labor, and Labor Editor of the 
 New York Evening Journal, in an article which 
 won the prize offered by the Social Reform Club 
 of New York for the best essay on Union label. 
 His reasons were : "Because it supersedes the 
 strikes, the lockout, and the destructive boycotts ; 
 it is the outward manifestation of harmony be- 
 tween the employer and workman, binding both 
 by ties to maintain their friendly relations and 
 the continued approval and patronage of a dis- 
 criminating public. Because it condemns child 
 labor and humanizes factory life. Because it 
 minimizes convict competition with free and hon- 
 est labor. Because it wipes out tenement and 
 
132 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 sweat-shop systems of production. Because it 
 has ferreted out, exposed and cleaned the un- 
 wholesome cellar bakery. Because it shortens 
 the work-day and gives toilers time to read and 
 think and cultivate the social side of life. Be- 
 cause it guarantees a living wage and rational 
 conditions of employment. Because it stands for 
 quality and honest workmanship. Because it is 
 not a weapon for industrial war, but an olive 
 branch held out to bind the brotherhood of man." 
 
 ATTACKS THE UNION. 
 
 Washington, June 12, 1900. 
 N. F. Thompson, secretary of the Southern In- 
 dustrial Convention, at Huntsville, Ala., made a 
 somewhat sensational attack upon Labor Unions 
 before the Industrial Commission to-day. "La- 
 bor Organizations," said Mr. Thompson, "are 
 the greatest menace to this government that ex- 
 ists inside or outside the pale of our national do- 
 main. Their influence for disruption and disor- 
 ganization of society is far more dangerous to the 
 perpetuation of our government in its purity and 
 power than would be the hostile array on our 
 borders of the armies of the entire w^orld com- 
 bined." Mr. Thompson declared that he made 
 this statement from years of close study and a 
 field of the widest opportunities for observation, 
 embracing the principal industrial centers both ot 
 the North and South. In support of his state- 
 ment he said that ''on every hand, and for the 
 slightest provocation, all classes of organized la- 
 bor stand ready to inaugurate a strike with all 
 
ORGANIZATION 133 
 
 its attendant evils, and that in addition to this, 
 stronger ties of consoHdation are being urged 
 over the country among Labor Unions, with the 
 view of being able to inaugurate a sympathetic 
 strike that will embrace all classes of labor sim- 
 ply to redress the grievances or right the wrongs 
 of one class, however remotely located or how- 
 ever unjust may be the demands of that class." 
 He asserted that organizations teaching such the- 
 ories should be held as treasonable in their char- 
 acter and their leaders worse than traitors to their 
 country. 
 
 Mr. Thompson also said that many labor lead- 
 ers are open and avowed Socialists ; that their 
 organizations are weakening the ties of citizen- 
 ship among thousands of our people, in that they 
 have no other standard of community obligations 
 than that these organizations mculcate ; that they 
 are scattering widespread disregard for the rights 
 of others ; that they are destroying respect for law 
 and authority among the working classes ; that 
 they are educating the laboring classes against 
 the employing classes, thus creating antagonisms 
 between those whose mutuality of interests 
 should be fostered and encouraged by every 
 friend of good government ; that they are de- 
 stroying the right of individual contract between 
 employes and employers and forcing upon em- 
 ployers men at arbitrary wages ; and that they 
 are bringing public reproach upon the judicial 
 tribunals of our country, by public abuse of these 
 tribunals, and often open defiance of their de- 
 crees, thereby seeking to break down the only 
 
134 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 safeguards of a free people. "The remedy for 
 the evils, he said, lie principally in a correct pub- 
 lic sentiment touching the relations that should 
 exist between labor and capital." He suggests a 
 law. *'A law, he added, should be enacted that 
 would make it justifiable homicide for any kill- 
 ing that occurred in defense of any unla wful oc- 
 cupation, the theory of our government -being 
 that any one has a right to earn an honest living 
 in this country, and any endeavor to deprive one 
 of that right should be placed in the same legal 
 status with deprivation of life and property." 
 
 He said that a strike and boycott should be 
 made a felony, both by national and state legis- 
 lation. Then he suggested the formation of state 
 and national Boards of Arbitration, authorized 
 and empowered to settle all matters of difiference 
 between labor and capital, and whose decrees 
 should be binding on the parties affected. 
 
 Mr. Thompson expressed the opinion that pub- 
 lic sentiment in the South would justify the 
 shooting, of union men who interfered with non- 
 union men at work. He said that the South was 
 holding out as an inducement to the manufactur- 
 ers of textiles that if they came South they would 
 be free from labor strikes. "There is," he said, 
 "a movement on foot to put it beyond the power 
 of labor unions, by means of compulsory arbitra- 
 tion to disturb industrial conditions." 
 
INDIA'S DARK PICTURE. 
 
 As many people in India to-day as the whole 
 population of the United States are lying at 
 death's door for want of food. They are and 
 have been for some time dying of starvation at 
 the rate of 50,000 per day. To the horrors of 
 famine are now added the terrors of cholera and 
 smallpox. The atmosphere in parts of the coun- 
 try is thick with the fumes of the dead. Great 
 corps of men are kept busy burning the swollen 
 and distorted corpses. The civilized countries of 
 the world are sending subscriptions. "Do not 
 send grain ; we have plenty of that. What we 
 need is money to buy with,'' is the cry from the 
 suffering. The British government does noth- 
 ing in the matter, for, as stated by an eminent 
 British statesman, "English governmental action 
 might discourage individual donations in foreign 
 lands." 
 
 There is absolutely no hope of voluntary sub- 
 scriptions reaching a fraction of the figure neces- 
 sary to prevent the death of millions of human 
 beings. Unparalleled in history is this tale of 
 wrong and woe. Xo government pretending to 
 civilization ever before let its subjects starve 
 when food was plenty. The greatest infamy was 
 left to be perpetrated by the English in India. 
 No record of man has chronicled another example 
 of the richest nation in the world denuding a 
 country of its wealth and leaving the victims to 
 die in ditch and field or be relieved by private sub- 
 
136 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 scription in foreign lands. A part of the money 
 extorted from the poor Indian ryots and invested 
 in irrigating the country would insure plenty in al- 
 most every part of the land, and the total crops 
 would, under any arrangement but wholesale ex- 
 ploitation, secure to every person comfort and 
 plenty. It is a dark picture of robbery and neg- 
 lect. It is wholesale murder for the financial ben- 
 efit of the British capitalist. It is the program of 
 the Christian capitalist wherever in power. 
 
 PROFIT REGARDLESS OF RESULTS. 
 
 Advices from Vladivostock are to the effect 
 that there is great distress in the Russian Amur 
 maritime provinces. The events in China have 
 made labor scarce, the harvest largely failed, 
 floods were very destructive, and the railroad was 
 monopolized by troops, thus preventing the im- 
 portation of supplies. Consequently the prices of 
 bare necessities are beyond the people's means. 
 Even government officials have been obliged to 
 appeal to the central administration for relief. It 
 is feared that a famine is imminent. The Globe 
 yesterday afternoon published a letter from a Bel- 
 gian gentleman, who has been traveling to Pekin 
 via the Trans-Siberian Railroad. He describes 
 under date of September 6, 1900, what he saw 
 in the Amur river. His account surpasses in 
 horror those previously published. He says, 
 "The scenes I have witnessed during the three 
 days since my steamer left Blagovetchenck are 
 horrible beyond description. Two thousand were 
 deliberately drowned at Moroo, two thousand at 
 
INDIA S DARK PICTURE 1 37 
 
 Rubes and two thousand around Blagovetchenck, 
 making a total of six thousand corpses encum- 
 bering the river, among which were thousands 
 of women and children. Navigation was all but 
 impossible. Last week a boat had to plow her 
 way through a tangled and mangled mass of 
 corpses lashed together by their long hair. The 
 banks were literally covered with corpses. In the 
 curves of the stream were dark, putrid smelling 
 masses of human flesh and bone, surging and 
 swaying in the steamer's wake and wash. The 
 sight and smell will ever be with us. From Bla- 
 govetchenck to Aigun, forty-five kilometers, nu- 
 merous villages lined the banks, with a thriving, 
 industrious population of over one hundred thou- 
 sand. That of Aigun was twenty thousand. No 
 one will ever know the number of those who 
 perished by shot, sword and stream. Not a vil- 
 lage is left. The silence of death was around us, 
 the ruins of Aigun on the right, with broken 
 down and crumbling walls and shattered, roofless 
 houses." 
 
 So, Friend, you see that I am not exaggerating 
 when I say that anarchy reigns supreme at the 
 four quarters of the globe to-day. 
 
 A soldier's pen picture of life in the PHILIP- 
 PINES. 
 
 New Haven, Conn., Dec. 13, 1900. 
 Thos. F. ]\IcGovern, now a member of Com- 
 pany ''G," Seventeenth Infantry, United States 
 Army, stationed in the Philippines, has just writ- 
 ten to an old friend in this city some unique im- 
 
138 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 pressions of Uncle Sam's new possessions in the 
 far east. In a letter written at Garmalling, Pri- 
 vate McGovern says : ''The Philippines are a 
 bunch of trouble gathered on the western horizon 
 of civilization. They are bounded on the north 
 by rocks and destruction, on the south by canni- 
 bals and earthquakes, on the east by typhoons 
 and on the west by hoodooism and smuggling. 
 The climate is a deceptive combination of 
 changes well adapted to raising Cain. The soil is 
 very fertile and large crops of insurgents and 
 treachery are produced. The inhabitants are very 
 industrious. Their chief occupation is in build- 
 ing trenches and making bolos. 
 
 Their houses are made chiefly of bamboo and 
 landscape. The Filipino marriage ceremonies 
 are very impressive, especially the cases where 
 the wife is given the privilege of working as much 
 as her husband desires. The Filipino's principal 
 diet is rice, stewed rice and fried rice. Manila is 
 one capital city. It is situated on Manila Bay, 
 a large land-locked body full of sharks and Span- 
 ish submarine boats, for which Dewey is respon- 
 sible. Cavite, the next city of importance, is 
 noted for being no good as a naval station and 
 for a large number of saloons and Chinamen. 
 
 The principal exports of the island are rice, 
 hemp and war bulletins. The imports are Ameri- 
 can soldiers, arms and ammunition. Malarial 
 fever is so prevalent that on numerous occasions 
 the islands have been shaken with a chill. Com- 
 munication has been established between the 
 numerous islands by substituting the mosquito 
 
India's dark picture 139 
 
 for the carrier pigeon, the mosquito being larger 
 and better. The FiHpinos are friends at the point 
 of our guns. 
 
 The cHmate is pleasant and healthful for mos- 
 quitoes, bugs, snakes, tarantulas, roaches, scor- 
 pions, centipedes and alligators. 
 
 The soil is adapted for raising foul odors and 
 breeding diseases. 
 
 In other words. New Haven will be just exact- 
 ly good enough for me as soon as I can get back 
 to it, after leaving the army." 
 
 It is useless to comment upon the wars of 
 strife that exist right here at our doors ; the pa- 
 pers are full of it every day. To borrow a Bible 
 quotation, *'A house divided against itself cannot 
 stand." I may add that this nation cannot en- 
 dure half republic and half colony, half free and 
 half vassal, half monarchy and half anarchy. 
 
 The people are divided into w^arring factions. 
 The cause of the division is the right of a few 
 to command the employment and lives of the 
 others. 
 
 How long should this country continue with a 
 minority in charge of the means by which all the 
 people live? 
 
 How long should this nation endure part rob- 
 bers and part robbed, with none truly free? Not 
 very long if the signs of the times have anything 
 to do with it. Here is a bulletin, red hot from 
 the wires of London : 
 
 January 16, 1901. 
 
 At a meeting of the Wolver-Hampton Cham- 
 ber of Commerce to-day, ex-Prime ]^Iinister 
 
140 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 Rosebery made a speech in which he dealt in a 
 most serious strain with the industrial and com- 
 mercial competition by which Great Britain was 
 faced. He declared that the future was dark and 
 gloomy. It was difficult, even unwise, to try to 
 prophesy what it might have in store. He was 
 not alarmed by the constant piling up of the im- 
 mense and most costly armaments by Europe. 
 They rather tended toward peace than otherwise. 
 The war he feared was not military. It was that 
 great war of trade which was inevitably coming 
 and which, so far as he could see, would be one 
 of the greatest and most serious that Great Brit- 
 ain ever had to cope with (and that is competi- 
 tion, the life of trade). ''While not putting other 
 nations out of the category, it was from the 
 United States and Germany that the British had 
 the most to fear. America, with its resources and 
 the acuteness and enterprising spirit of its peo- 
 ple, was the most formidable of all competitors. 
 Lord Rosebery remarked upon one striking feat- 
 ure of the American competitor, namely, that 
 the great individual fortunes being made in the 
 United States were not employed as they proba- 
 bly would be in England, to enable their makers 
 to retire and enjoy social and other pleasures, but 
 were invested in great trusts and syndicates to 
 form power for concentrating attacks on British 
 trade." 
 
