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It is that her works are full of—well, let others speak. Listen ! Serious readers become absorbed in her writings because of their quaint '^gic, telling arguments, good objects and decided power. Humorous readers are .limply carried away with them—both sexes, all ages (the little ones laugh over the pictures)—all are captivated. The agent's day dream is realized in this—her books sell everywhere and to all kinds of people. "SAMANTHA AMONG THE BRETHREN " is considered her best work. It is also the latest. SENATOR HENRY W. BLAIR says: " I read everything from the pen of Josiah Allen's W ife just as soon as I can get it. I have often thought, when wearied out with grave and exhausting labors, that one great reason why I wanted to liv«, in fact, why I continue to live, is, that Miss Holley writes a book occasionally and that I read it, and keep on reading the old one until a new one comes. 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I Corner Wabash Av. Tilliq:30 p. m. and Panorama Place, H II ^ This Panorama is universally conceded by the two millions of people who have seen it to ba Hip most extraordinary work of art ever seen ia tha United States. It must be seen in order to &»ve an idea of its striking realistic effects. It took, at once, the first position and stii 1 holds it against all the competition in this country and is to-day the Standard Attraction of Chicago*' EDEN MUSEE, Chicago's Fan-optican, Wabash Ave. and Jackson Street, Extensive Collection of Groups and Tableaux in Wax. 4 Lee's Surrender to Gen. Grant. The Rulers of the "World- An Audience with Pope Leo XIII. The Chamber of Horrors^ Etc. Illuminated Stereoscopic Views from All Parts of the World. Every Afternoon and Evening GRAND CONCERTS ! AND VARIED ENTERTAINMENTS. ADMISSION TO ALL 50c. CHILDREN 25c. Open Daily from 10 a. m. to 10:30 p. moTHE VOICE OF LABOR CONTAINING Special Contributions by Leading Workingmen throughout the United States, with Opinions of Statesmen and Legis- lators upon the Great Issues of the Day. PLAIN TALK BY MEN OF INTELLECT ON LABOR'S EIGHTS, WRONGS, REMEDIES 'i AND PROSPECTS. History of the Knights of Labor, their Aims, Usefulness, Etc. The Political Future of the Workingman, the questions of land, labor, capital, transporta- tion, reform, progress and social condition of the workingman thoroughly investigated. HISTORY OF THE FARMERS' ALLIANCE. revised and enlarged. By 8. M JELLEY. Illustrated with Fine Portraits and Engravings. H. J. SMITH & CO.: PHILADELPHIA. CHICAGO. KANSAS CITY. SAN FRANCISCO. 1891.Entered according- to Act of Congress, in the year 1888, by H. J. SMITH & CO., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington,AUTHOR'S PREFACE, The readers who will best appreciate the contents, of this book are those who are not biased by false ideas, and those who have given social science and the labor question some thought. For an exhaust- ive work upon each phase of the question the pages of a score of volumes would be required, therefore, I have dealt only with the greater causes and reme- dies of the problem. The request of the publishers for the opinions of those interested in the labor movement met with response of such a heterogeneous character, in which so many diverse views were expressed, that to determine on the best selection seemed well-nigh a hopeless task. Careful consideration, however, with the broad principle of justice to all as a guide, enabled me to choose such matter as will be approved by all un- prejudiced minds. My aim has been to avoid the propaganda of anarchists and communists, and to\ >S C | 1 PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. fv has been said that the literature of an age is but the reflex of the times, and The Yoice of Labor is not an exception. The labor movement has been a great theme for both the people and the press during the last few years, and in consequence there has risen a demand for literature upon the subject. The workingman of to-day seeks to understand the economics which govern his financial condition, yet beyond the speeches of the men at the head of his organizations, the labor press and a few so-call- ed labor books, the sources of knowledge in this direction tending to his benefit, are comparatively limited. In order to present the various phases of the great problem, as viewed by reformers, we have secured from those prominently identified with the labor movement, from statesmen, editors, writers and workingmen, much of the material made use of by the author. A candid exposition of facts concerning the wel- fare of the wealth-producing classes, and of the methods by which they can remedy the wrongs that prevent them from bettering their condition, cannot prove to be other than a valuable source of benefit and instruction.author's preface . ii present only the economics of trustworthy authors and those who have the elevation and improvement of the workingman sincerely at heart. In the preparation of the following pages I am especially indebted to many contributors, among whom are: Hon. Jesse Harper, Danville, 111. Alfred Taylor, Ed. Sentinel, Birmingham, Ala. W. D. Vincent, Clay Center, Kan. Prof. J. W. Gaul, Monmouth, 111. J. R. Sovereign, Atlantic, la. Hon. William Baker, Newark, O. John Davis, Junction City, Kan. Henry Schaidt, Ed. Lonaconing Review, Md. Col. D. S. Curtiss, Washington, D. C. Albert Owen, Boston, Mass., Author of Integral Co-Operation. J. J. Woodall, Hartselle, Ala. Hon. A. J. Streeter, New Windsor, 111. R. F. Rowell, Orrington, Me. Hon. John Seitz, Tiffin, O. S. M. Baldwin, Washington, D. C. Hon. O. W, Barnard, Manteno, 111. N. M. Lovin, Muskogee, Ind. C. T. Pareer, Douglasville, Ga. G. W. PhluLippo, Geneseo, 111, Dr. H J. Parker, Clayton, 111. O. J. Sutton, Akron, O. W- H. Robe, Creston, la,iii author's preface* G. R. Williams, Milan, Mich. W. W. Jones, Camargo, 111. W. II. Davidson, Calera, Ala. Charles Sears, Williamsburg, Kan. R. C. McBeath, Bradsfordsville, Ky. I). W. Smith, Lewiston, Me. N. B. Stack, Birmingham, Ala. James Mitchell, Ed. Fort Wayne Dispatch, Ind. A. A. Beaton, Rockland, Me. David Ross, Oglesby, 111. Hon. J. W. Breidenthal, Chetopa, Kan. Hon. Henry Smith, Milwaukee, Wis. F. P. Sargeant, Terre Haute, Ind. G. W. Johnson, Ed. Advance, Fond du Lac, Wis. And a number of others, whose valuable material has been unavailable because of limited space. S. M. J.T. V. POWDERLY.CONTENTS. CHAPTER I.—A GLANCE AT THE PAST. the first appearance of the workingman in eng- lish history-his position--physical condition -the ublack death "--the peasants' war in 1381-the struggles of serfdom-the working- • man in american colonies-the spirit of liber- ty-progress of labor after the revolutionary war-years of peace and plenty-the great rebellion-the development of manufacturing -table of wages from 1752 to 1886-the up- rising of the farmers-the grange-rapid in- crease of the power of capital-the events of 1886-labor a powerful social factor......15 CHAPTER II.—LAND AND TAXES. land monopoly the bane of the world-its effect in the past—Egypt's downfall—golden babylon crushed by land-owners-they ruin the roman empire-improper management of our public do- main-vast tracts of valuable land given to corporations—twenty millions of acres held byCONTENTS. FOREIGNERS—POWDERLY ON BONANZA FARMS—HENRY GEORGE'S THEORIES—HIS BOOK, "PROGRESS AND POV- ERTY"-HIS POSITION DEFINED-THE UTOPIAN IDEA OF CONFISCATION-PROF. W. T. HARRIS ON GEOR- GEISM-GROUND RENT-STATISTICS—CAPITAL'S GRIP AT THE THROAT OF LAND PROPERTY-TAX THE RICH AS WELL AS THE POOR—HOW JUST ASSESSMENTS MAY BE MADE................................26 CHAPTER III.—THE GREAT QUESTION OF MONEY AND LABOR. THE PROBLEM WHICH ALL NATIONS ARE CONSID- ERING-WEALTH RIGHTFULLY BELONGS TO THE PRO- DUCER-ECONOMISTS AND THE PRECIOUS METALS-- CHARACTERISTICS OF MONEY-MONETARY STANDARDS OF DIFFERENT NATIONS-THE GOLD STANDARD-THE SILVER STANDARD-THE DOUBLE STANDARD-HIS- TORY OF BANKING-RISE OF THE NATIONAL BANKS -OPINIONS OF STATESMEN--LABOR AND CAPITAL- THE WAGE FUND PRINCIPLE-PROFITS AND WAGES- THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR—INFLATION OF CURRENCY -HON. ALFRED TAYLOR'S REMARKS-DANIEL WEB- STER ON LABOR-MONEY THE GREAT HUMAN BLESS- ING-VOLUME OF MONEY-LINCOLN^ IDEAS-HORACE ^GREELY-BURKE-THE NEW ISSUES OF TO-DAY. . . 45 CHAPTER IV.— GOVERNMENT LOANS TO THE PEOPLE. MAN SHALL EARN HIS BREAD BY THE SWEAT OF HIS BROW-INTEREST AND USURY-THE MOSAIC LAW— THE POWER OF INTEREST—ILLUSTRATIONS-LOANS TOCONTENTS. iii the people a feasible project-the government ^ loans to the bankers-loans to the people at a low rate would be a blessing-how the farm- ers would secure prosperity-millionaires and paupers are increasing-regulation of the vol- ume of money—garfield's theory—total na- tional debt-hypocritical politicians-usury nothing more than robbery...............64 CHAPTER Y.—THE NATIONAL BANKING SYSTEM. the monetary change demanded by workingmen- aim of the knights of labor—soulless corpor- ations have no pity-attitude of banking cor- porations—" specie basis "—" intrinsic value " -u honest money5'-money in ancient ages_ iron, brass, tin, cloth, leather and wooden money-great financiers on metalic money- how the national banks absorb the nation's wealth--debt their foundation-how the bank- ers secure double interest-enormous sums of money withdrawn from just taxation-the im- mense earnings of the indianapolis national bank—what workingmen should have.......86 CHAPTEE VI.