 Now, my lord, what the trusts are doing for 
 England they will also do for every other nation. 
 If you will wait a short while longer they will 
 make us all look like thirty cents, and then, put 
 
India's dark picture 141 
 
 us on an equal footing and address one another 
 as Mr. So-and-So, and bring about this very 
 much needed reform in an amiable and con- 
 genial way. 
 
"CAN'T CHANGE HUMAN NATURE." 
 
 The silliest opponents of Socialism are the very 
 good Christians who come up to us with a "you- 
 can't-get-over-this-argument" air and say, 
 "You'll never succeed, for you will never be able 
 to change human nature." This is rich from 
 Christians, whose only work, in which they have 
 already spent a score of centuries, is to try to 
 change human nature ; that is, by "coming to 
 Jesus," and being "born again," and "getting a 
 new heart," etc. The infidels. "You can't change 
 human nature," says the shallow thinker. Think 
 not? Well, just give us a chance, and if I do not 
 change it I will change its manifestations ; it is 
 the same thing for all practical purposes of So- 
 cialism. 
 
 Suppose I am lord of the wind and waves, and 
 wreck at sea the ship you are on, and I providen- 
 ially get fifty or sixty of you safely away in boats 
 and on rafts with plenty of provisions and good 
 hopes of final rescue. You are all ladies and gen- 
 tlemen then, and behave decently to each other. 
 But suppose I keep you out of hope for a week, 
 two, three, and until your last biscuit is gone, and 
 you are mad with sickness, hunger and thirst. 
 Then with the composition of your blood and 
 other bodily juices altered, you are no longer 
 gentlemen and ladies, but ugly, ill-tempered, 
 wolfish brutes, ready to draw lots for some one 
 to be killed and eaten to save the rest. You have 
 become cannibals. I did not change human na- 
 
can't change human nature 143 
 
 ture, did I ? No, but you might as well be wolves 
 as human beings acting just like wolves. Any- 
 way, you would be a totally different chemical 
 formulae, and that is quite as good — or bad — as 
 a change of nature. Then if I should send a sail 
 in sight and rescue you, and gradually fill you 
 up with good victuals and warm and nourish you 
 back to health, with the return of your bodily 
 juices to their normal former state you return to 
 decency and gentility, do you not? 
 
 Well, then, do you not think that this great 
 community of cannibals and vicious competitors 
 for bread could be properly fed and clothed, and 
 housed, and educated, as big a chemical change 
 could be worked in them as in you, and they 
 would be just as fully redeemed morally? 
 
 Depend on it, the rest of the bad and wicked 
 world is as amenable to proper treatment as you 
 are, in spite of your self-conceit. At any rate, 
 having been saved, or never having needed sal- 
 vation yourself, you might help us Socialists to 
 put the victual cure into practice. 
 
"A FABLE." 
 
 Some time ago a wolf went to a bear and said : 
 "I have seen Farmer Jones digging in his field 
 the last couple of days, and I think he is grub- 
 bing up a stump." 'To my opinion he is plant- 
 ing a tree," said the bear, as they went marching 
 to their feast. "I think he is grubbing up a 
 stump," yelped the wolf." "He is planting a 
 tree," growled the bear. They made so much 
 noise over their love feast that Farmer Jones had 
 ample time to take to his heels and watch the 
 consequences. ''How can you be so obstinate," 
 exclaimed the wolf, in a temper, "And how can 
 you be such an ignoramus?" replied the bear, 
 getting raving mad as they neared the brink of 
 the pit. Then Farmer Jones heard a yelp, and a 
 growl, and saw a change in the atmosphere for 
 a few minutes, and then he went to the edge of 
 the brink and exclaimed, "One said it was a stump 
 and the other a tree, but it was neither. It 
 was a pit and both have fallen into it, to meet 
 their death. Argument may enlighten, but ob- 
 stinacy digs a pitfall for its own feet." 
 
THE RAYS OF SOCIALISM. 
 
 Let us first glance at the conditions as the So- 
 cialist sees them, so that we may better judge 
 the adequacy of his remedy, i. We have the 
 concentration of wealth by the few. 2. Admit- 
 ting that labor creates everything, even capital it- 
 self, we find that the creator of wealth gets a 
 very small portion of his product. 3. We see 
 the enormous waste in our present system, the 
 waste in advertising, in innumerable and unnec- 
 essary plants, waste in parallel railroads, in use- 
 less traveling salesmen ; in fact, waste in every- 
 thing except the large trusts, etc. 
 
 4. We see the world filled with plenty, plen- 
 ty of food, clothes and shelter, and wc see the 
 great majority suffering for want of common 
 necessities. 
 
 5. We see the class of idle rich enjoying every 
 possible luxury without doing a stroke of work. 
 
 6. We see the inevitable trust gradually mo- 
 nopolizing every branch of trade, so that the 
 masses are made dependent upon them for exist- 
 ence. 
 
 7. We see great labor-saving devices put in 
 operation everywhere, knowing that every one 
 makes so much less employment for labor. 
 
 8. We see the great industries economizing 
 by private co-operation, and thus again making 
 employment more scarce, 
 
 9. We see the toiler being gradually pauper- 
 ized and therefore, in the end, brutalized, losing 
 
146 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 all moral and intellectual attributes, a veritable 
 "man without a hoe." 
 
 10. We find the deadly competitive strife for 
 individual gain breeding dishonesty, immorality, 
 vice and degradation. ''These are the condi- 
 tions as seen through the glasses of the Socialist 
 and as a panacea for these and a thousand other 
 ills too numerous to mention he asks the govern- 
 ment to assume the responsibility of providing 
 employment for all and of supplying the great 
 human family with food, clothes and shelter. He 
 contends that if every man were willing to do 
 his share of useful work, that every man would 
 have to work only about three hours a day in 
 order to furnish the world with everything it now 
 has, and that no man could want for more than 
 his own labor would yield. I believe Benjamin 
 Franklin and a thousand other reliable authori- 
 ties bear him out in this. 
 
 Of course this system would eventually de- 
 stroy interest and profit, and thus no man could 
 amass a fortune and live in luxury while others 
 were furnishing him the means. When one be- 
 gins to compute the enormous amount of interest 
 paid every day and then begins to realize that 
 every cent of interest falls eventually upon the 
 shoulders of labor, it is not strange that labor 
 would destroy the usury, for all interest is usury. 
 The Socialist applauds the trusts and claims that 
 they are paving the way for Socialism. The trust 
 is founded on Socialistic principles, and when 
 their immense benefits are applied to all the peo- 
 ple instead of the few, as at present, when every 
 
THE RAYS OF SOCIALISM I47 
 
 industry is a public trust, then the pubhc, that is, 
 the government, wiU owe every man an oppor- 
 tunity to earn a Hving. When the Sociahst is 
 asked if his system would not destroy all ambi- 
 tion, all incentive to improvement, by crushing 
 out individual enterprises, he will reply by say- 
 ing: "If ambition consists in getting rich at the 
 expense of another ; if there is no other worthy 
 incentive than to get gold ; if there is no other 
 reward for individual enterprise than gold — yes." 
 While I am to some extent an individualist, as 
 well as a collectivist, I do not believe in a sys- 
 tem which makes a lot of isolated units all strug- 
 gling away in different directions after the al- 
 mighty dollar. I believe in co-operation to get 
 the greatest possible good from ^lother Earth 
 for the great human family, with the least possi- 
 ble effort. I believe in union ; for in union there 
 is strength. It perhaps does not occur to many 
 that what is one man's gain must be somebody 
 else's loss. There can be no profit without some- 
 body losing just so much, and inasmuch as labor 
 creates all wealth, labor pays all profit, and all 
 profit is labor's loss. Yet the majority of men 
 think that the workingman gets his just deserts. 
 They point to the saloon, to the equal oppor- 
 tunity for all to acquire riches, to the reasonable 
 reward of brains, and to the fact that somebody 
 must do the world's dirty work. This is silly, 
 superficial, ignorant nonsense. The Socialist 
 prom.ises to do away with intemperance, to equit- 
 ably reward brains and muscle, and to give all 
 equal opportunity. 
 
148 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 WHY AMERICAN WORKINGMEN SHOULD BE SOCIAL- 
 ISTS. 
 
 BY H. G. WILSHIRE. 
 
 A Socialist is one who desires that the wealth 
 of a nation be owned collectively by all the peo- 
 ple, rather than that it should be held by a small 
 fraction of them, commonly known as capitalists. 
 By the "wealth of the nation" is meant the land, 
 the railroads and the telegraphs, the flour mills, 
 the oil refineries ; in short, all of those agencies 
 by means of which food, clothing and other com- 
 modities that mankind desire are produced. By 
 Socialism we mean collective ownership and 
 management of all wealth-producing industries. 
 For instance, just as some of the industries, such 
 as the common school, the postoffice, etc., are 
 now owned and managed by the people ; under 
 Socialism, not only these but all other industries 
 would be owned and managed by the working 
 class, the capitalist class having been abolished. 
 In short, Socialists propose that instead of Mor- 
 gan and Rockefeller owning the United States 
 and running it for their selfish benefit, we, the 
 people, shall assume possession of it ourselves 
 and run it for our own benefit. This is such a 
 very simple proposition that any one should be 
 able to understand it without an elaborate expla- 
 nation. That every patriotic American, and 
 especially every workingman, should not be in 
 favor of Socialism is only to be explained by his 
 ignorance of what Socialism really means. 
 
 It is certainly a praiseworthy sentiment that 
 
THE RAYS OF SOCIALISM I49 
 
 the citizens and inhabitants of a nation should 
 desire to own their own country. It is as natural 
 for him as it is for a man to desire to own his 
 own house, rather than to rent it of a landlord. 
 The motive that inspires a father to provide a 
 home for his family is of the same character, but 
 of a broader nature as the motive that animates 
 the Socialist who desires that all may have a 
 home that they can call their own. We said that 
 every workingman who understood what Social- 
 ism meant would certainly be a Socialist, for 
 assuredly, workingmen, your condition in life is 
 not such that you would fear a change. You are 
 poor ; you are dissatisfied with your lot in life ; 
 you have a sense of being unjustly dealt with by 
 society ; you know that your labor alone pro- 
 duces all the good things of life, and you know 
 that some one else enjoys them ; you know all 
 these things, and you know, or you should know 
 that as simple a thing as casting your ballot in- 
 telligently can produce a change, so that you will 
 receive and enjoy all the fruits of your labor with 
 no necessity of giving the lion's share, or any 
 other share to such blood-sucking parasites as 
 Rockefeller, Astor, \'anderbilt & Co. 
 
 It is true that there is some excuse for you not 
 realizing that your shackles are but figments of 
 your own imaginations. You are befooled and 
 humbugged at every source to which you look 
 for knowledge. The newspapers ostensibly de- 
 voted to the interests of the workingmen in real- 
 ity are but tools of their owners, the capitalists. 
 The politicians, notorious liars and knaves, you 
 
150 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 scarcely listen to, except to deride. That you 
 are robbed of your earnings through the iniqui- 
 tous laws of an unjust social system is so plain 
 that it would seem unnecessary to state it, were 
 not so many quack remedies for social ills pro- 
 posed, the application of which contemplates no 
 change in the fundamental principles of our pres- 
 ent competitive system. You may safely regard 
 any political measure that does not at least tend 
 to ' the abolition of the keystone of modern 
 society, ''the wage system," as being unworthy 
 of workingmen's support. Reflect on your mis- 
 erable condition in life and consider that you, a 
 citizen of the United States, are an inhabitant 
 of a nation possessing natural resources capable 
 of easily supporting over ten times its present 
 population. You are informed by uncontroverti- 
 ble statistics that by the development of the 
 steam engine and labor-saving machinery the 
 labor of one man can to-day produce commodi- 
 ties, food, clothing, lodging, etc., sufficient to 
 more than comfortably provide for twenty, and 
 yet the fact stares you in the face that the return 
 you get for your labor scarcely keeps you alive. 
 Knowing these things, can you remain contented 
 to live under a social system that at the most 
 gives you in exchange for your labor an exist- 
 ence more miserable than that of a slave, be- 
 cause more insecure, and even makes you con- 
 sidered lucky in getting any employment at all? 
 Do you wonder to whom the surplus produced 
 goes, and why? Let us put the matter more 
 clearly before your eyes. Consider that the ma- 
 
THE RAYS OF SOCIALISM I5I 
 
 chlnery of production — that is, the railroads, the 
 flour mills, the oil and sugar refineries, and even 
 the very land itself — do not belong in common to 
 all the citizens, but to a very small class called 
 capitalists, some of whom are not even citizens 
 and many of whom have never set foot in the 
 country. ~^ 
 
 Now, to get clothing, food and lodging, both 
 land and machinery must be employed, and if 
 one class own these essentials of production, it 
 is evident that it can demand of the other class 
 that do not own them as much rent as it pleases 
 •for the use of them. And what does it please to 
 demand? Answer: Everything that you pro- 
 duce, except a very small part which it allows 
 you to keep, just sufficient for you to sustain 
 your miserable existence. Workingmen, you are 
 in almost exactly the same position as horses in 
 that you can never expect to get any more than 
 just enough to keep you in a condition to be able 
 to work, the only difference being that the em- 
 ployer of the horse feeds him even w^hen he can- 
 not for the time being use his labor, while the 
 employer of you workingmen feed and clothe 
 you only when you are useful to him, and when 
 you are not useful to him, as in dull seasons, he 
 lets you feed yourselves the best way you may, 
 and you can starve as far as he is concerned. He 
 loses money if his horse dies, but he loses noth- 
 ing if you starve. You ask. Why do not capital- 
 ists pay higher wages? Why do they not pay 
 wages sufficient to allow you to properly feed 
 and clothe yourselves, your wives and your chil- 
 
152 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 dren ? Why do. not workingmen successfully de- 
 mand wages sufficient to enable them to educate 
 their children in the public schools? Why mock 
 them with free schools when they must send 
 their children to the mine and the factory to earn 
 food for the family? The answer is simple and 
 plain. As long as there are millions of unem- 
 ployed men in the United States only too glad to 
 get a chance to work for wages that will afiford 
 them the bare necessities of life, wages cannot 
 rise above that minimum rate. The truth of this 
 statement, and it is most important that every 
 workingman should know its truth, is easily 
 proven. Consider a familiar every-day occur- 
 rence in life. A and B each own a coal mine. 
 Each is selling his coal at the lowest price possi- 
 ble in order to undersell the other. The item of 
 labor is the chief one in the expense of mining 
 coal; so, supposing that A pays his men less 
 than B, then he is in the position of being able to 
 undersell B, and unless B is also able to get his 
 labor as cheap as A, he must retire from the field. 
 This shows that the capitalist could not, under 
 our competitive system, pay higher wages, even 
 though they might so wish. Then, on the other 
 hand, consider the laborer, the miner. Suppose 
 he is getting one dollar per day, and some poor 
 fellows out of employment came along, some 
 emigrants, for instance, who, rather than starve, 
 offers to work for seventy-five cents per day, it is 
 then certain that, as the. owners of the mines are 
 forced to always buy the cheapest labor that is 
 offered, the one dollar a day laborer must suffer 
 
THE RAYS OF SOCIALISM 1 53 
 
 a reduction on his wages to seventy-five cents, 
 or be replaced by the emigrant who will work for 
 seventy-five cents. Hence we see how it is that 
 the pressure of the unemployed upon the labor 
 market always keeps the price of labor at the 
 lowest notch. And the more labor-saving ma- 
 chinery that is introduced the more men are 
 thrown out of employment and the greater the 
 struggle between laboring men to get hired at 
 any price. Considering how it is even thus un- 
 der our present wage system that wages must 
 remain low, it is easy to see how absurd it is for 
 Democrats or Republicans to claim that free 
 trade or protection can make wages higher. 
 W'orkingmen are coming to recognize the fact 
 that there is no reliance to be placed on either of 
 the old parties or any new party that capitalism 
 may wish to fool the workmen with, and that 
 they must organize a party of their own, which 
 will overthrow the wage system entirely. 
 
 Workingmen, Americans, the issue is plain. 
 Yours is the choice whether to remain slaves in 
 your own country, fettered by your own hand ; 
 to see your wives and your children live in pover- 
 ty and squalor, aye, and often star^'e before your 
 very eyes, or whether you will be free men, not in 
 name only but in reality ; whether you will own 
 your own country and enjoy the full fruits of 
 your honest labor. Workingmen say : "Ah, well 
 enough. These are fine words, but it is impossi- 
 ble for anything to be done. Workingmen have 
 always been poor and always will remain poor. 
 You Socialists simply make us feel our poverty 
 
154 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 more keenly and make us discontented without 
 showing us any practical plan to abolish the 
 causes of our discontent. Of course, we wish 
 to provide more liberally for ourselves and fami- 
 lies. Certainly we would prefer sending our chil- 
 dren to school rather than to the factory. We 
 know that we are virtually slaves, and we cer- 
 tainly would like to end our wage slavery. What 
 fool would not have his fellowmen own their own 
 country rather than have a band of capitalists 
 own it? But even if the wealth of the nation 
 were divided up, as we suppose you Socialists 
 propose, it would simply be a matter of time be- 
 fore Rockefeller & Co. would have it all again." 
 Workingmen, you are mistaken. Socialists do 
 propose a most practicable and feasible solution 
 of the problem of how to abolish poverty. If you 
 will consider our plan you cannot help but agree 
 that its accomplishment would prevent any fear 
 of Rockefeller & Co. ever getting our country 
 away from us after it is once restored. Social- 
 ism means anything but the division of the own- 
 ership of the means of production. Socialism, 
 as we said before, contemplates the absolute con- 
 centration of the ownership of the wealth of the 
 country into the collective control of the people 
 themselves. The only division of things that So- 
 cialists propose is the fair division of commodi- 
 ties produced, but not by any means do they pro- 
 pose the division of the ownership of the ma- 
 chinery that produced those products. For in- 
 stance, the people will collectively own the land, 
 the grain elevators, the flour mills and the baker- 
 
THE RAYS OF SOCIALISM 1 55 
 
 ies, while the people individually will own the 
 product, the bread. In answer as to the practi- 
 cability of collective ownership of the means of 
 production, it is best answered by the inspection 
 and consideration of how the machinery of pro- 
 duction in the United States is at present man- 
 aged. Within the last few years the owners of 
 the various o:reat industries of this countrv, 
 through the inordinate over-extension of their 
 plants and the consequent fierceness of the war- 
 fare of competition arising from overproduction, 
 have been compelled to consolidate their inter- 
 ests into monopolies, simply as a matter of sheer 
 necessity, to preserve themselves from threaten- 
 ing bankruptcy. 
 
 Having in mind the million of half-naked and 
 half-fed men, women and children, it may seem 
 to many that the excuse of "overproduction" that 
 the trusts give for their existence is the boldest 
 of lies. 
 
 But it must be remembered that the owners 
 of the sugar, beef and other trusts are not in 
 business from philanthropic motives, but purely 
 and simply to make money for themselves, so 
 that the mere fact of people wanting or even 
 starving for the want of what their machinery 
 produces does not constitute any sound business 
 reason for capitalists to feed them. Unless hun- 
 gry people have money, they have no legal right 
 to food. They may be fed by charity, but they 
 have no legal right under our present social sys- 
 tem to demand help. So we see that as far as 
 the capitalist is concerned there is an overpro- 
 
156 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 duction in goods when he finds no buyers, al- 
 though there may be plenty who want but have 
 no money to buy. It is quite palpable that in 
 a country as productive as the United States 
 and where wage-workers, the great consuming 
 class, are paid such a small part of what is pro- 
 duced, there must always be a great surplus re- 
 maining in the hands of the capitalists unless 
 they avoid such a result by restricting produc- 
 tion — and restricting production means shutting 
 down factories — turning out of employment will- 
 ing workers and starving the nation in the midst 
 of plenty. While we Socialists agree that from 
 the capitalistic standpoint anti-trust laws are ab- 
 surd, as trusts are a necessary development of 
 our competitive system, yet at the same time we 
 realize that the trusts and monopolies, unless 
 checked in their career by nationalizing them, 
 will throw the people into a slavery worse than 
 that recorded by history. Since monopoly is the 
 future determining factor in production, and 
 competition is forever dethroned, we see each oi 
 our great industries controlled by one corpora- 
 tion, headed by one man — a captain of industry 
 — and this state of afifairs is what more than any- 
 thing else demonstrates the practicability of So- 
 cialism. Certainly if Jay Gould can successfully 
 manage the telegraphs of the country, there can 
 be no difficulty in us, the people, doing the thing. 
 We already manage the post offices — why not 
 the telegraphs? Again, if Mr. Rockefeller man- 
 ages the oil business, Mr. Vanderbilt the railways, 
 Mr. Armour the beef business, Mr. Pillsbury the 
 
THE RAYS OF SOCIALISM 157 
 
 flour business, Mr. Carnegie the iron business, 
 Mr. Havemeyer the sugar business, Mr. Corbin 
 the coal business, Mr. Dalrymple the bonanza 
 wheat farms and Mr. Astor a great part of the 
 real estate in New York; we say, if these cap- 
 itaUsts can manage these properties for their own 
 sehish ends, that we, the people, can just as well 
 manage them for our own use and benefit. All 
 we have to do in order to own our country, is for 
 a majority to vote for the party that is pledged to 
 carry out'^that idea, and the only party that is so 
 pledged is the Socialist Party. With the success 
 of that party and the change that it would bring 
 about, no one need work over three hours per 
 dav, and everyone who wanted to work could 
 find employment, receiving in return the full 
 fruits of labor. 
 
 Everyone would have leisure, children would 
 be educated, all would be free, and happiness 
 would reign supreme. American workingmen, 
 we have shown you the road to freedom. When 
 you pursue that path you will be free. Before 
 that, never. 
 
POVERTY AND ITS CURE AS VIEWED 
 FROM THE STANDPOINT OF A SO- 
 CIALIST. 
 
 It must by this time have become apparent to 
 all thoughtful people that an adequate remedy 
 for the existing hard times, which in spite of the 
 clamors of prosperity howlers, is felt so acutely 
 throughout the civilized world, must consist of 
 more radical and far-reaching measures than cor- 
 poration-inspired financial legislation, or the in- 
 evitable tariff tinkering. Vast wealth without 
 merit upon the one hand, the complement of un- 
 deserved poverty upon the other, is the con- 
 dition which confronts us to-day. SociaHsm will 
 positively produce equality of opportunity, not 
 equality of wealth or of any other thing. The 
 classes now in possession of those special priv- 
 ileges which enable them to appropriate the 
 wealth produced by others are desperately op- 
 posed to it, knowing that it would give to the 
 masses the product of their toil, while the sacred 
 classes would be obliged to toil for their product. 
 The worker in an extensive factory which has 
 cost many dollars to construct and ship may be- 
 lieve that a large portion of his product should 
 go to the man who has risked his capital in build- 
 ing and equipping it. Under our present indus- 
 trial system that is right and just. Socialists do 
 not blame the capitalist for requiring a profit for 
 the use and risk of his capital. They blame the 
 stupidity of a people who continue a system 
 
POVERTY AND ITS CURE 159 
 
 which makes such a thing necessary. Under the 
 rational system private capital would be unnec- 
 essary and useless to the public, but would still 
 benefit its possessor without injuring or exacting 
 tribute from any other person, 
 
 A little thought will convince one that all 
 wealth IS produced by labor applied to natural 
 resources, and that capital never created any 
 wealth. A million dollars could never dig a post 
 hole or plant a tree, much less construct and 
 equip a transcontinental railway line or a great 
 manufacturing plant. Labor can and has done 
 all of this — built the factory, fashioned the raw 
 material from nature's inexhaustible storehouse, 
 made, transported and adjusted all of the equip- 
 ments of the great factory. As labor, applied to 
 the resources of nature, produced or erected the 
 factory and every article manufactured there, la- 
 bor should have and own the factory and its en- 
 tire product in just and equitable proportion. 
 Thus, if the product during one year is worth 
 one million dollars, one man who did one mil- 
 lionth part of the labor is entitled to one dollar, 
 the man who did five hundred millionths of the 
 labor is entitled to five hundred dollars, etc. Any 
 system which takes one cent of that from them 
 is a system of robbery, and every cent taken from 
 them is stolen — not by the owner of the factory, 
 who may be a Christian, and a Socialist, for that 
 mattter, but by the system. The man who used 
 and risked his capital would be robbed if he did 
 not receive his profit. True, the system which 
 permits and almost compels him to risk his prop- 
 
l60 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 erty must recompense him for that risk ; but only 
 a robber system would compel a man to risk the 
 property which he has, in order to acquire more. 
 Competition robs both the employer and his 
 workmen. He and they are each and all the vic- 
 tims. 
 