—'TRANSPORTATION. government prerogatives dangerous in the hands of corporations-no one class independent- corporations not entitled to discrimination- the country suffering from railroad extor-iv contents. tions-what the ballot should accomplish— the telegraphs-telephones-railroads—the government's success with the postal system-- the power of syndicates and corporations-- their immense wealth—daniel webster's great warning...............................101 CHAPTER VII.—"OVERPRODUCTION." there can be no overproduction when money is plenty-scarcity of money produces strikes and riots—why money is withdrawn from circula- tion-lincoln's warning in 1861-overproduct- ion does not starve children-interest on bonds a great vampire to the nation-bonds taxed in england and france-gen. weaver on taxation -the inter-state commerce law-report of the silver commissioners -plain facts -showing made by united states treasurer in 1887 of the nation's money-idle capital makes idle ma- chinery and the workingman suffers......115 CHAPTER VIII.—HARD TIMES. the knights of labor at richmond--a committee on hard times-their report--the intricacies of distribution of wealth-an analysis of the subject-senator sherman's ideas in 1869—john a. logan's theory—the united states treasurer in 1820-john stuart mill, the great english economist-sir archibald wilson — secretary M'culloch -boutwell-the burning of $100,-CONTENTS. V 000,000—PETER COOPER ON INDUSTRIAL DEPRESSION -THE FLUCTUATION OF FINANCES THE CAUSE OF HARD TIMES- A STEADY STANDARD A FIRM FOUNDA- TION..................................131 CHAPTER IX.—HARD TIMES—CONTINUED. THE DIFFERENT CLASSES OF SOCIETY-MONEY EARNERS AND MONEY USERS - THE PREDATORY STRATUM- LAWS FOR THE CONTRACTION OF MONEY VOLUME- 7 YEARS OF SHRINKAGE IN THE UNITED STATES-THE PRACTICAL QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY, LAND, LABOR, FI- NANCE AND TRANSPORTATION - THE DECISION OF JUDGE GRESHAM IN THE WABASH RAILROAD CASE- THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR AN ORDER OF PEACE AND EDUCATION.............................148 CHAPTER X.—WAGES. WAGES A SUBJECT OF VAST IMPORTANCE-GREAT NA- TIONS ARE NOW DEALING WITH IT-THE ECONOMICS OF WAGES - INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS INCESSANTLY CHANGE-A TABLE OF STATISTICS-THE PROGRESS OF WAGES-ECONOMY DOES NOT DEMAND LOW WAGES- WHAT HIGH WAGES WILL DO—HON. WILLIAM WALSH ON WAGES - INCREASE OF CAPITAL DEMANDS IN- CREASE OF LABOR-TO PROTECT LABOR A SACRED DU- TY-DR. PARKER ON REGULATION OF WAGES--CO-OP- ERATION THE ULTIMATUM OF PRODUCTIVE INDUS- TRY...................................157Vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER XL—ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF TRADES UNIONS. THE DISCLOSURE OF HISTORY-ANTIQUITY OF COMBINA- TIONS BY WORKINGMEN-THE OLD GUILDS OF EUROPE -THE FIRST AUTHENTIC ORGANIZATIONS—THE POW- ER OF ORGANIZATIONS SIX HUNDRED YEARS AGO- THE CRUELTIES PRACTICED IN ENGLAND-THE SECRET OF THEIR STRENGTH-UNIONS HAVE ELEVATED WAGES ^ -WORKINGMEN CANNOT BE TOO WELL PAID-UNION MEN THE BEST WORKMEN-LITERATURE FOR LABOR- UNIONS ARE EDUCATING WORKINGMEN-THEIR GREAT FUTURE................................173 CHAPTER XII.—AMERICAN LABOR UNIONS THE FIRST AMERICAN TRADE UNION- JOURNEYMEN SHIPWRIGHTS--NEW YORK TYPOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY -FIRST LABOR PARTY-FRANKLIN SOCIETY OF PRINT- ERS-NATIONAL TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION—THE INTER- NATIONAL-HAT FINISHERS-IRON MOULDERS-ME- CHANICAL ENGINEERS OF AMERICA—BROTHERHOOD LO- COMOTIVE ENGINEERS—LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN—CIGAR MAKERS—BRICKLAYERS AND STONEMASONS-PATRONS OF HUSBANDRY—GRANGE-RAILWAY CONDUCTORS- BOOT AND SHOEMAKERS - GERMAN-AMERICAN TYPO- GRAPHICAL—HORSE-SHOERS-IRON AND STEEL HEAT- ERS — GRANITE CUTTERS-LAKE SEAMEN- BOILER MAKERS-CARPENTERS AND JOINERS-HAT MAKERS -MINERS AND MINE LABORERS-BAKERS-SWITCH- MEN -TAILORS-TELEGRAPH MEN- FURNITURE- COOPERS-ETC.-ETC..................... 184CONTENTS. vii CHAPTER XIII.—THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR. THE CAUSE OF THEIR ORGANIZATION-THE GREAT POW- ER OF THE ORDER--URIAH STEVENS, THE FOUNDER -EARLY HISTORY-STRUGGLES--ATTACKED BY PUL- PIT AND PRESS-ITS GROWTH-CHARACTER OF ITS MEMBERS-WHO THEY ARE-PRESENT NUMBER-A SEMI-SECRET ORDER — THEIR PREAMBLE AND PLAT- FORM OF PRINCIPLES-MANNER OF JOINING-WHO ARE ELIGIBLE--LAWS AND REGULATIONS OF THE KNIGHTS-LOCAL, DISTRICT AND GENERAL ASSEMBLIES -PASS-WORDS, SIGNS AND GRIPS-WOMEN AS MEM- BERS-INTERESTING INFORMATION--BIOGRAPHY OF MR. POWDERLY-THE OFFICERS—THE EXECUTIVE COM- MITTEE-A DESCRIPTION OF THE MANAGEMENT. .193 CHAPTER XIY.— STRIKES AND LOCK- OUTS. A CAUSE OF RECENT STRIKES -WHY WORKINGMEN STRIKE-STATISTICS OF STRIKES IN 1880-SUCCESSES AND FAILURES—COMPLETE REVIEW OF THEIR EFFECT -AMOUNT OF LOSS INCURRED - AGGREGATE LOSSES IN APRIL AND MAY, 1886 - PUBLIC SYMPATHY FOR STRIKERS—POWDERLY ON STRIKES-GREAT THOUGHTS -THE POWER OF WEALTH GIVING WAY TO JUSTICE AND RIGHT - A NEW POWER DAWNING UPON THE WORLD-A BRIGHT FUTURE AT HAND-IDEAS FOR ^ WORKINGMEN TO THINK AND ACT UPON........210CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV.— EIGHT HOURS. EFFECT OF THE EIGHT HOUR AGITATION—NUMBER OF MEN IN THE MOVEMENT IN 1886 - THE BENEFITS CLAIMED--LABOR NOT A COMMODITY-A BIRDS-EYE VIEW OF THE WORKING WORLD- THE AGENTS OF CORPORATIONS--EXACTIONS ARE FETTERS-APPEALS AND MUTTERED DISCONTENT-A GREAT PLEA-THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE SHOULD BE GRATIFIED-ROBERT G. INGERSOLL'S ELOQUENT WORDS ON THE SUBJECT- HOURS OF LABOR SHOULD BE SHORTENED.......228 CHAPTER XVI.— ARBITRATION. ARBITRATION NOT AN EXPERIMENT—THE JUSTINIAN LAW ----ENGLISH AND ROMAN LAW-JUDICIAL BOARDS OF ARBITRATION-PRESIDENT CLEVELAND'S MESSAGE ON THE QUESTION- RICHARD GRIFFITHS, G. W. F., ON ARBITRATION-GEORGE RODGERS- FRENCH COURTS OF ARBITRATION--HOW THE GREAT BRICKLAYERS' STRIKE IN CHICAGO WAS SETTLED--JUDGE TULEY'S DECISION—ARBITRATION JUST FOR EMPLOYER AND WORKINGMEN—THE SCALES OF JUSTICE A TRUE BAL- ANCE..................................238 CHAPTER XVII. —CO-OPERATION. ALL GREAT ENTERPRISES DEPEND ON CO-OPERATION- A COMMON OBJECT IS A COMMON ADVANTAGE-OR- GANIZATION AND CO-OPERATION A GREAT POWER—■contents. ix WAGE SYSTEM OPPOSED TO CO-OPERATION—CO-OPER- ATION A SUCCESS-LECLAIRE's GREAT ORGANIZATION -railroad co-operation in france-industrial partnership in england-alfred taylor on the subject-d. s. curtiss-development and extent of co-operation in the united states-complete review of what has been done............253 CHAPTER XVIII.—HOME THE PALLADIUM OF SOCIETY. man without a home an outcast—the state is but the individual, the individual a miniature state -home the bulwark of virtue-cicero's maxim --defects of our social system-the burden of indirect taxation-handwriting on the wall- co-operation a blessing for the people-success of corporations -4 4 sweet home " can be made a reality-wisdom for the homeless......274 CHAPTER XIX.—PRISON LABOR. a great question—how convicts are employed- occupations in various prisons -working for the state - the contract system-the lease plan—ec c. wines on the contract system-its effect-abuses-should be abolished-leases and faults thereof-57,500 convict workmen v pitted against honest labor - dr. seaman^ views - demands of the public — carroll d. Wright's report—prison labor must not con- x flict with interests of the workingman. . .290X CONTENTS. CHAPTER XX.—LIQUOR AND THE WORK- INGMAN. THE ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF MONEY EXPENDED FOR LI- QUOR—MR. POWDERLY ARRAIGNS THE DRUNKARD- HIS POWERFUL SPEECH AT LYNN, MASS.--HOW LIQUOR . PRODUCES POVERTY-FIFTEEN MILLION PEOPLE SPEND SEVEN HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS ANNUALLY FOR LIQUOR-LIQUOR COSTS THE PEOPLE THREE TIMES AS MUCH AS CLOTHING-INTEMPERANCE A CURSE TO THE WORKINGMAN...........................302 CHAPTER XXI.—THE FARMER AND HIS INTERESTS. CAPITAL DRIFTING AWLY FROM AGRICULTURE - THE LABOR QUESTION LINKED WITH THE FARMER-HON. W. F. SADLER BEFORE THE GRANGE- AN ABLE DIS- COURSE — A STARTLING ARRAY OF FACTS AND FIG- URES-THE AVARICE OF CAPITAL—MR. JOHN NORRIS ON RAILROAD MONOPOLY - CHARLES SEARS' MEAS- URES-A BALEFUL WARNING-MR. CHARLES SEARS^ EXPOSITION OF TRUTHS - PUBLIC CARRIERS AND MONEY LOANERS ARE ABSORBING CAPITAL-A PEACE- FUL MODE OF ADJUSTMENT—MEASURES AND REME- DIES-UNITED EFFORT BY REFORM PARTIES NEC- ESSARY TO SUCCESS—LABOR ASCENDING THE THRONE OF POLITICS....... ....................313contents. xi CHAPTER XXII.—FOREIGNERS AND FOR- EIGNERS. the immigration of to-day a great evil—500,000 immigrants in 1887—official figures-oyer 8,000,000 aliens in this country-a flood of paupers and criminals tainting the nation- h. h. boyesen on unrestricted immigration-the / evil of anarchy and communism one of the i ! curses of the foul stream-summary legislation a just demand of workingmen - american la- bor menaced by foreign immigration - hostile sentiment throughout the land-a question of the day...............................327 CHAPTER XXIII.