 Co-operation is to competition as mutual serv- 
 ice is to envious strife. Socialism is co-opera- 
 tion, mutual assistance, applied in a scientific and 
 practical manner to the production and distribu- 
 tion of wealth. Competition is the strife, con- 
 tention, building up and tearing down which oc- 
 curs in the construction of an edifice, where each 
 workman builds his own section with m.aterial 
 which he tears from the sections which his fel- 
 lows have builded. Consider a moment if this 
 be not so. The professional or business man 
 can secure a patronage or work up a business 
 only- by winning it away from some one else. 
 And so long as there are more men than jobs, 
 even a poor laborer can get a job, a chance to 
 earn a living for himself, his wife and babies, only 
 by taking it from another unfortunate, who is 
 thus left without the opportunity to provide for 
 himself and dependent ones. This is the actual 
 condition at present existing. It is industrial can- 
 nibalism, and under competition positively must 
 get worse and worse. It is certain that popula- 
 tion is increasing each year, and each year the 
 man-work required grows less, machine work re- 
 placing it. Men becoming more numerous, and 
 jobs less numerous, what must be the result? 
 Tesla says, 'The work of the world will some day 
 
POVERTY AND ITS CURE l6l 
 
 be done by pressing electric buttons." Do you 
 think there will be buttons enough to go around? 
 
 Socialism proposes a rational, practical and 
 humane remedy for all the ills that are the re- 
 sult of competition. Careful study of the prob- 
 lem surprises the enquirer by disclosing how 
 very many of the ills of the body politic are the 
 result. Sir John More, Lord Chancellor of Eng- 
 land, many years ago said that nine-tenths of the 
 crimes committed are crimes against property. 
 That class of crime would almost cease uyder 
 a Socialist regime. There would be scarcely any 
 involuntary poverty, and therefore little incentive 
 to that kind of crime. The saving of wealth un- 
 der Socialism would be enormous. In the one 
 case each separate industry would be system- 
 ized and conducted under the supervision of 
 experts. In the other case all production is the 
 result of haphazard, planless, disconnected effort. 
 The trusts furnish an object lesson in co-opera- 
 tion. They systematize an entire industry. The 
 competition of the little rival concerns being 
 eliminated,- the expense of numerous traveling 
 agents and of advertising is at once saved. The 
 working force — large when operating in diverse 
 and distant places with inferior equipments — is 
 reduced one-half by concentrated production. At 
 the present time this saving reverts to the trust 
 magnate. In the future, when our industries, like 
 our military, postal and school systems, are so- 
 cialized, it will accrue to the people as a whole. 
 
 Are officers, teachers, janitors, etc., derelict in 
 their duties because employed by the govern- 
 
l62 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 ment? Have you any reason to believe that 
 artisans would h^ any more so? Does the gov- 
 ernment employed mail agent render a service in- 
 ferior to the corporation employed express 
 agent ? What possible argument can be given in 
 favor of government ownership of the mail serv- 
 ice that will not apply with equal propriety and 
 force to the express, telegraph, freight and pas- 
 senger service ? 
 
 Under Socialism you will receive just the quan- 
 tity of wealth which you produce. Under capital- 
 ism you are lucky if you get half of what you pro- 
 duce. Therefore, under Socialism you would 
 have at least twice the incentive to earnest ef- 
 fort that you have under capitalism. Under cap- 
 italism thousands are idle and thousands are in 
 want. Under Socialism those men would be put 
 to work to produce things wanted. 
 
 Under competition there are in a town a hun- 
 dred stores and a thousand clerks. Under So- 
 cialism there will be a central distributing depot 
 with a corps of one hundred efficient men, and 
 the remaining nine hundred men will engage in 
 some productive occupation. The clerks are but 
 a drop in the ocean. Thousands and thousands 
 are not engaged in useless and unproductive la- 
 bor. Under Socialism useless labor would be 
 unknown and unproductive labor almost so, and 
 these armies of slaves to Mammon will be given 
 honest productive employment. 
 
 Production in its present volume, which if 
 equitably distributed would provide a degree of 
 comfort unknown to half our people, would not 
 
POVERTY AND 113 CURE, 163 
 
 require three hours' work per day for five clays 
 per week from the able-bodied portion of our 
 population. One result would be several holi- 
 days each week. Both are practically unknown 
 to half our people to-day. One-half the working 
 or workable portion of the population could pro- 
 duce all the food and clothing- required, the other 
 half could be put to work building fine residences, 
 making musical instruments and other things 
 that are appreciated by cultivated minds, and un- 
 der Socialism every capable mind would have 
 the blessed opportunity of culture. Interest, rent, 
 profit and all other tributes to capital will be com- 
 pletely abolished by Socialism. Private capital 
 will not be recognized or used in the production 
 of wealth, therefore there will be no necessity or 
 reason for paying tribute to it. Capital is ac- 
 cumulated and stored up by wealth, and as the 
 people collectively create and accumulate or store 
 up wealth, it will belong to them, and none can 
 claim tribute for its use. The whole competitive 
 or capitalist system is arranged with a view to 
 taking every dollar possible from labor and giv- 
 ing it to the capitalist. The reason for this is 
 that the capitalists make the laws which regu- 
 late this system. They will continue to do so un- 
 til we have direct legislation, when the laws will 
 be made by the people as a whole. Direct leg- 
 islation means the socializing of the legislative 
 branch of our government. Even the taxes nec- 
 essary to conduct the government, instead of be- 
 ing simply and inexpensively paid over, are col- 
 lected in the form of tarift' through the complex 
 
164 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 and expensive machinery of the custom house 
 system, that place and pay may be given an army 
 of non-producing custom officials. According to 
 the United States census of 1890, the increase of 
 wealth during the preceding ten years amounted 
 to about $11.55 for each day's labor done, while 
 the average wage paid to the skilled and other 
 labor was about $1.53 per day. Thus the worker 
 got $1.50 out of every $11.50 he produced, while 
 the non-producers, mostly idlers, got the other 
 $10. Do not get the idea that Socialism means 
 the dividing up of wealth. It means a dividing 
 up of opportunities only. Private property would 
 be as sacred under Socialism as it is to-day, and 
 would run no risks, the nation taking the place of 
 the insurance companies in guaranteeing its safe- 
 ty. Under competition the interests of the buyer 
 and seher are antagonistic ; under Socialism the 
 interest of the buyer (the people individually) 
 would not be inimical to the interests of the seller 
 — the people collectively. Every labor-saving de- 
 vice would then be a blessing, redeeming to a 
 certain extent the sons of men from toil. 
 
 WAGE SYSTEM AND SLAVERY. 
 
 We ought to know that our struggle for indi- 
 vidual freedom is not a fight against this man, or 
 that, or the other. Our quarrel is not with a 
 Vanderbilt nor a Rockefeller nor any other man 
 who may be named. The most serious obstacle 
 to our progress lies in the notion that our strug- 
 gle is against men. So long as we imagine that 
 the capitalist is to blame for the conditions which 
 
POVERTY AND ITS CURE 165 
 
 exist, and that there is any use in appealing to 
 him to right our wrongs, so long shall we move 
 round and round in a circle and never get any- 
 where. He cannot do anything for us, no matter 
 how much he may desire to. I do not question 
 the value of labor unions ; they are one of the 
 steps toward the emancipation of labor. But 
 they are in no sense an end in themselves. To 
 think of them as a means of securing higher 
 wages is to miss their real meaning. That man 
 who thinks that what he wants is higher wages 
 needs enlightenment. 
 
 Wages are just what every laborer the world 
 over should be eager to abolish. If a wage sys- 
 tem is absolutely synonymous with slavery, not 
 with African slavery, but with a far more hope- 
 less and hideous sort, the maintenance of the 
 wage system would mean the defeat of civiliza- 
 tion and the disappointment of humanity's high- 
 est and holiest hopes. The labor union is a sign 
 board pointing to something better. It means 
 that the interests of all laborers are one, and it 
 also means that the interests of employers and 
 emplovees are diametrically hostile to each other. 
 
 There is no harmony between the two, and to 
 pretend there is is to trifle with the facts. The 
 interests of capitalism are served by the mak- 
 ing of profits. Abolish profits and the system 
 of capitalism immediately goes out of existence. 
 But the interests of the laborer are not served by 
 profits, because he does not receive them. They 
 could have no meaning to him. All he can pos- 
 sibly receive is the equivalent of the profit of his 
 
1 66 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 labor, that which shall enable him to buy back 
 all that he has produced. And that is not profit. 
 It has a better name, which does not occur in 
 the vocabulary of capitalism — "justice." 
 
 The labor union also means that the interests 
 of all laborers are absolutely identical. If they 
 are ever to win their fight they must stand -to- 
 gether as a class. And something more than 
 this is necessary. They must know what they 
 want, and they must be united for a definite pur- 
 pose. The trouble thus far has been that they 
 have either concentrated their efforts upon a pur- 
 pose that was not great enough or else have been 
 fighting a battle that ought never to be won. On 
 the other hand, they have fought for an advance 
 in wages, or against a reduction — in either case 
 it means the maintenance of the wage system, 
 and therefore slavery. Slaves fighting for the 
 defense of slavery. On the other side we have 
 the spectacle of the trades unions contenting 
 themselves with trying to limit the number of ap- 
 prentices and all that sort of thing. That is a 
 species of tyranny to which the American people 
 never will and never ought to submit. I deny 
 the right of any trades union on earth to say 
 how many men shall work in a certain trade or 
 where any consumer shall buy his goods. Let 
 the workingmen of this country learn at the 
 earliest possible moment that unless their claims 
 appeal transparently to every good man's sense 
 of justice, their cause is lost to begin with. No 
 cause that has not in it the claim of justice, so 
 that all can see, ever ought to succeed, nor in the 
 
POVERTY AND ITS CURE 167 
 
 long- run can it. But apart from the impertinent 
 injustice of such a course, it is not and cannot 
 be effective. No trade union nor all of them to- 
 gether can bring all the laborers into their mem- 
 bership. Fewer and fewer are the great indus- 
 tries that can be crippled by the action of trades 
 unions. That weapon is losing its effectiveness. 
 When thousands of men are out of work, it is too 
 great a strain on human nature to expect them 
 not to take the place of strikers. It is every 
 man's inherent right and duty to work rather 
 than see his wife and children starve. All the 
 powers of society, and their sympathies, too, will 
 defend a man in that right. But there is an or- 
 derly, natural, legitimate course for working- 
 men to pursue. And that course is indicated in 
 Socialism. 
 