—THOUGHTS OF TO-DAY. hon . john seitz-labor entitled to first consid- eration—opinions of r. f. rowell-hon. george l. wellington—hon. jesse harper - hon. o. w. barnard-h. e. baldwin-hon. alf. taylor-n. m. loyin-c. b. fenton--c. t. parker-rey. dr. thomas- g. w. phillippo - o. j. sutton--w. h. robb—j. d. hardy-w. w. jones-com. miners and mine laborers--w. h. davidson-r. c. mc- beath-d. w. smith-n. b. stack-hon. william baker-james mitchell-hon. a. j. streeter- the notorious HAZARD CIRCULAR — a. a. beaton................................339 CHAPTER XXIY. —SIGNS OF THE TIMES. views of dayid ross—the magnitude of the labor problem-out of agitation gome many benefitsxii CONTENTS. -EDUCATION IS REQUIRED FOR ADVANCEMENT-THE MASSES ARE THINKING--REFORM PARTIES--UNION LABOR PARTY IN THE VAN-ORGANIZATION THE WATCHWORD -HON. J. W. BREIDENTHAL--BRIGHT PROSPECTS WEST, NORTH, SOUTH AND EAST-LABOR IN POLITICS-WITH ORGANIZATION AND COMMON PUR- POSE SUCCESS IS CERTAIN-A PLATFORM BROAD ENOUGH FOR ALL IS NEEDED-HON. HENRY SMITH-- FUTURE OF THE WORKINGMAN-CONCLUSION. . . , 358 CHAPTER XXY. — THE FARMERS' AL- LIANCE. EARLY STRUGGLES OF THE FARMERS' ALLIANCE - ITS RULES — ITS PROGRESS-ADVANTAGES OF CO-OPER- ATION --THE TEXAS CHARTER — THE NATIONAL AL- LIANCE - PREAMBLE - EDUCATION FUNDAMENTAL TO GOOD GOVERNMENT-BUSINESS MATTERS--POL- ITICAL MATTERS-GENERAL REMARKS---WOMEN OF THE ALLIANCE...........................375ILLUSTRATIONS. T. Y. PoWDERLY, - Frontispiece. Richard Griffiths, - 37 Frederick Turner, 65 Charles H. Litchman, - 79 Hon. W. D. Yincent, 93 Hon. Henry Smith, - - 107 J. R. Sovereign, - 121 Hon. William Baker, - 135 A Miner's Cottage, 149 Happy Toilers, - 165 Coal Under Different Aspects, 179 Honest Tom Makes a Speech, - 187 Uriah Stephens, 205 Between Strike and Family, - 221 Locomotive Works, 231 Bricklaying, - 245 Knife, Fork and Spoon Workers, 257 A Happy Home, - 269xiv illustrations. Midnight Fires—Blast Furnaces, - 281 Hay Making in the Olden Times, - - 295 Bottle Blowers, - 307 Hon. John Seitz, - - - - 321 Bessemer Steel Manufactory, - - 333 Mining in Colorado, - 343THE VOICE OF LABOR. CHAPTER I. A GLANCE AT THE PAST. the first appearance of the workingman in eng- lish history-his position--physical condition „ -the u black death"-the peasants' war in 1381-the struggles of serfdom-the working- man in american colonies-the spirit of liber- ty-progress of labor after the revolutionary war-years of peace and plenty-the great rebellion-the development of manufacturing -table of wages from 1752 to 1886-the up- rising of the farmers-the grange-rapid in- crease of the power of capital-thb events of 1886-labor a powerful social factor. The workingman first appears in English history in the character of a serf, or slave. He owned neither land, cattle, nor goods, but was wholly de- pendent upon his lord, who furnished him with shel- ter, food and clothing, and in return was entitled to his services and was responsible for his conduct.16 THE VOICE OF LABOR. He belonged to the estate, and if the land changed ownership, he followed it and served under the new lord. He had no civil rights, neither for or against any one, save through the lord of the manor. His physical condition was one of comparative ease and plenty, as he was well fed and housed. When not working for his lord he was at liberty to cultivate his garden, gather fuel from the manor forest and devote his time to his family. This condition was not absolute, for he might ac- cumulate a little money, purchase a piece of land and thus free himself. If he was able to master a trade, as a mechanic he received higher pay than a serf, but in other respects he stood on the same footing. In towns and cities he had no civil rights until he acquired property and entered the guild of his craft. He then could set up on his own account and em- ploy journeymen and hold apprentices. By custom and law he was held to be a man of an inferior caste, and the unfortunate stigma has followed him down through the centuries. At this time the capitalist, or lord, was not actuated by hostile feelings, nor did he in any way seek to oppress him, but as the serf was virtually his prop- erty he protected him for the sole purpose of avoid- ing his loss. Wages was a pretext for a quarrel at any time, just as it is to-day. In 1349 a terrible plague swept over Europe from the orient, and in England its devastation was hor- rible. The " Black Death" marked the era of free-THE VOICE OF LABOR. 17 dom for the serf. Nearly one-half of the entire pop- ulation was swept away, and labor assumed the phase of being the most important element in the king- dom. Laborers demanded quadruple pay and dic- tated their own terms. The historic " Statute of Laborers'' was passed, and then began the antago- nism between capital and labor. In 1381 the Peasants' war broke out and the in- surgents captured the city of London. They de- manded of the king: "We will that you make us free, our heirs and our lands, and that we be no more bond, nor so reputed." The king prpnn||§d them freedom, but when parliament met it sternly refused to fulfill the promise. In an unanimous vote they declared "they would rather perish altogether in one day." The strife continued and coercive laws were constantly passed. The laborer was for- bidden to leave his place or travel without a pass- port, and in 1391 parliament was petitioned to for- bid the children of the base-born to attend the schools. The land-owners finally gave up the at- tempt to employ serf labor, and rented small farms to tenants for a fixed rent to be paid in money. At the end of fifty years serfdom was a thing of the past, and the statutes which had been passed for the regulation of wages became obsolete. The wages of workmen soon became more than enough for a comfortable support, and his day of work was eight hours. With the close of the reign of Ilenry YIII, after a period of about one hundred and fifty18 THE VOICE OF LABOR. years, legislation again oppressed him, and for two hundred and fifty years he struggled against laws which tended only to the interests of the rich. An extravagant royalty swallowed millions of money, and the prosperous workman became a beggar with a starving family. In 1601 the English Poor Law was passed, but it failed to accomplish a benevolent end. Meanwhile the discovery of America had electri- fied the old world, and settlements were made here. During one hundred and twenty-five years follow- ing the discovery of America in 1492, the territory of the Atlantic states and the West Indies were in- fested by adventurers. Their purposes were the gathering of the precious metals, trading with the natives for furs, and the locating of fishing banks from which food might be obtained for Europe. The Basques, from France, and other Celtic nations, vis- ited the banks of Newfoundland to fish, several hun- dred years before the time of Columbus. In 1607, Jamestown, Virginia, was occupied by the English, and developed into a permanent settle- ment in 1610. Colony after colony secured foot- holds on the Hudson, along the coast of New Eng- land, and in what are now the Atlantic states. Re- ligious and political oppression in Europe stimulated the tide of emigration, and the new world began to live. Up to this time actual industrial settlements had not materialized. The class of people who first came to America were those who sought gold, orTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 19 conquest, and the majority of them were banished criminals. Later during the seventeenth century, people of a different stamp were driven to seek a new home across the Atlantic, and the colonists gain- ed a new element of thoughtful and religious cast. The French and Indian war came and passed, leaving the Virginian colonists aware of the weak- ness of English troops in the peculiar warfare inci- dent to the border, and the feeling was prevalent that the colonial Assembly was composed of strong and fearless men. The colonists although loyal, desired to conduct their affairs in their own way. Conscious of their strength they felt their own im- portance and were quick to resent any acts of inter- ference on the part of the mother country. Parlia- ment sought to maintain a standing army, to en- force certain navigation laws and to tax the colo- nists to contribute to the financial burdens of the empire. The execution of these laws in the way of the stamp act, and other revenue laws, led to the un- ion of the scattered colonies, resistance to England, to war and to the successful upholding of the Declaration of Independence. In this country the white workman has never been subjected to the hardships and deprivations which disgrace the pages of England's history, but has always been po- litically the peer-of any one. Land was free to all and it rested upon himself whether he occupied and made use of it for his support. He quickly learned to rely upon his own efforts and grew self-reliant and20 THE VOICE OF LABOR. independent with the exercise of his natural rights. Unhampered by the fetters of conscienceless legis- lation, and with the pride and knowledge which is inseparable from full citizenship, the workingman de- veloped the germ of American independence, and the spirit which prompted the determination to throw off the English yoke was given birth. The colonial era laid out the plan of the Ameri- can land system, which began with royal claims, and ended with speculation and actual conquest. The chief feature of the land polity seemed to be, that each man strove to get as much land as he could, and if he chose to retain his possessions, his family should inherit it. Tenure was based upon privilege and human rights were a secondary consideration, yet the spirit of liberty was strong, and the system did not take on the Old World form of primogeni- ture. In England the feudal land-owners struggled with the chattel-holders, and their differences were carried to the colonies. It was from these materi- als that American tenure was molded. Had no aristocracy existed in England slavery would not have been introduced in America. Indi- gent dependents of aristocracy sought riches, and being unwilling to work themselves, and unable to employ free labor, they took the negro. Labor was wofully scarce, and as the expense of securing it from England was great, the natural consequence was the cheaper course of importation of slaves. Slavery, however, did not materially interfere withTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 21 free labor in other than the cotton, cane and tobacco districts, and never secured noticeable foothold north of the Ohio river. After the close of the Revolutionary war still a better class of people came from Europe who brought with them the pioneer spirit which has always mark- ed American enterprise. Statistics show that the wages of the workingman began an upward tendency and his welfare made decided progress. The dis- counted Continental money was replaced by a valu- able circulating medium, and financial confidence was resumed. As late as 1780 labor was not organ- ized, nor at that time was organization demanded. The undeveloped resources of the vast area of till- able land, at no great distance from the seaboard, continually drew the surplus population from the growing cities and towns, and high wages was the natural result. The farm constituted an admirable regulator from a wages point of view,, The tide of immigration steadily flowed on toward the great western prairies, the valleys west of the Alleghanies became thickly settled, and the workingman pros- pered everywhere. Amid this era of peace two irreconcilable theories of government clashed, and the great war of the rebellion began. While the fierce contest was in progress, hundreds of thousands of men were taken away from the factories, the farms, and from all kinds of business. The armies drained the country of its labor, and the inevitable sequence was that22 THE VOICE OF LABOR. wages fluctuated with each succeeding day. At the close of the war labor prospered. In 1866 over six hundred millions worth of public lands were sold, and a large part of our population was engaged in preparing for substantial prosperity. A protective tariff gave an immense impetus to manufacturing industries, and in the eastern states their develop- ment was remarkable. The eastern states not hav- ing the fertility of soil found in the west, capital in- stinctively gravitated toward profitable manufactur- ing, and soon found mechanical industry, backed by tariff, to be the most reliable and satisfactory of in- vestments. Farm life in New England gave way to life in the factory, and we now see our Atlantic sea- board transformed from an agricultural into that of a manufacturing region. This method of centralizing capital has in a great measure taken labor from the farm to the workshop, and a constant premium has been offered to the mechanic. To this fact may be attributed the prodigious growth of cities during the past twenty-five years, and it is especially noticea- ble in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston. Everywhere it may be seen that the planting of a factory, or mill, is followed by the erection of a cluster of houses which grows into a a '°re, then a town is formed, and the town finally becomes a city. High pay to workingmen surely follows the growth of cities. Since 1752 the mechanic's pay has increased from thirty-three cents per day tr oneTHE YOICE OF LABOR. 23 dollar and forty-fivev cents per day, but the farm worker has always been paid at a lower rate. An examination of the following table will give the reader a good idea of the fluctuation of the prices paid during the last one hundred and thirty-four years: Farmwork Mechanical Farmwork Mechanical Year. Wages. Wages. Year. Wages. Wages. 1752. . . .$ .33 $ .33 1845. .. ..$1.00 $1.25 1756. . .. .33 .48 1860. . .. 1.06 1.50 1763., . .. .33 .35 1864. ... 1.12 1.33 1770., . .. .33 .34 1870. . .. 1.15 1.50 1781.. .. .41 .46 1875. 1—L O O 1.35 1790.. CO CO .40 1878. ... .94 1.21 1801.. .. .57 .61 1880. ... .90 1.20 1810.. , .. 1.00 1.10 1884. ... .92 1.30 1820•• .75 1.00 1886. ... .96 1.45 1826.. .. .78 1.00 The foregoing tabulated statement unerringly shows the effect of the investment of capital upon the rate of wages paid in cities, and lays open* the secret of their constant increase in population. There are now thirty-six cities in the United States with inhabitants numbering over fifty thousand. One great result of the civil war was to bring free labor to its present condition and rate of wages, by doing away with the antagonism incident upon cheap slave labor. It was first thought the South was hopelessly involved in ruin, but the contrary has proved true, and that region is securing larger24 THE VOICE OF LABOR. returns to-day for the amount of capital invested than it did under the control of wasteful and brutal overseers. The period following the war was one of excessive inflation. The greenback dollar reach- ed its lowest value in 1864, at which time a gold dollar could be sold for $2.85 in paper, but it grad- ually ascended in value, and in 1879 it reached pa' , and since has been worth a dollar in gold, through the resumption of specie payment. In 1866 the Granger movement began, anl * for its object the financial benefit of the farm^ ..7*7. combatted the monopolies of railroads and co^ci : > tions, and so popular was this agitation that i:\ 1875 the order had nearly 800,000 members. The rapid increase of the power of capital in America is without parallel in any other country in the world, and the manner in which gigantic syndicates and railroad corporations have pursued their objects has been watched with much solicitude by the farm- ers, workingmen, and others, whose interests have been prejudiced. The fact that an enormous amount of money, gained by dishonest financiering, has been invested in transportation industries, and as the earnings of this vast amount of capital finally come upon the workingman and farmer to pay? they have become dissatisfied. Watered stoc k and jobbing pools have created a burden under which the bone and sinew of the nation are restive, and they have combined against it, as was evinccd by the events of 1886, in the great southwestern strikeTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 25 on tlie Gould system of railroads. The Knights of Labor have been rapidly perfecting their organiza- tion throughout the United States, and as the order is seeking redress of grievances by means of legis- lation, the outlook is that they will act as" a power- ful factor in shaping the industrial welfare of the country during the next few years. 326 the voice of labor. CHAPTER II. LAND AND TAXES. land monopoly the bane of the world-its effec1 in the past—egypt's downfall—golden babylon crushed by land-owners-they ruin the roman empire—improper management of our public do- main-vast tracts of valuable land given to corporations-twenty millions of acres held by foreigners-powderly on bonanza farms-henry george's theories—his book, "progress and pov- erty"-his position defined-the utopian idea of confiscation-prof. w. t. harris on geor- geism-ground rent—statistics-capital^ grip at the throat of* land property-tax the rich as well as the poor-how just assessments may be made. The right to the soil is as much an inalienable right as that of working for bread. Depriving a man of either, is a violation of both moral and sec- ular laws. Land monopoly is shown by history to be the bane of the world. Great nations have risen, ruled and fallen, and in each instance the lesson has been taught, that when such burdens have been laidTHE VOICE OP LABOR. 27 upon tlie masses, and were deprived from earn- ing bread from the soil, their doom was sealed. Back in the dim distance of time we see Egypt rlie proudest and most powerful nation on the globe. She excelled in mighty undertakings, and to-day we marvel at the ruins of her vast structures which have withstood the crumbling touches of scores of cen- turies. The great pyramid of Gizeh is the grandest mon- ument of human history, the mightiest building on earth and the oldest—in structure a miracle, in ex- tent almost incomprehensible. Forty centuries have looked upon its glittering sides, and the tooth of time during all these rolling centuries has not been able to eat away the grandeur of the pile. An oppressive land monopoly rule worked the fall of Egypt. One per cent of the people owned all the land, and ninety-nine per cent of the people owned none—were tenants, serfs and slaves. Then Egypt died, and her death-dirge rings yet in the ear of the world. The golden glory of Babylon, with its city the most magnificent man ever built, was cursed with a class land monopoly which was its death warrant. Two per cent of the people owned all the land, and ninety-six per cent of the masses owned none, and were tenants, slaves and serfs. In a speech recently delivered by Hon. Jesse Harper, he said: "The founding, growth and glory of the Roman28 THT? VOICE OF LABOR. empire has been the wonder of the world. Begotten in myth, fed upon the ferocity of the wolf, led by intellect of man, she grew to be at last the palladium of law and the legionrywar. Her 'Twelve Tables' underlie the codes of all civilization to-day. Her military prowess has been the admiration of man- kind. Her works in every department of human thought and action are unsurpassed. Acqueduct, temple, forum, each stand unparalleled. Theater, hippodrome, drama—in these she leads all. "Rome has been termed 'The Eternal City.' From that center has gone forth blandishments, political chicanery, ecclesiastical Jesuitism, and they for ages upon ages have ruled the world. "Rome in her highest glory, was simple in habit and austere in manner. There was but a slight dis- tinction between the people. 