 The Socialist political movement has come 
 into existence purely to give the proletariat an 
 opportunity to gain their freedom. Think, work- 
 ingnien, what that movement means. It is noth- 
 ing under heaven but a workingmen's movement. 
 It is devoted absolutely to your interests. It has 
 no other interest to serve. It does not afford an 
 opportunity for the fulfillment of personal ambi- 
 tions. Xo man can ride into any sort of su- 
 premacy above their fellows on the crest of the 
 Socialist political tide. It is not a movement for 
 the offices or to build up a great political machine 
 to repeat the tyrannies of past times. It means 
 the abolition of the springs of political corrup- 
 tion. It means the wiping out of the existing po- 
 litical parties. It proposes to abolish the wage 
 
l68 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 system altogether. It proposes to make a re- 
 turn to slavery impossible. It proposes to bring 
 freedom and health and happiness within reach 
 of every human being who comes into the world. 
 It proposes to make it impossible for any man 
 to climb to any sort of eminence on the shoulders 
 of his brother men. It proposes to make human 
 interests first, with the knowledge that all other 
 interests will naturally follow. The system of 
 capitalism, under which we are living, subjects 
 the masses to the domination of a comparatively 
 few. Economically speaking, we are all consum- 
 ers. We must all have food and clothing and 
 shelter if we are to exist. And if we are really 
 to live, if we are to have anything worthy to be 
 called life — we must have a great deal more than 
 food and clothing and shelter. We must have good 
 food, clothing which gratifies our tastes, and shel- 
 ter which is healthful and beautiful. We are 
 more than a pack of animals, the theory of cap- 
 italism to the contrary notwithstanding — we are 
 men and women. We have something more than 
 stomachs, something more than physical nerves 
 and sensibilities. We have capacities for count- 
 less other and higher things. We love the beau- 
 tiful, or we would if we had the chance. We 
 want to educate ourselves. We want to see and 
 create beautiful things, hear and compose beauti- 
 ful music and have leisure for travel and recre- 
 ation. I hold that these are all our national 
 rights. And one man is just as much entitled 
 to them as another. No man or woman was ever 
 meant to be the slave or the drudge of another, 
 
POVERTY AND ITS CURE 1 69 
 
 no matter how high the price paid for the slavery 
 or drudgery. To attempt to maintain any such 
 hideous doctrine is to nulhfy all morality and 
 make one's self a beast. The message of SociaJ- 
 ism to the vast army of toilers the world over is 
 the only sane, hopeful, cheering, brotherly mes- 
 sage that is being spoken to-day. It has an in- 
 sight into the present and a vision of the future 
 such as no prophet of all the past has had. It 
 declares that the earth belongs to all the people, 
 that every human being who comes into the 
 world bears stamped upon his nature in its mani- 
 fold capacities the certificate of his rights. 
 
 Socialism rests securely upon the well-support- 
 ed conviction that life, liberty and the pursuit of 
 happiness are a universal possibility. Experi- 
 ence has only painfully proven that they are not 
 a possibility under the regime of capitalism ; in- 
 deed, that they are not thinkable under that 
 regime. And why is that the case? Because 
 capitalism forbids equality of opportunity. It 
 means a system, of injustice from base to dome. 
 It could not exist a day, but for the fact that all 
 the laws are made in its interests and the further 
 fact that as yet the masses are ignorant of the 
 power they possess. The truth is, we are con- 
 senting to "live under a class tyranny. The cap- 
 italist class holds in its hands the government, 
 the press, the church, society, everything. Are 
 its members morally worse than other men ? No. 
 Do they aspire to be tyrants ? Xot all of them, 
 and none of them at the beginning. If they have 
 become possessed of the nature of tyrants, it is 
 
170 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 the inevitable result of their position. So long 
 as we tolerate such a class, we are responsible 
 for them. Whether or not they are to continue 
 depends entirely upon us. We can abolish that 
 tyranny forever. We can wipe out that economic 
 class. And there is every reason why we should 
 do so. The world has suffered from ecclesiastical 
 tyranny, and it still tolerates it to some extent. 
 But society as a whole has abolished that tyran- 
 ny in this country. We have no established 
 church or religion. No priesthood has any legal 
 right to command our obedience or support. Was 
 this ecclesiastical tyranny represented by im- 
 moral men ? No. But the system was and is the 
 very essence of immorality, and its influence has 
 nowhere been other than bad. We have suffered, 
 too, from political tyranny, and we have not fully 
 eradicated it. We choose our servants, not our 
 rulers — at least in theory. And we are fast find- 
 ing that our representative system is not very ef- 
 fective for the abolition of political tyranny. But 
 it is the economic tyranny which is the keystone 
 in the arch of oppression. That is the tyranny 
 to which vv^e must now direct our attention. We' 
 shall abolish it in one way, and that is the way 
 indicated by Socialism. It is the way of freedom 
 and happiness, not only for the working class, 
 but for all people. Make the means of produc- 
 tion and distribution the property of all — as they 
 ought to be — and economic tyranny ceases to be. 
 Who is to perform this task? Can it be en- 
 trusted to the capitalists? That is what every 
 laborer believes who supports by his vote the 
 
POVERTY AND ITS CURE IJI 
 
 Republican, Democratic or any other capitalist 
 party. Have we a right to expect the men who 
 profit by tne existing system to abolish it? 
 Never. Who, then, can be expected to do so? 
 Surely those whose interests are to be served 
 most immediately and beneficently by the process 
 — the working class. How are they to effect this 
 needed chano:e? Political and economic chancre 
 
 't> 
 
 3 
 
 are to be effected, in this country, peaceably only 
 at the ballot box. They can be effected there 
 only by united political action. United political 
 action can be had through a party. The only 
 party in this country that is pledged to the over- 
 throw of the wage system and the establishment 
 of the Co-operative Conimonwealth is the party 
 that stands for Socialism. Thoughtful men trem- 
 ble at the advance of Socialism. At times it 
 would seem that some members of the possessing 
 classes are by no means certain in their own 
 minds as to the permanency of capitalist rule, 
 and do not hesitate to say so. 
 
 But ^Ir. ^lark Hanna is evidently little trou- 
 bled by these gloomy forebodings. Here is his 
 account, taken from the Times-Herald, of Chi- 
 cago, December ist, 1900, of how he reassured a 
 timorous gentleman who gave it as his opinion 
 that a struggle with Socialism was unavoidable 
 in the near future. To this end Mr. Hanna par- 
 ticularly mentions two factors which he con- 
 siders stable bulwarks of the present economic 
 system : 
 
 ''When I was in New York," says Mr. Hanna, 
 "just after election, a thoughtful man said to me : 
 
172 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 'Well, we've saved the country again, but I trem- 
 ble for the future. Sooner or later we are going 
 to have a tremendous struggle in this country be- 
 tween the forces of conservatism on one side and 
 Socialism on the other, and I am afraid Social- 
 ism may carry the day.' 'I am not a bit afraid of 
 that,' replied Mr. Hanna, 'and I'll tell you why. 
 There are two things that will prevent it. One 
 is the American school system ; the other is the 
 Roman Catholic church. That great church is 
 just as much against Socialism as the protestant 
 churches, as I happen to know, and in the last 
 campaign appeals to class hatred were frowned 
 upon by the highest dignitaries and most influ- 
 ential men of the Catholic organizations. As 
 long as this restraining force continues to oper- 
 ate you need have no fear of Socialism dominat- 
 ing America.' " 
 
 If the party to whom this assurance was ad- 
 dressed really deserves the appellation of 
 "thoughtful," it is not clear how he is to derive 
 much comfort from Hanna's view of the situa- 
 tion. It may be conceded that in the control of 
 the public school system capitalism possesses a 
 strong bulwark, but the press and the pulpit are 
 no less valuable for the same purpose. All these 
 have been and still are equally opposed to So- 
 cialism, and yet the latter has, in spite of such 
 opposition, grown to the extent that it makes 
 "thoughtful" men "tremble." 
 
 If Mr. Hanna could designate the point at 
 which Socialism will meet with obstacles which 
 cannot be overcome and explain just why, his as- 
 
POVERTY AND ITS CURE 1 73 
 
 surance might be worth something. The So- 
 cialist recognizes that the powers which Mr. 
 Hanna mentions, as well as other existing insti- 
 tutions, have been and still are being used for 
 the perpetuation of things as they are, but he 
 also sees that in spite of this the movement has 
 made steady and rapid progress, and has no rea- 
 son for supposing that the obstacles which have 
 been powerless to stop its advance in the past 
 will be any more potent to do so in the future. 
 In claiming the Roman Catholic church as an 
 ally in the continued plunder of the working 
 classes, Mr. Hanna stands upon even more 
 doubtful ground. 
 
 There are a few institutions still in existence 
 which antedate capitalism, and of these by far the 
 greatest and most important is the very church 
 which Mr. Hanna relies upon as an auxiliary 
 against Socialism. It has existed through va- 
 rious economic stages of human society, and has 
 been enabled to do so by a knowledge of the law 
 by which all organisms alone can continue to ex- 
 ist — the law of adaptation to environment. Its 
 history comprises the stages of slavery, serfdom 
 and capitalism. 
 
 In the transition periods between these 
 stages it has survived through a recogni- 
 tion of the law above given. As it did not disap- 
 pear with the disappearance of the two former 
 economic stages, is there any good reason for 
 believing that it is so bound up with capitalism 
 that the destruction of the latter involves it also? 
 If plain deductions from history are of any value, 
 
174 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 we should say not. The slaveholding class, no 
 doubt, saw in the passing away of slavery the 
 destruction of the church. But they were mis- 
 taken. The landowning classes, the rulers in 
 the feudal ages, we know as a historical fact, took 
 the same view. They also were in error. Mr. 
 Hanna stands in the same position to-day as the 
 defender of capitalism. Is he as certainly right as 
 the others were certainly wrong? It looks as if 
 the whole matter rests upon the infallibility of 
 Hanna, a dogma which we think will hardly meet 
 with the universal acceptance, either from capi- 
 talists or Socialists. Turning the above the other 
 way around, it will readily be seen that the Ro- 
 man Catholic church proposes to stay on earth, 
 capitalism or no capitalism, and judging from the 
 past, the belief is well warranted that it knows 
 how to do so. Like every other institution, it 
 has been used in the interests of the ruling class 
 at different economic periods, but it was quick to 
 see the inevitable passing away of these different 
 ruling classes and adapt itself to the succeeding 
 economic stage. And that is the reason that it 
 exists to-day as an important factor in human so- 
 ciety. And for that reason also it will drop Mr. 
 Hanna and his class just as soon as the necessity 
 of doing so becomes apparent. 
 
 In conclusion we would call the attention of 
 our numerous Roman Catholic readers to the 
 highly honorable occupation which this brutal 
 labor-skinner maps out for the Christian churches 
 of all denominations, their own included. It is 
 essentially the same view which his class invaria- 
 
POVERTY AND ITS CURE 175 
 
 bly take in regard to the religious institutions of 
 the day, and is in the main the reason why they 
 support them. The chief end of "reUgion," as 
 they see it, is to perpetuate the hell upon earth 
 which capitalism has brought into existence, and 
 the type of human being of which Hanna is a 
 fair representative and this avowal upon his part 
 is merely a corroboration of the oft-repeated dec- 
 larations of Socialists on the subject. That Han- 
 na and the class he speaks for will be ultimately 
 disappointed in their expectations we have little 
 doubt, but it is none the less valuable to know 
 from their own mouths upon what they depend 
 for continuing class rule, wage slavery, and the 
 robbery of the workers in the future. 
 
 The ethical ideals of Socialism have attracted 
 to it generous souls and have enlisted in its ranks 
 its best adherents. It is these ethical ideals which 
 have inspired the rank and file of the Socialistic 
 army with fiery zeal and religious devotion. It 
 may be said, indeed, that nothing in the present 
 day is so likely to av/aken the conscience of the 
 ordinary man or woman, or to increase to sense 
 of individual responsibility, as a thorough course 
 in Socialism. 
 
 The study of Socialism has proved the turning 
 point in thousands of lives, and converted self- 
 seeking men and women into self-sacrificing toil- 
 ers for the masses. The impartial observer can 
 scarcely claim that the Bible produces so marked 
 an effect upon the daily habitual life of the av- 
 erage man and woman, who profess to guide 
 their conduct by it, as Socialism does upon its ad- 
 
176 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 herents. The strength of SociaHsm in this re- 
 spect is more like that of early Christianity as de- 
 scribed in the New Testament. 
 
 The church seems utterly unable to grasp the 
 mighty social problems that are now engaging 
 the attention of students and thinkers; and pul- 
 piteers spend their time inveighing against the 
 saloon evil, the gambling evil, the social evil, etc., 
 as though these were the real causes of sin- 
 fulness, instead of being merely the scales and 
 scabs and scars that tell the social physician of 
 the presence of economic disease that cannot be 
 eradicated by palUative treatment or a dab of 
 court plaster. 
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE WORKINGMAN. 
 
 Egoism, or subjective idealism, is in no phase 
 of action displayed with more emphasis of assur- 
 ance and individual selfishness than by the self- 
 assuhied leaders of public opinion who sermonize 
 with high-salaried encouragement through the 
 medium of the average daily newspaper. Being 
 paid for their work as professionals, they are ex- 
 pected to handle with the skill of artifice, any 
 subject which may suggest itself, and although 
 absolutely ignorant as to either cause or effect, 
 stalk brazenly to the front with their panaceas 
 and with as much assurance and about as much 
 to the purpose as that of a fishmonger who would 
 instruct the baker in the preparation of a loaf of 
 bread. 
 