'Citizen' was the name of man. Equality of fortune, generous distribution of land was the law of common consent, and the legal enactments of the state also. "So rich in achievement was she at onetime, that eighty-five per cent of the people had title in land. Then the legions were heroes beyond conquering; then Rome was founded on a rock. She but follow- ed the course of the great empires which had pre- ceded her. In the incipiency of them all justice ruled and mercy reigned more largely than at any other period of their life. But as the nations before her turned from those true principles of equity and justice, in the day of their degeneracy, so did RomeTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 29 She traveled the same road to the same death, to certain destruction. In what way? "Her volume of money at the commencement of this era was about $1,800,000,000, made up of brass, copper, and other metals. This was doomed to de- struction. She determined to shrink the volume and make the lesser volume of a finer metal. So she shrunk the volume to $200,000,000. A long time was consumed in doing it, but the road was passed over, the goal reached. "The fatal effect upon the empire came at last; and Rome fell by reason of this very shrink- ing of the volume of money. The lands passed out of the hands of the people into the hands of the few millionaires, so that when death's great ford was reached, where civilization was to die, we see that two thousand people owned all the land in the Ro- man empire. Less than one per cent of the people owned all, and more than ninety-nine per cent owned none." Land monopoly, a shrinking volume of money and class legislation made up the decree of national dissolution. History chronicles a repetition of such events, but there lies in experience an opportunity to avert them in the future. During the past two decades there has been no proper management of public lands, but our national legislators have actually given away to corporations, in a spirit of prodigality without parallel in the worlds history, more land than is contained in30 THE VOICE OF LABOR. the states of Illinois, Iowa, Ohio and Michigan com- bined. Only a few years ago the line of states- men now retiring, gave to one corporation in Amer- ica forty-eight millions of acres of land. There is, in the state of Iowa, but thirty-five mill- ions of acres; in the state of Illinois but thirty-six millions of acres. And yet, there was given to one corporation forty-eight millions of acres of land. And that, too, in the face of the fact that within a score of years we will have on this continent one hundred millions of human beings. We have sixty millions now; we will have a hundred millions then. The tendency has been to throw large estates in- to the hands of a few people, and to dispossess the poor, the small land owners of the country. Millions of acres comprising the best agricultural land on the earth have been thus disposed of, until there is over twenty millions of acres held by foreign capitalists. Ireland's pitiful condition to-day was brought about by a similar course of events. General Master Workman Powderly says: "In the United States, although scarcely out of its squatting era, we already have an incipient land- holding aristocracy, which is by no means confined to the bonanza farms of the west, where work is to a great extent done by machinery and a horde of tramp agricultural laborers. There are in this country over one million five hundred thousand of capitalists, or speculating owners, who have their farms tilled byTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 31 hired workers. Nearly one hundred thousand of these land barons hold from five hundred to thous- ands of acres each. We have one million ten- ant renters, almost as many as there are in Great Britain, cultivating one-fourth of our farms, and three million three hundred and twenty four odd thousand wage workers who do not even rent land. Of the one million five hundred thousand of real farmers who either wholly, or in part, themselves cul- tivate their holdings, it is estimated that forty per cent have their farms mortgaged to such an extent as to really pay a rent in interest. In many indus- tries we already have a system of pooling and com- bination to which the much-denounced union tyran- ny and that of the terrible walking delegate can not hold a candle. Until lately, in all but a few, even the best organized workers could hardly counteract the terror of the ticket-of-leave-plan, by virtue of which it was impossible for the blacklisted unfortu- nate to obtain employment." Among the numerous writers on the land question, Mr. Henry George has attracted much attention. In his admirably written book, " Progress and Pover- ty," he has endeavored to show that the great cause of the inequality in the distribution of wealth lies in the unequal ownership of land. In all probability Mr. George wrote his book between the years of 1873 and 1879, when he saw the evil results of over- importations together with a contraction of our cur- rency. Unfortunately he erred in divining the32 THE VOICE OF LABOK. causes of .the country's depression and thereby erred in the remedy he advocates. There can be no doubt that ruin will throttle the nation if our broad acres fall into the hands of a few landlords, but that time will never come. Even though certain speculators and corporations have succeeded in securing an ille- gal right to vast acres of land, there is no danger o their being able to work other than local incon- venience. He asks, u Why, in spite of increase in produc- tive power, do wages tend to a minimum which will give but a bare living ? " The question is an idle one, for wages, salaries and remuneration of all kinds have steadily risen, notwithstanding fluctuations. At the end of each decade during the past century there has been more and more to divide—that is, when no temporary causes overcame the general cause of financial events. Wages do not tend to a minimum but we find them generally on the in- crease, and to his proposition that " where popula- tion is densest, wealth greatest, and the machinery of production and exchange most highly develop- ed," we say there is not "the deepest poverty, the sharpest struggle for existence and the most enforc- ed idleness." This is clear the moment we com- pare the workingman of fifty years ago, with the workingman of to-day. One of the essential ideas of the Georgian theory is, that in as much " as in the nature of things un- equal ownership of land is inseparable from the re-THE VOICE OF LABOR. 33 cognition of individual property in land, it necessa- rily follows that the only remedy for the unjust dis- tribution of wealth is in making land common prop- erty." Mr. George proposes to tax land to its full rental value, and defines his position as follows: 4< Let me declare plainly and distinctly, for this is a point on which there is much misapprehension and misrepresentation, that we do not propose to have the state take the land from its present owners and divide it up or rent it out; we simply propose to make such a change in our fiscal system as will shift the burden of taxation from labor and the pro- ducts of labor, to land values—the value attached to land, irrespective of the improvements upon it; the value attached to land, not by reason of what the occupier has done, but by reasons of the growth of the community. We propose to reach by this easy and gradual change, the end at which we aim, and that aim is, that the man who enjoys the privi- lege of holding a piece of land that the growth of the community has made valuable, shall pay to the community what the special privilege is worth, and thus all citizens be placed upon an equal footing. When this is done, or even as we approach it, it will become unprofitable for anybody to hold land without using it, in the expectation of becoming rich by the value which attaches to it from the growth of the community. Land will become profitable only to those who want to use it, Thus the dog in34 THE VOICE OF LABOR. the manger will be choked off, and from the vacant lots of our eastern cities to the great tracts held on speculation in the far west, opportunities for employ- ment will be thrown open to labor and forestalling be prevented." The Utopian idea of confiscating or nationalizing land, is shown in its true light by Prof. W. T. Harris, who exposes the sophistry of this Georgian theory, and demonstrates that the claims concerning the advantage to be gained by taxing land excessively, are false and hollow. He says: "Mr. George evidently supposes that a revenue equal to the total land-rent of the country would con- stitute a vast fund, for he says: 4 There would be a great and increasing surplus revenue from the tax- ation of land values, for material progress, which would go on with greatly accelerated rapidity, would tend constantly to increase rent. This revenue aris- ing from the common property could be applied to the common benefit, as were the revenues of Sparta.' "Mr. George is bound to suppose that the ag- gregate amount of ground-rent is a very large sum, because he has come to the conclusion that land ab- sorbs, in the form of rent, all the increased produc- tion of labor, aided by capital in the shape of labor- saving inventions. If ground-rent produces pover- ty, by robbing capital and labor, its confiscation would restore enough to labor and capital to remedy the evil. What is the actual amount of this item of rent in the United States %THE VOICE OF LABOR. 35 "The reader of 'Progress and Poverty' is struck with the fact that the book contains no statements derived from painstaking inquiries into the statistics of land values and rents. The book is eloquent and effective, its author evidently an earnest and disin- terested philanthropist. But his theories all relate to numbers of population, rates of wages, prices of food, amounts of rent, and the ratios of these num- bers to one another. These are not a priori ques- tions, but matters of statistics. There is not only no investigation of statistics in 6 Progress and Pov- erty,' but there is not even an attempt to make definite estimates, although there are occasional re- ferences to isolated data. If it should be found that the total ground-rent is an insignificant item compared with the total income of the nation, it would be necessary to conclude that Mr. George is mistaken in supposing that private property in land exercises a power to rob capital and labor. "The United States census for 1880 gives the to- tal assessment of real estate and personal property, as determined in the several states of the Union, at $16,902,993,543, of which $13,036,766,925 stands for real estate, distributed in such a manner that more than one-half of the amount is assessed in New England and the middle states (about $6,714,- 600,000). 'Real estate,' of course, includes land and improvements. The United States census does not give the items for land alone, but the state of Massachusetts publishes an aggregate of property36 THE VOICE OF LABOR. and taxes showing the separate items, 'land exclu- sive of buildings' and 4buildings exclusive of land.' The former item (land) is $587,824,672; the latter (buildings) is $752,669,001, land being to buildings nearly 44 to 56. This ratio may be assumed to hold good for the entire eastern and middle sections of the country, giving $3,766,000,000 for buildings and $2,948,000,000 for ground. In the southern sec- tion it may be assumed that the ratio is reversed, and that the $1,671,000,000 of real estate assessed there represents $671,000,000 as value of buildings and $1,000,000,000 as value of land. In the West- ern States and Territories, likewise, the total of $4,- 644,000,000 of real estate may represent at least $2,000,000,000 as value of buildings and not more than $2,644,000,000 as value of land. This will give a total of $6,437,000,000 for buildings and $6,592,000,000 for building sites and agricultural land. The rate of assessment for taxes is usually fixed at two-thirds of the market value. Allowing for this the actual value of all land in the Unit- ed States owned as private property must have been somewhat less than ten billions (10,000,000,000) for the year 1880. Counting the rent on this land at 4 per cent we have less than $400,000,000 per an- num, making an average of nearly $8 for each in- habitant, or a little more than two cents per day. "The result surprises us. Two cents per day, or $8 per year, added to their income would not bring case and luxury to those who are struggling withRICHARD GRIFFITHS, General Worthy Foreman, K. ot LTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 39 poverty. Nor would it amount to a vast revenue in the aggregate as a tax. Four per cent—and it is fair to estimate the return in rent as under this fig- ure, because, when land yields more than this amount in rent, the valuation is at once raised—- would give the government only $400,000,000, a sum only slightly in excess of the amount annually paid for local taxes (state, county, township, and district), while the total of taxation, national and lo- cal, amounts to nearly $800,000,000. To pay all taxes, both national and local, ground-rent would have to be increased to 7^ per cent. uTo understand the bearings of this, it is neces- sary to consider the actual annual income of the total population. This income is estimated by Mr. Edward Atkinson, in his 4 Distribution of Products,1 at the round sum of $10,000,000,000. Mr. Mul- hall estimates the total productions of the United States at <£1,420,000,000 sterling, or about $7,100,- 000,000. The items used for these estimates are given by Mr. Joseph Nimmo, Chief of the National Bureau of Statistics for the year 1884, in a letter to Mr. Atkinson, as follows : Agriculture....................$3,600,000,000 Manufactures....................................5,369,579,911 I Ruminating gas................................30,000,000 Mining..................................................236,275,408 Forestry..............................................4*55,000,000 Fisheries............................................43,046,053 Meat, and wool clip on ranches.. .. 40,000,000 Petroleum................................44,000,000 Total.................$9,817,900,65240 THE VOICE OF LABOR. 6 4 But in the above estimate the manufactures are given the gross annual value of manufactured goods for 1880, and of course there are repetitions of the same item under different heads. For example, lum- ber appears as product of saw-mills, and again in the items of wood manufactures and buildings, as well as in the inventory of products of forestry; wool and cotton appear first among the agricultural items, next in the textile productions, and lastly as items in the value of manufactured clothing. „ Hogs are call- ed a manufacture under the names of pork, lard, and bacon; cattle appear as beef, tallow, hides, leather, horns, hair, glue, and the bones and blood as fertil- izers. "Deducting the materials from the aggregate of manufactures, as given in the census report, the net total is $1,972,755,542. Moreover, in Mr. Nim- mo's statement the agricultural product is increased by the total of live stock, which is rather a product of three years than of one—an over estimate of $1,- 000,000,000. Besides this, all the hay crop and three-fourths of the Indian-corn crop go to the rais- ing of live stock and are already reckoned in the increase of the live stock. Deduct for these items and the total annual product appears as about $6,000,- 000,000. But there is a large amount of produce consumed in the farms that does not get reported in the census schedules. Add to this the manufac- tures done at the homes, a considerable item, and the earnings of the railroads in so far as they en-THE VOICE OF LABOR. 41 hance prices by bringing productions to the place of consumption, and the actual annual income may be safely placed at a little over seven and a quarter billions—say $7,300,000,000. This would give 40 cents per day, or $146 per year, for each inhabitant. The total taxation, national and local, takes four and one-fifth cents per day, one-tenth of the average in- come. The ground-rent amounts to only one-eight- eenth of the total average earnings. If this would make any great difference in the wages of the poor, it is certain that a small grain of economy would go much further. u Capital has its hand at the throat of land prop- erty, contrary to the theory of Mr. George, who supposes that land is throttling capital and labor. Capital frees labor from the tyranny of land, and the present ratio of land to the total wealth of the United States is less than one to four. In the United Kingdom it forms only one-fifth of the total wealth, being only <£1,737,000,000 sterling, with an annual rental of £65,442,000, while the total wealth is £8,720,000,000. "Wages seem to be fast receding from that 'min- imum that will give but a bare living.' But it is the wages of the skilled mechanics and manufacturers that have increased most. The wages of farm hands are much below the wages of those engaged in man- ufacturing industries. As there is one wage-earner to three persons, or, more accurately, to 2.9 persons, it is clear that all laborers who get over $1.35 per42 THE VOICE OF LABOR. day, or $34.80 per month, get more than tliey would get if the total annual production were divided equally among the wage-earners without allowing anything to capital or land. "By this it will be seen that all our skilled labor- ers, and a considerable number of common laborers, are paid now at higher rates than a socialistic divis- ion would give them. All who are receiving over $34.80 per month in wages are on the side of the 'bloated bondholder' already, and cannot complain of land or capital as robbing them of the products of their labor. Skilled labor in the mechanic in- dustries gets from twenty to eighty per cent more than this average. But the farming population of the country get from twenty to eighty per cent less. And it is on the farming population that the burden of a high land tax would fall with the utmost sever- ity. A seven per cent tax on land would destroy our agricultural interests, all except the market gar- dening. No grain could be exported, and, without a protective tariff, none could be raised for the home market." To assess all taxes upon real estate would give the government immense revenues during periods of fluctuation and excitement, the use of which would tend to evil results, and leave it without necessary revenue during times of depression and when dis- bursements would be most beneficial. The present laws of taxation are not without genuine merit, and were they executed according to their intent, a justTHE YOICE OF LABOR. 