 This is more forcibly shown, probably, in the 
 editorial space writer's general dealing with the 
 
POVERTY AXD ITS CURE 1 77 
 
 intricacies involved in a solution of the problems 
 with which labor has to contend. It may be that 
 the writer of such a solution has never in his life 
 done a day's work ; he may have been reared in 
 idleness and luxury '; may never have been called, 
 in youth, to even bring a pail of water or carry 
 up an armful of wood ; have been waited upon 
 and nurtured with hired help, until private school 
 awaited him ; have passed through a course of 
 select tutoring to college and graduated with 
 crammed and overflowing cranium of book- 
 knowledge galore, and can word an essay of such 
 magical obscurity as to puzzle even the professors 
 with whom he is about to separate on his entry 
 upon a literary career. 
 
 One of the surprising things about the largest 
 metropolitan daily newspapers is that the propri- 
 etors, stockholders, companies or syndicates who 
 produce them are in it wholly as a business prop- 
 osition. As a mass they are totally incapable of 
 inditing a paragraph on the most ordinary topic, 
 and if they attempted the effort they would fol- 
 low the instincts of the general illiterate boor, 
 and bungle the sentences into an array of high- 
 sounding words, the meaning of which they 
 themselves did not understand. Thus, in their 
 dilemma, they turn to the other extreme ; they 
 call in and employ a stafif of young experts, a 
 species of spawn freshly emitted from the hot- 
 bed of collegiate, classic lore, the highest ambi- 
 tion of whose efforts are to mystify and dum- 
 found the reader with words and phrases which 
 he may not comprehend, but with which he is 
 
178 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 profoundly impressed because he is unable to 
 question the correctness of adaptation in their ap- 
 plication. And these are of the class who set 
 themselves up as the propounders of doctrinal 
 dogma for the regulation of society. They dis- 
 sertate fluently and flatulently upon the results 
 of cause and effect and pose ambitiously as ora- 
 cles of profundity in answering questions upon 
 the important affairs — political, theological, sci- 
 entific, or economical — as the framers and regu- " 
 lators of public opinion, all with impudent and 
 defiant assumption, but with about as much igno- 
 rance of the subject as would be displayed by the 
 unsophisticated plowboy in navigating a vessel 
 upon the high seas. And this brings us down to 
 the subject of our theme — "The Church and the 
 Workingmen." 
 
 What do men of this class know about the 
 wants, necessities and anxieties of the laboring 
 man ? What does this class of hothouse, nursery 
 productiveness know of the struggle of the hardy 
 beech or the giant oak of manhood to maintain 
 his standard of equilibrium in the widespread for- 
 est of humanity? What do these flattered and 
 pampered household pets know of the throes, the 
 anguish, the agony of the world's suffering, 
 worthy poor? What do they know of his con- 
 sciousness of responsibility to some unseen and 
 unknown power for the liberties he enjoys or the 
 ills which affect him ? What do they know of the 
 reflections which deter him from embracing the 
 scores of alleged opportunities afforded him for 
 enlightenment of a destiny which awaits him in 
 
POVERTY AND ITS CURE 1 79 
 
 a long sleep, "after life's fitful fever?" And yet 
 there is scarcely a day passes but we find in one 
 or the other of the daily papers some expression 
 of impudence, prompted by what seems almost a 
 halo of ignorance, in censure of what they term 
 the dissolute character of the workingman — the 
 wantonness of his action — his abandonment to 
 vicious pleasures, instead of his attendance reg- 
 ularly at church and his devotion to church wor- 
 ship. \Miy do not workingmen go to church? 
 Some of them — many of them — do. In the ex- 
 ercise of his will power, the workingman may 
 also exercise his choice of selection with the same 
 liberty as one of any other class. Who is the au- 
 thority to say to him, "Nay" ? Who has endowed 
 anyone with authority to direct his course ? Who 
 shall tell him what church he shall make selection 
 of? And if he should, fortunately or unfortunate- 
 ly, seek his choice, may he not find the doors 
 closed against him ; may he not be deprived of 
 the privileges, though small, he desires to en- 
 joy? Is he welcomed joyously into the gorgeous 
 edifice of the wealthy nabobs, with cushioned 
 pews and the orchestral accompaniments of holy 
 worship ? If he is allotted a place, even under the 
 very droppings of the sanctuary, does he hear 
 the words of God or the word of Mammon? Is 
 he enlightened and refreshed when he comes 
 away, or is he impressed more strongly with the 
 insignificance of his person and the vanity of his 
 struggle for a higher sphere? 
 
 He may not in all of the churches find him- 
 self surrounded by the same evidences of af- 
 
l80 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 flueiice and worldly wealth, but he will most like- 
 ly find, in most of them, the same sham and show 
 of dress and finery which serves to clothe a 
 pseudo-respectability. He will hear dissertations 
 upon the Word from the same book in as many 
 varieties of form and elucidation as he will find 
 churches in which to give them ear ; and if he is 
 not firmly fixed in his belief on the doctrinal lines, 
 he will retire in a condition of mind more mysti- 
 fied than when he entered. The question of the 
 workingman going to church is a matter of no 
 consequence even to those who make such loud 
 professions of church attendance and fealty. How 
 many who do go are earnest and honest in their 
 efifort to put in an appearance ; in their pretense 
 to superior knowledge ; to proclaim themselves as 
 peculiarly versed in doctrinal uprightness ? That 
 they differ in their method and mode of proced- 
 ure is not more strange than that the average 
 workingman hesitates and even stumbles upon 
 what others conceive to be his duties toward the 
 church. 
 
 Skepticism is the result of inteUigence. Slavery 
 to a single line of thought, and the absolute aban- 
 donment of all others, frames the mind into big- 
 otry and superstition. Workingmen as a class 
 are naturally as intelligent as any other class. 
 They are made like other men. They have or- 
 gans, dimensions, affections, and passions as oth- 
 er men have. They are fed with the same food, 
 hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same 
 diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and 
 cooled by the same summer and winter as other 
 
POVERTY AND ITS CURE l8l 
 
 men. If in addition to this they are governed by 
 their behef of the existence of a Deity ; that he 
 made the world, and governs it by his provi- 
 dence ; that the most acceptable service of God 
 was doing good to man ; that all human souls are 
 immortal, and that crime will be punished and 
 virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter, if indi- 
 vidually they stand before the world with a 
 knowledge of their individual responsibility, who 
 is there who is especially delegated to direct them 
 what particular line of faith they shall follow, by 
 which to attain the best ends of their destiny? 
 It is not necessary to enumerate the hundreds 
 of denominational heal-alls who invite a test of 
 their infallibility ; the tendency of whose efforts 
 are more of political significance than of spiritual 
 welfare or beneficence. The man who struggles 
 in a ceaseless labor day after day to maintain an 
 existence, meager at best, for himself and his de- 
 pendents, is not facing a theory, but a condition. 
 He is filling the destiny of a fate, not to be per- 
 suaded or moved by entreaty or prayer. He is 
 living in the present, and even time is inexorable. 
 If the workingman does not go to church it is not 
 because he is worse than other men. He will 
 strive to go if the opportunity is favorable, and he 
 is satisfied that he owes such devotion as a duty. 
 But he is not compelled to go. He can be just 
 as free in his choice as the most profound dev- 
 otees. It is not fair to question the choice of 
 anyone in his particular doctrinal belief. Infant 
 or early teaching is the foundation of almost 
 every belief, and holds its intiuence throughout 
 
1 82 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 an entire life. Subsequent surroundings and in- 
 fluences that accompany growth into manhood 
 may modify or even change his Hne of beUef, and 
 he may seek, as is his right and the right of any 
 free agent, to exercise it in form and ceremony 
 best suited to bring happiness and contentment 
 he desires. There is no more reason for the cen- 
 sure placed upon the workingman for not going 
 to church than there would be in placing cen- 
 sure upon any other man for his attendance upon 
 any particular church in preference to another. 
 Church attendance and church worship should 
 not be followed as a matter of commercialism. It 
 should not be brought down to the level of trade 
 or trafBc in souls. If it is not here asserted it 
 may yet be that the active enmity, violent hatred, 
 rancor and even malignity exhibited by many re- 
 ligious denominations toward others of like priv- 
 ileges and rights with themselves, is the most 
 destructive stumbling block to the doubting, hes- 
 itating, wayfaring man in his observation and in- 
 spection of the proper course to pursue in search 
 of means to bring him the consoling influences 
 for a better life, assured peace and quiet, and the 
 consequent happiness and contentment of him- 
 self and those dependent upon him. It is not 
 here urged or advised that the workingman 
 should not go to church. All that is asked is that 
 he be granted the exercise of his will to do so or 
 not with the same liberty that any other man may 
 exercise in going to any church of his own pe- 
 culiar selection. It is possible that there are just 
 as good men outside of orthodoxy as of those 
 
POVERTY AND ITS CURE 183 
 
 professionally clothed in its man-made habila- 
 ments. 
 
 If the cliv^ne right theory could find no other 
 contention of its authority than is developed 
 through reason and intelligence, the assumption 
 of its claimants, the violence of its methods, the 
 tyranny of its power, the hcartlessness of its ex- 
 actions, the hypocrisy of its teachings, and the 
 futility of its promises in all ages of the world 
 places indelibly the brand of fraud upon its pre- 
 tensions. 
 
 Should the workingman go to church? Yes, 
 if he himself wills it, and to any church he may 
 select if the doors are open to him. 
 
 Socialists believe that the v^orld was made for 
 the whole human family and not for a few. They 
 therefore advocate "equal opportunities for all, 
 special privileges to none." For w^ar they would 
 substitute arbitration ; for competition, co-opera- 
 tion ; for selfishness, generosity ; for charity, jus- 
 tice ; for monarchy, democracy ; for slavery, lib- 
 erty; for cruelty, kindness; for hate, love and 
 sympathy for a fellow man. 
 
 RELIGION AND CHURCHES. 
 
 Socialism is a politico-economic theory, and as 
 such has little to do with theological doctrines. 
 Socialism deals with the problems of sustenance 
 of life on earth. It has for its ideal the estab- 
 lishment of a system of industry which shall in- 
 sure to every member of society the greatest 
 amount of the necessities of life and the refine- 
 ments of civilization ; hence it is not concerned 
 
184 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 with the reHgious beHefs of any individual. In- 
 ternational Socialism has often declared that the 
 worship of a deity is none of its business. With 
 churches, however, there is some difference. The 
 militant Christian church is an institution which, 
 besides a theological creed, frequently adopts po- 
 sitions on social and economic questions. These 
 positions are, unfortunately for the church, very 
 often wrong. The leading members of the insti- 
 tution are ordinarily rich men (capitalists) and 
 their ideas on social problems are too often ac- 
 cepted by the preachers as gospel truth. The re- 
 sult is that when the church expresses itself on 
 political or social questions, only too frequently 
 its opinions are conservative and capitalistic. 
 
 When the churches take such stands, we, as 
 Socialists, must rebuke them. The gentlemen of 
 the cloth may be infallible, despite their differ- 
 ences, when it comes to the interpretation of sa- 
 cred writings; but when they trench upon the 
 ground of social science they must expect the 
 unsparing criticism of the advocates of the truth. 
 As it is with their economic teachings, so it is 
 with their actions and practices. When by for- 
 eign missions they seek to open the way for cap- 
 italist misery in foreign lands; when they allow 
 themselves to be used as tools by the robber class 
 for the enslavement and subjugation of inno- 
 cent peoples, as in Hawaii, Samoa and elsewhere ; 
 when, moreover, they have the audacity to clamor 
 loudly for revenge because some of their emis- 
 saries are punished for entirely unwarranted in- 
 terference with the eternal affairs of other coun- 
 
POVERTY AND ITS CURE 185 
 
 tries, we have no choice but to condemn the folly, 
 or knavery, of these people. 
 