43 and adequate revenue would be secured. Any and all evils which may be current, arise from the fact that true assessments are not made. When property is justly assessed every man will pay a proper tax, and a sufficient revenue will be the result. The capitalist will pay as great an amount, in proportion to his possessions, as the middle class, or the poor man. The chief obstacle to a fair assessment is perjury. Many a man who passes for honest in a community will swear to a return which he knows is false, if a sworn statement is necessary to get his valuation down to a notch satisfactory to himself. The amount of this kind of crime committed is appalling. The instances of punishment are so very few that the fear of the penitentiary is too remote to be a deter- rent. A large latitude is allowable for variation in es- timates, but where a stock of goods, for example, which would inventory at $20,000 is sworn to be worth only $1,000, the perjury is too flagrant to es- cape conviction upon a fair presentation of the case to a jury. The vigorous prosecution of such crimi- nals would do more to reform the revenue than all the legislation devisable. The first step in this re- formatory direction should be taken by these town boards, of review, either as boards or individually. The order of proceeding is not important. The knowledge that such perjury has been committed, however obtained, should reach the grand jury—or,u THE VOICE OF LABOR. to be more exact, the grand jury should have suffi- cient ground to suspect perjury to occasion a call for the sworn statement, the examination of which should be followed up by an investigation. Let it once be understood that the law means something when it prescribes a punishment of from one year to ten years in the penitentiary for perjury in an assessment return, and an era of reform will follow in its train. The boodler who steals the public money has a fellow-criminal in the property- owner who evades by false return the payment of his fair share of the common tax, and 110 cloak of respectability should shield either from the penal consequences of his crime. In a word, the town review should be supplemented by a grand jury re- view, with all the subsequent proceedings naturally following in the train of grand jury work faithfully done.THE VOICE OF LABOR- 45 CHAPTER III. THE GREAT QUESTION OF MONEY AND LABOR. THE PROBLEM WHICH ALL NATIONS ARE CONSID- ERING-WEALTH RIGHTFULLY BELONGS TO THE PRO- DUCER-ECONOMISTS AND THE PRECIOUS METALS- CHARACTERISTICS OF MONEY-MONETARY STANDARDS OF DIFFERENT NATIONS-THE GOLD STANDARD-THE SILVER STANDARD-THE DOUBLE STANDARD-HIS- TORY OF BANKING-RISE OF THE NATIONAL BANKS -OPINIONS OF STATESMEN--LABOR AND CAPITAL- THE WAGE FUND PRINCIPLE-PROFITS AND WAGES- THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR-INFLATION OF CURRENCY -HON. ALFRED TAYLOR^ REMARKS-DANIEL WEB- STER ON LABOR-MONEY THE GREAT HUMAN BLESS- ING-VOLUME OF MONEY-LINCOLN'S IDEAS-HORACE GREELY-BURKE-THE NEW ISSUES OF TO-DAY. The greatest question in political economy is that of money and its distribution. It is now the prob- lem which occupies the attention of the statesmen of England, France, and Germany, and it is destined to be the great question in this country. Political economy designates the laws which gov-46 THE VOICE OF LABOR. ern the accumulation of money, but its distribution depends largly upon legislation and custom. Wealth created by the workingman in these times has a de- cided tendency to accumulate in the coffers of in- dividuals and corporations, where it is often used for the oppression of the laborer. Naturally wealth belongs to the person who produces it, to the work- ingman, but he is obliged to give up the greater portion of it to the non-producer, or capitalist. The primary idea of capital is, that it is obtained by giving a service whose market value is equal to the capital. But what service has the man who has accumulated a hundred million dollars in his own lifetime performed which can be compared in value to the wealth which he has gained % There is no comparison between the service and the pay of such men, and this is becoming more and more clear to the laboring millions. The man, woman or child, who earns a livelihood by manual labor gets too lit- tle, and the smart man who wins a fortune by dex- terity gets too much. The wealth of the world is too unevenly distributed, and the laborer is finding it out. What if he should make a new distribution in some future day as the common people of France did in 1793 ? At present there is little fear of any such thing in this country, because of the vast domain of unoccupied free land which the laborer can have by settling it. But the lands will by-and-by be occupied, and at a not very distant day, and then problems will ariseTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 47 in this country more difficult to solve than have ever yet arisen in Europe; for when the European hive becomes too crowded, the surplus laborers can come to America where all may secure a farm; but when there is no more land to grant, then will come the pinch. There are certain characteristics upon which the majority of political economists agree, as being es- sential to substances used for money. These char- acteristics are attributed to the precious metals— gold and silver. They have intrinsic value, besides their use as money. When either of these metals are demone- tized their value diminishes. Good authorities hold that being simple sub- stances, and easily transportable, that they are uni- versally of the same value. This is denied, how- ever, by eminent writers, and it is obvious that money must vary with the scale of usual prices. They have great value in small bulk. These metals are indestructible, and they wear but little with constant use. They are of universal use, and are capable of be- ing stamped as to mark their value. It is not known where coinage began, but it is fairly decided that it was in Asia, about 880 B. C. Although the precious metals have been most em- ployed for money, many other substances have been used, viz.? paper, iron, leather, wheat, tobacco, wood, shells, beads, skins, bark, etc.48 THE VOICE OF LABOR. The monetary standard has always been subject to change, and is an open question. Some countries have fixed upon gold, some upon silver, and others upon both. Years ago Germany adopted silver, and has re- cently changed to gold. The single standard of silver is the rule with Russia and Austria, though they have no specie payment Nearly all of Asia uses silver as a standard, as do a few nations on the American continent—in all about one-third of the population of the world. The Latin Monetary Union—France, Italy, Bel- gium, Switzerland and Spain—adhere to the double standard, though the coinage of silver has been re- stricted, and for a time enjoined. About thirty years ago Holland adopted silver, but now has a gold standard. England was the first nation to try the experi- ment of the gold standard, sixty-nine years ago, and it now exists in Australia, South Africa, Egypt, Turkey, Portugal, and in the Scandinavian king- doms. The United States adopted gold in 1873, but returned to the double standard in 1878. In all these countries silver is made a legal tender for a small amount, and is used as a subsidiary coin. As early as about two hundred and sixty years before the Christian era, a banker of Sicyon, a city of Peloponnesus, is mentioned by Plutarch in his life of Aratus. His business appears to have con- sisted in exchanging one species of money for amTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 49 other. The money-changers of Judea, who were driven out of the temple by Christ, were most prob- ably of the description mentioned by St. Matthew in the parable of the talents—that is, such as made a trade of receiving money in deposit, and paying interest for it. St. Luke, in his relation of the same parable, expressly alludes to a banking estab- lishment. From Judea the institution of "banks was brought into Europe; and the Lombard Jews are said to have kept benches, or banks, in the market places of Italy for the exchange of money and bills. The Bank of Venice, which was the first foundation upon an enlarged scale that we are acquainted with, was established about the year 1171, under the ap- pellation of the Chamber of Loans (la Camera degP Imprestiti), and the contributors to a forced loan, that had been raised to meet the exigencies of a Ve- netian war with the emperors of the East and West, were made creditors of the Chamber, from which they were to receive an annual interest of four per cent. At what period the knowledge of banking was introduced into England is unknown, though it may reasonably be conjectured to have been within a short time after the conquest. There can be little doubt of its having been first practiced here by the Italian merchants, all of whom, who were engaged in money transactions, were distinguished, both in France and in England, by the name of Lombards,50 THE VOICE OF LABOR. or of Tuscans. These merchants being dispersed throughout Europe, "became (says Anderson) very convenient agents for the popes, who employed them to receive and remit the large revenues they drew from every state which acknowleged their ec- clesiastical supremacy. Hence, and from their be- ing employed to lend the money thus gathered upon interest, they are called by Matthew Paris " the Pope's merchants." We learn from the same his- torian that some of the English nobles availed them- selves of the same agency, and "sowed their mon- ey to make it multiply." Henry III, in