 Socialism does not attack religion, but when 
 any religious institution allies itself with the en- 
 emies of the class, Socialists cannot ignore their 
 action. We have abundant proof of the hos- 
 tility of many pulpits. In Germany, Belgium and 
 France the clericals are our strongest and most 
 unscrupulous foes. This is because they have 
 chosen to be such, not because we expelled them 
 from our midst. We stand as the representatives 
 of the workers of the world, battling- in their be- 
 half. We shall conduct our campaign without 
 fear or favor. Those who will ally themselves 
 with us for our cause we welcome gladly. Jew 
 or Gentile, Catholic or Protestant, Idolator or 
 Atheist, we have no prejudice. Neither race nor 
 creed do we bar from our comradeship. Our 
 comrades come from every country of the civ- 
 ilzed earth ; our members may freely hold any 
 belief. But whenever any institution for the pro- 
 motion of any belief lends aid and comfort to 
 our enemy, the capitalist class, we shall boldly 
 criticise its attitude and attack its position. 
 
 Let me premise that in all I here say I am not 
 finding fault with those people in the churches 
 who are honestly doing what they can to help 
 benefit others, whether by money, visitation or 
 good will. These remarks are only for those pro- 
 fessing Christians, whose Christianity goes no 
 further than their little round of church duties 
 which produce no fruit for the good of others. 
 Do you wonder if in the face of all these facts 
 
1 86 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 that unbelievers, often contend that much of our 
 so-called Christianity is sheer, pure, unadulter- 
 ated humbug? 
 
 George MacDonald once said that the best way 
 to show our love for God our Father is to be 
 kind to some of his other children, and yet too 
 many of us who are named by the name of Christ 
 — the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, who 
 went about doing good, seeking the lost, heal- 
 ing the sick, relieving the distressed and comfort- 
 ing the sorrowing — we, his professed followers, 
 shun hearing of the misery and sorrow of our 
 brethren and sisters. "Oh, don't tell me such 
 terrible things; I don't want to hear them! I 
 can't sleep if you tell me of such horrors! I 
 dream about them, and in the morning I have 
 such a terrible headache!" These are some of 
 the responses that are called forth by our efforts 
 to arouse Christian men and women to their 
 duty. Yet, dear friend, what are your one or two 
 headaches or heartaches in the midst of your 
 luxury and plenty for body and mind, compared 
 with the constant headaches and heartaches of 
 these poor, neglected ones, who are the Lord's 
 own children as much as you are. They may be 
 honoring and glorifying God in their distress far 
 more than you in your luxury. Can you give 
 me any reason from the Bible, or anywhere else, 
 why you should be so favored and those so deso- 
 late and forlorn ? Are you indeed so much better 
 than they ? Is it a proof of God's especial regard 
 that you are thus circumstanced? I am free not 
 only to confess my doubt that it is so, but often- 
 
POVERTY AND ITS CURE 1 87 
 
 times my positive assurance that it is not so ; 
 for now, as in David's time, it is true that the 
 wicked are often seen in great power and spread- 
 ing themselves as the green bay tree. Oh, men 
 and women of the Christian church ! I am sick 
 of such shoddy Christianity ! I am disgusted 
 with a Christianity that knows not God and his 
 methods ! Shame on those of you who do not 
 his will in this regard ; you are of the race of 
 Scribes and Pharisees, not one whit better, who 
 lick the outside of the platter, and who within 
 are whited sepulchers. 
 
 THE NEW RELIGION. 
 
 "Socialism needs no new religion imposed upon 
 it from without, and the less it has of such, the 
 safer will be its course. But it does need to be 
 shot through with that spiritual passion, without 
 which, Hegel says, no great movement ever pre- 
 vailed. And Socialism has within itself the germs 
 of that passion, it has a seed of a new religion. 
 Socialism has power to become its own religion. 
 Essentially Socialism is a religion — the religion 
 of life and brotherhood for which the world has 
 long waited. It has in it that purpose which can 
 command the idealistic motive that lies deep in 
 even the most matter-of-fact men. Hundreds of 
 thousands of young men and young women are 
 crying out for some cause in which they can in- 
 vest their lives ; some cause that shall afford them 
 altars of exalted and self-denying service. They 
 see the gods and their temples burning to ashes 
 and they ask for something that shall take the 
 
1 88 CAPITAL AND LABOR 1 
 
 place of these in supplying the most elemental ' 
 need of the human soul. Socialism can supply ' 
 that need. It comes to the common life as the \ 
 religion of free and happy earth ; the religion of \ 
 comradeship and mutual hope and brotherhood. ] 
 
 "Let Socialists be true to the deeper meanings ■■ 
 of the class struggle, and they may gather into 
 the service of Socialism the great fund of re- \ 
 ligious purpose and passion which is now heart- j 
 sick, unattached and wasted. And this religious \ 
 passion, quicker than anything else, will awaken ] 
 the working class to the consciousness of its i 
 worth and destiny, and of the struggle and sol- j 
 idarity by which the emancipation of life and \ 
 labor come. Let me impress upon your mind i 
 that only a factional and divided Socialist move- ] 
 ment can defeat Socialism. There is no power j 
 in Capitalism, nor in the universe, that can pre- ; 
 vent the consummation of a united and harmo- ■ 
 nious Socialist movement in the Co-operative ■ 
 Commonwealth. i 
 
 "There has never come to the world of labor nor j 
 to the international Socialist movement, nor to \ 
 the long struggle of man for liberty, an oppor- I 
 tunity like unto that which the American political i 
 and religious situation now presents. The Amer- ' 
 ican people, led by the politicians to continued j 
 and economic slaughter, are finding themselves \ 
 in the economic condition of the proletaire whose ■ 
 soul and body have been so long the grist of \ 
 the capitalist mill that he has no opportunity to ' 
 become class conscious, or aspire to better things. ■ 
 Vast intellectual and religious resources are of- ; 
 
POVERTY AND ITS CURE 189 
 
 fering themselves to the Sociahst cause. Now is 
 the opportunity of the Sociahst to gather the dis- 
 appointed American democracy, and the freely 
 offered brain and heart of the younger men and 
 women of the educated class, into the service of 
 inspiring and disciplined labor for the coming 
 struggle and the coming liberty. That oppor- 
 tunity means a responsibility that shall match it. 
 For opportunity never calls a people or a class 
 being to responsibility, without them being po- 
 tentially able to respond."— George D. Herron. 
 
A QUESTION FOR THE PROHIBITION- j 
 ISTS TO CONSIDER. I 
 
 There is no neater tribute to the power of 
 profit than the question asked by a leading tern- i 
 perance paper, 'If a boss distiller, brewer or a | 
 saloon keeper had been president of the United 1 
 States, what more could he do than has been j 
 done by Mr. McKinley for the liquor traffic in i 
 the Philippines?" In 1897, $663 worth of liquor , 
 was sent to the Philippipnes. In 1899, $106,000 J 
 was sent there. The number of saloons has in- I 
 creased from an insignificant number to over 300. 4 
 Of course all the dear temperance people sup- | 
 ported McKinley, because he was a Christian ^^ 
 gentleman. The temperance people do not know- 
 that the profit system operated McKinley and the 
 United States (including ''dependencies"), and 
 that so long as profit dictates men's actions, in- 
 toxicating liquors will fill a large part of the time | 
 and stomachs of men. Talking about saloons, I | 
 will drift a little into the details of the vice and ] 
 havoc that is made by this evil. Not that I am ^ 
 opposed to the traffic. I am a firm believer that ] 
 it is a necessity under this system of penury and J 
 hardships. Many of the saloons are owned by ( 
 the large brewers, whose power and influence 1 
 render it an easy thing to secure a license for any \ 
 abandoned scoundrel who will be a willing tool i 
 in their hands. Thus these brewer-owned saloons ^ 
 become the hatching places for all kinds of foul ^ 
 conspiracies, political and otherwise, from eggs { 
 
A QUESTION FOR THE PROHIBITIONISTS IQI 
 
 sown by men in power — the brewers — who own 
 the keepers, body, mind and soul. And these 
 brewers often pose as pubhc benefactors. They 
 point with pride to their p:reat charities and the 
 Hke, forgetful of the fact that to the clear-headed 
 they stand as worse than highway robbers posing 
 in the guise of philanthropists. With both hands 
 364 days of the year in the workingman's pocket, 
 they rob and pillage their poor victims, who are 
 so blinded by their devilish arts as to be willing 
 to be thus plundered — not only, alas, of money, 
 but of health, position, character and honor. 
 Then on the 365th day they buy what little brains 
 he has with foul putrified slop that is not fit for 
 a hog, to make him vote for the lackeys. The 
 man who will sell his vote for money is fit only 
 for the society of convicts, and some inmates of 
 the penitentiaries are too good to be associated 
 with them. The man who sells his vote sells his 
 soul just as surely as if he had signed a contract 
 with old Nick himself. The man who deliberate- 
 ly purchases a vote is in exactly the same cate- 
 gory. There is not the shadow of excuse or palli- 
 ation for either. One is as bad as the other, and 
 both ought to be in the penitentiary, where the 
 law says they shall be, if found out. 
 
 The thing we call politics, which so many good 
 but misguided people only regard with contempt 
 and speak of with a sneer, has really to do with 
 the most sacred relations of life, and the man who 
 piously says that he is above having anything 
 to do with politics simply says that he is above 
 having anything to do with adjusting the rela- 
 
192 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 tions between his fellow men, and to my mind 
 there is no more dangerous citizen or dangerous 
 class of citizens to-day than the Pharisees of 
 business and religion, who, counting themselves 
 holier than other men, are so absorbed either in 
 the business of money-getting or self-adoration 
 that they frankly say that they have no time 
 to meddle with politics. If it is true that politics 
 are dirty, and good and pious men are too good 
 and too busy to lend a hand in the work of clean- 
 ing up the political situation, what hope is there 
 for our political institutions? I am one who be- 
 lieves that there is no hope for political peace 
 except as it is reached through political and so- 
 cial justice. I do not believe that social and po- 
 litical problems are to be fought out ; they are to 
 be thought out. 
 
SLAVERY. 
 
 Liberty and poverty are incompatible, and if 
 the poverty is extreme, liberty is impossible. The 
 unrest which we call labor trouble is nothing 
 more nor less than the endeavor to gain the liber- 
 ty which the working classes think they see the 
 employing classes possessed of. 
 
 The negro slaves were taken care of, and many 
 of them were more comfortable in their servitude 
 than they are in their freedom. But the white 
 slave is paid starvation wages by masters who 
 have made fortunes out of the tarifif in a single 
 year, and he is robbed of thirty-seven per cent 
 of what he gets ; when he asks for more he is 
 turned out of house and home and his place is 
 filled by imported laborers. Yet the system is 
 said to be a good one for the workingman. And 
 I say to you now, with no chance of challenge, 
 that there is in the United States to-day a worse 
 slavery, a more cruel bondage, than that with 
 which Spain ever cursed Cuba in the days of her 
 pride and power. Would you have the evidence ? 
 Go to the workshop and the mines, where the 
 toilers drudge through the day for a pauper's 
 pittance ! Go to their hopeless homes, where 
 want and woe have been before, where weak 
 w^omen shiver in fireless rooms and children cry 
 for a paltry crust ! Go to our great factories, 
 where delicate girls give their lives from day to 
 day to feed the monster of greed ! Go find the 
 children slaving in the shop instead of studying 
 
194 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 at school ! And for further evidence look in at 
 the prison and poorhouse, the hospital or the 
 morgue. 
 
 The following item appeared in the Chicago 
 Tribune, June 22d, 1900: 
 
 'The life of a baby boy was put up for barter 
 in New York city to-day. It was not an auction 
 sale, but the starving mother gave to the public 
 a chance to bid for the life of her child. The 
 sale was made, and to-day $100.00 was paid for a 
 human being. The bill of sale was made out. 
 It was witnessed by a lawyer and two others and 
 the seal of a notary public was attached. Then 
 the document was carried to the register's office 
 and there formally filed. The matter was submit- 
 ted to Register Fromme. He said : 'The sale of 
 human life is a violation of the constitution. I 
 suppose this document, however, will have to be 
 accepted for filing.' The mother of the child was 
 Pauline Mathis. Her brother and father were out 
 of work and the family almost starving, so the 
 mother decided to dispose of her child. Mrs. 
 Ann Gross, wife of a butcher, has no children. 
 She heard of the Mathis family's destitution and 
 offered $100.00 for the baby. It was accepted, al- 
 though the mother was heartbroken." 
 
 No more horrible and monstrous tale could be 
 told that would disclose the heartlessness and 
 vileness of the present system under which we are 
 living than the above article. Even the barbaric 
 system under which savages live never leads to 
 such horrible outcomes. No savage was ever 
 compelled, through a system that leads to starva- 
 
SLAVERY 195 
 
 tion, to sell her offspring. There are no words 
 to express the horror of it. It shows that the 
 system under which we live is fiendish. And yet 
 with all the horrible deeds to which our system 
 leads we hear people shouting- words to this ef- 
 fect : "Great is our civilization; great is our re- 
 public ; great is our President ; great are our cap- 
 italists ; long live the republic and the capitalist 
 system !" "Away with Socialists who would ruin 
 our present civilization, our glorious country and 
 our flag!" 
 
AN INVITATION. 
 
 KANSAS EDITOR TELLS AGUINALDO WHAT GOOD 
 
 THINGS HE MISSES BY KEEPING AWAY 
 
 FROM US. 
 
 Agui, you do not know what a good thing you 
 are missing by not wanting to become a citizen 
 of this grand country of ours. There is nothing 
 else Hke it under the sun. You ought to send a 
 delegation over here to see us — this land of the 
 free, this land of churches and 470,000 licensed 
 saloons, Bibles, forts, guns, the millionaires and 
 paupers, theologians and thieves, libertines and 
 liars, Christians and chain gangs, politicians and 
 poverty, schools and prisons, scalawags, trusts 
 and tramps, virtue and vice. A land where we 
 make bologna of dogs and canned beef of sick 
 cows and old mules and horses ; and corpses of 
 people who eat it ; where we put men in jail for 
 not having the means of support, and on the rock 
 pile if he has no job ; where we have a congress 
 of 400 men to make laws, and a supreme court 
 of nine men to set them aside; where good 
 whisky makes bad men, and bad men make good 
 whisky ; where newspapers are paid for suppress- 
 ing the truth, and made rich for telling a lie; 
 where professors draw their salaries and convic- 
 tions from the same source ; where preachers are 
 paid from $1,000 to $25,000 a year to dodge Satan 
 and tickle the ears of the wealthy. Where busi- 
 ness consists in getting property in any way that 
 
AN INVITATION 1 97 
 
 will not land you in the penitentiary ; where trusts 
 hold you up and poverty holds you down ; where 
 men vote for what they do not want for fear 
 they will get what they want by voting for it ; 
 where women wear false hair and men dock their 
 horses' t.ails ; where men vote for a thing one day 
 and swear about it the other 364 days of the 
 year; where we have prayers on the floor of the 
 national capitol and whisky in the basement ; 
 where we spend $5,000 to bury a congressman 
 and $10.00 to put a man away when he is poor; 
 where the government pays the army officer's 
 widow $5,000 and the poor private who faced the 
 shell $144.00, with insinuations that he is a gov- 
 ernment pauper and a burden because he lives. 
 Where to be virtuous is to be lonesome, and to 
 be honest is to be a crank ; where we sit on the 
 safety valve of conscience and throw wide open 
 the throttle of energy; where gold is worshiped 
 and God is used as a waste basket for our better 
 thoughts and good resolutions ; where we pay 
 $15.00 for a dog and 15 cents a dozen to a poor 
 woman for making shirts ; where we teach the un- 
 tutored Indian the way to eternal life, and kill 
 him with the bad booze ; where we put a man in 
 prison for stealing a loaf of bread and in congress 
 for stealing a bank or a railroad ; where check 
 books and sin walk in broad daylight, justice is 
 asleep, crime runs amuck, corruption permeates 
 our social fabric and Satan laughs at every cor- 
 ner. Come to us, Agui. We have the grandest 
 aggregation of good things, soft things and hard 
 things of all kinds, varieties and colors ever ex- 
 
198 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 hibited under one big tent. Send your delega- 
 tion and we will prove all these assertions for 
 truths. — Pocahontas Sun, Kansas. 
 
 Workingmen, when will you as a class awaken 
 to your wrongs, awaken to your rights? You 
 suffer — you, your wives and children. In their 
 play time your little ones are robbed of their 
 sunshine — of the possibilities, the probabilities. 
 They are starved, stunted, and sent out to earn 
 their living in an immature state. The sun shines ; 
 the birds sing ; the flowers bloom ; but the chil- 
 dren — ah, what of them? Are you men and 
 women? Can I touch the chord of humanism 
 that will nerve the nerveless — make loyal the dis- 
 loyal and arouse a truer manhood and woman- 
 hood? You see around you cynical selfishness, 
 grandeur and squalor, luxury and penury; the 
 idle, well-fed, well-clothed shirking honest work 
 by exploiting the labor of other people, while 
 the honest worker cringes, crawls half-fed, half- 
 clothed — dying before his time, his brain dor- 
 mant, his better nature undeveloped, suffering 
 injustice, crucified daily, because he refuses to 
 use the power he possesses. The splendor of the 
 present is not yours to enjoy; in the march of 
 civilization you are not counted ; in the progress 
 of the world you form no part except as beast of 
 burden. When will you reverse this? What a 
 grand word liberty is! The congress of all hu- 
 man hearts is expressed in it. It breathes the 
 impulse and eternal hope of all the legions of 
 men who lived above the lives of beasts and in 
 
AN INVITATION I99 
 
 their death gave testimony to the Brotherhood of 
 Man. And yet, as everlasting differentiation is 
 necessary to intellectual progress, he who takes 
 the word upon his lips must reply to the stern 
 question, "Whose liberty, sir?" Your liberty. 
 My liberty. Do you mean the liberty of man- 
 kind? What may the demarkations of your lib- 
 erty be? Well-behaved convicts have the liberty 
 of their prison. , 
 
 Friends, you who represent the dignity of the 
 United States, whose progress has placed us in 
 the foremost ranks of our contemporaries ; whose 
 sons of industry and toil mark the highest alti- 
 tude of mechanical skill and human endeavor ; a 
 country whose gates invite the hardy miner as 
 well as the most skillful artisan, and who still 
 with onward strides extends her arms to enfold 
 the progressive care of the age. Her sons in 
 whose firm step and hearty grip we behold the 
 descendants of pioneer days, men resolute and 
 bold, with freedom of thought as free as the 
 echoes that leap from state to state, whose daugh- 
 ters, endowed with the Spartan spirit of old. up- 
 hold with unstrained effort the ideal of American 
 womanhood, and whose inspiring thoughts of a 
 continual advancement will some day roll their 
 fame from shore to shore. Friends, shall it be 
 said that you who gave birth to this giant of in- 
 dustry, whose left arm extends into the dark re- 
 cesses of the earth, dragging forth her hidden 
 hoards to enrich yourselves and posterity, while 
 the right sweeps over the ripening plains deep 
 into the forest dells beyond — shall it be said that 
 
200 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 you have forgotten your greatness? Shall the 
 feeling of injustice find a harbor in your brawny 
 breasts? Shall your minds foster one solitary 
 cloud in the clear horizon of thought to engen- 
 der a future storm ? Shall it be said that the city 
 of Washington was stifled with thistles and 
 thorns, which you as citizens of the Common- 
 wealth placed there through one unjust ''Act?'* 
 Friend, such a thing can never be. You your- 
 self realize this, that the greatness of a community 
 finds its support in the unity and honesty of its 
 members. Cast this aside and you expose your 
 nakedness to a laughing world. Judea, Babylonia, 
 the great Roman Empire, fell with a howl that 
 has resounded through centuries, and they fell 
 because of their corrupted institutions. Could we 
 look back upon the first seed of injustice sown 
 among their citizens we would no doubt marvel 
 at the dreadful result. From small beginnings 
 we have great results, be they good or bad ; be it 
 a lighted match in a grain field or the planting 
 of an acorn by the wayside — all tend forward in 
 accordance with the evolutionary laws of cause 
 and effect. The development and suppression of 
 many lies within the powers of man in his domes- 
 tic, social, and judicial relations with each other; 
 individual responsibility does not end with his 
 departure, but extends beyond even into the third 
 generation. Your thought, your action, your 
 life, be they good, bad or indifferent, are stereo- 
 typed for a future generation. Remember, ''the 
 evil men do live after them ; the good is often 
 interred with their bones," The youth of the 
 
AN INVITATION 201 
 
 world is prone to evil, as susceptible as the sap- 
 ling that bends to each passing gust. Whether it 
 will weather the storms of time and become as 
 sturdy as the oak at its side depends much upon 
 the soil in which it was planted, its sheltered po- 
 sition and the inherited soundness of its seed. 
 
 Friend, why do I use this form of speech? I 
 will tell you ; it is to keep in touch with your own 
 thoughts. I am no orator. I only tell you that 
 which you yourselves know. 
 
 A plain, blunt man who knows his hardships 
 and loves that inherited birthright of liberty as in- 
 stituted by our progenitors. That its inspiring 
 tide courses through my blood and calls my fac- 
 ulties to battle for its defense is nothing wonder- 
 ful. The dearest gift that our Great God has 
 given to man is at stake ; Liberty, that which you 
 prize above all earthly possessions, in the attain- 
 ment of which a generation of our forefathers fil- 
 tered out their pioneer blood to enrich the field of 
 thought, the pastures of unity and the soil of 
 progress of future prosperity. 
 
 Friend, our years are numbered, they are but 
 a few at best : our passage hence will soon take 
 place. We shall tread that dusty road of death, 
 but while life remains I should like to live it pro- 
 gressively onward and upward. It is the shoul- 
 der at the wheel that lightens the load, so each 
 cfTort made contributes to the welfare of the 
 whole. That invigorating essence. Liberty, is the 
 elixir of life ; all seek for it. There is a constant 
 struggle for it, individually and collectively, both 
 in the plant and animal kingdom. The potato 
 
202 CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 vine creepino^ toward the opening along the cel- 
 lar floor seeks it, as does the caged bird that 
 bruises his wings against the bars of his prison. 
 It is the vital essence of their existence, the pro- 
 lific soil of regeneration and plan of active con- 
 tentment, wherein organic life develops its ma- 
 turity. Exlude them from this, and you will soon 
 find degeneration sets in. 
 
 The wise man builds not his house upon the 
 sand, but upon a firm foundation. There is no 
 foundation to the Republican and Democratic 
 stock-jobbing parties, and this fact is being felt 
 throughout the length and breadth of the land. 
 So, all this talk is unnecessary, you have followed 
 the entire proceeding of this work, the power of 
 reason is yours ; to render judgment is yours ; let 
 me close with these words: If you want to see 
 a truer and nobler epoch appear upon this old 
 planet for the Brotherhood of Man and God, take 
 that true and never-dying cause of Socialism to 
 heart. 
 
 W^HAT CAN I DO FOR THE CAUSE? 
 
 You can vote the Socialist ticket. You can 
 subscribe for and read a Socialist paper. You 
 can join the local organization of the party. You 
 can join the trade union of your craft and help 
 fight its battles. You can talk Socialism to the 
 members of your Union, and as a good Unionist 
 you will command their respect. You can buy 
 Socialist books and pamphlets, read and study 
 them, and then lend or give them to your fellow 
 workers. You can distribute leaflets and papers 
 
AN INVITATION 
 
 203 
 
 issued by the party and make constant efforts to 
 get new subscribers for the papers that repre- 
 sent your class interests. And if you do these 
 things you will feel amply repaid by the growth 
 of Socialism around you ; you will feel that your 
 time has been well spent ; you will feel that your 
 money has been wisely invested ; you will know 
 that you have brought nearer the dawn of free- 
 dom for yourself, your wife and children, and 
 your toiling comrades. SET TO WORK. 
 
STANDARD SOCIALIST SERIES 
 
 Volumes of uniform size, hand- 
 som^ely bound in cloth and ynailed 
 to any add^'ess for 50 cents each. 
 
 1. Karl Marx: Biographical Memoirs by 
 
 Wilhelm Liebknecht. Translated by 
 Ernest Untermann. 
 
 2. Collectivism and industrial Evolu= 
 
 tion. By Emile Vandervelde, 
 Translated by Charles H. Kerr, 
 
 3. The American Farmer. By A. M. 
 
 Simons. 
 
 4. The Last Days of the Ruskin Co= 
 
 operative Association. By Isaac 
 Broome. 
 
 5. The Origin of the Family, Private 
 
 Property and the State. By Fred- 
 erick Engels. Translated by Ernest 
 Untermann. 
 
 6. The Social Revolution. By Karl 
 
 Kautsky. Translated by A. M. and 
 May Wood Simons. (In press.) 
 
 7. A History of the German Social 
 
 Democracy. By Paul Kampff- 
 meyer. Translated by Ernest Un- 
 termann. (In press.) 
 
 Charles H. Kerr & Company 
 
 Publishers 
 
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