his twenty-ninth year, forbade his subjects to borrow money from any foreign mer- chants. This was on account of the great exactions which they are said to have committed. In the four- teenth century the business of banking was carried on by the drapers, at Barcelona, in Spain; as it was in after ages by the goldsmiths of London. Bank- ing began in Italy, by Lombard Jews, in the year 808; that of Genoa, 1345; of Amsterdam, 1609; of Rotterdam, 1635; of England, 1694; of Hamburg, 1710; in the East Indies, 1787; in America, 1781, at Philadelphia. Bankers, on their first establish- ment, allowed to those who entrusted their money in their hands a moderate interest for the same. Thereby their business was very considerably in creased. The first bank in America was established by Mr. E. Morris, the Superintendent of Finance, and a delTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 51 egate to the Continental congress. In May of that year congress gave its sanction to the plan of a na- tional bank, and the Bank of North America had a legal existence. The hostility to national banks be- gan with their organization, and in 1829 President Jackson condemned the renewal of their charters in his first annual message to congress. In 1833 Pres- ident Jackson removed the government deposits from the United States Bank, and placed them in state banks,which were called "State Deposit Banks." A large number of local banks were then organized with the result of effecting an enormous amount of speculation and overtrading, and uwild cat" bank- ing became rampant throughout the western states. In 1836 the surplus money belonging to the United States treasury was distributed to the state banks, and to check speculation in public lands the President prohibited the receipt of anything but sil- ver and gold in payment for land sold by the gov- ernment. A year later the panic of 1837 paralyzed the nation. The funding of greenbacks into six per cent gold bonds was revoked in 1863, which rendered them irredeemable, and credit became so expanded under excessive issues of paper money, that the , abuse of credit became general. The great paper bubble burst in 1873, and a general panic was the result. The vexed question of the proper adjustment of financial matters is the source of several theories, and their discussion has always been foremost in legislative halls.52 THE VOICE OF LABOR. Our leading statesmen have frequently changed their opinions of the financial policy of the land. In 1791 James Madison opposed the first United States bank, and in 1816, when president, recommended the second United States bank. The same course was pursued by Henry Clay and Daniel W ebster. Thomas Jefferson acted likewise. General Jackson and Mr. Yan Buren favored state deposit banks in 1833, and four years later changed their minds. The business world has been centuries in learning that wealth is not money, but consists of the abund- ance of those things which command money. Money is only the instrument of exchange for the articles comprising wealth. Some nations have been so carried away with the opposite notion, that it be- came the object of legislation to prevent exportation of the precious metals, as such was thought to di- minish the wealth of the country. The rich and the poor are two classes which are antagonistic, notwithstanding all that has been said and written about their mutual dependence. The history of man does not present a picture like that of the present, nor has the combination of circum- stances seen to-day ever existed in the past. The invention of printing, telegraph, steam engine; the use of labor-saving machinery; the great increase of monopolies and the intellectual development of the masses have created a new era. The people are be- ginning to think and are beginning an attempt to better their condition,THE VOICE OF LABOR. 53 It is often said that capital and labor are depend- ent upon each other, but it is also true that labor can secure many of the advantages held by capital, by combination or co-operation. Labor is undoubt- edly the true source of capital. Under the present system the power of capital to accumulate exceeds the power of labor to produce. This fault lies in un- just legislation. The riotous events and the exciting strikes of late years have elicited much thought and attention. In brief, it is a new phase of our history as a nation. It is a lesson which will bear good fruit. America with its millions of acres of yet uncultivated land, hundreds of inexhaustible mines yet unworked, is far from being cramped in resources, but unjust laws continually cast the pall of hard times upon the productive classes. In the beginning of the present century about seven-eights of our population were farmers, while the last census shows a balance against agricultural pursuits. New trades and employments have sprung up, and the divisions of labor have multiplied. Out of this new order of things trades unions have come into life, and the natural differences between capital and labor have been brought out in intensi- fied contrasts. Labor has hitherto been entirely ig- norant of the economic laws which govern the con- ditions in which it exists, but to-day education is en- abling it to comprehend them better. It is not to be54 THE VOICE OF LABOR. denied that money is the great and only true basis of our social condition The grievance of labor does not lie on a social plane. Labor seeks to be treated humanely, irre- spective of wages, and not like a machine or a brute. The fate of the workingman's wages is plac- ed between two causes—that which reduces the com- petition of labor, and that wThich produces capital. The wage-fund principle teaches that the wages labor will receive, at any time or in any trade, is simply a question of division; capital may be call- ed the dividend, the number of workingmen the di- visor, and the quotient that amount which each workingman receives as wages. There are but two ways of increasing the latter—either increase the dividend or decrease the divisor. In each case wages increase. Labor is interested in high profits as much as capital, for capital employs labor. How to in- crease capital has been a problem which all modern peoples have industriously attempted to solve. When labor and capital demand each other equally, happi- ness, peace and plenty result. There have arisen various theories and conflicts be- tween them in regard to commerce, free trade, pro- tection, agriculture and manufactures, and partisans are urging their policies with zeal and all the ardor of positive conviction, and they say the prosperity of the country lies in the adoption of their theories. Many of these have arisen from local causes, andTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 55 are doomed to defeat through lack of national im- portance. In the use and misuse of profits lies a great pow- er in the industrial world. Labor has a well ground- ed complaint in the abuse of capital, yet it is im- possible to direct liow wealth shall be spent by its owner, The investment of capital in productive industry advances the interests of the workingman, and profits inure to both capital and labor. The workingman is not entirely without blame in the matter of ill-spent money. The amount of mon- ey spent for tobacco and liquor exceeds that expend- ed for any other two articles, and in this he is wrong for he injures no one so much as himself. Labor is grieved and angry at the injustice with which it feels that capital oppresses it, and in de- fense, it has organized the greatest labor order the world has ever known. In truth, there should be no antagonizm between capital and labor, for labor pro- duces capital. If there were no capital there could be no industrial labor. One is helpless without the other. Should labor cease for forty-eight hours capi- tal would take flight and want would stalk the earth. Labor needs the guidance of honest leaders rather than the violence of scheming demagogues. It is probable the present conflict between labor and capital originates in a misunderstanding: capi- tal does not comprehend labor, and labor does not understand capital. Hon. Alfred Taylor says: It is the duty of every56 THE VOICE OF LABOB. healthy person to be self-sustaining and contribute some good by his energy, either mental or physical, for the blessing he enjoys in his life. Everything that adds to the happiness of life is the result of some- body's mental or physical exertion, and to enjoy it without an equivalent is to be a drone and a sponger of another's toil. The scriptures inform us that in six days God made the heavens and the earth, and all things therein. Not only setting an example of an industrial life, but dignifying its mission. Those that plow the soil, sow the seed and raise the food and weave the cloths, and build the shelter and create a nation's wealth, should be rich and enjoy life instead of struggling for existence, as they now do beneath mortgaged homes and burdensome taxes and blight- ed lives. The larger the fortunes of the few, the greater the hardships of the many.. A class of men who will neither work, fight nor pay taxes; who have inspired class laws in order to extort fabulous private fortunes, and thereby they have excited envy, jealousy and discontent on the one hand, and sel- fishness, aggression, tyranny and crime on the other. Sculptured palaces are the immediate parents of the distressed hovel. Must religion build extravagant churches, trade its costly warehouses, wealth its long streets of sculptured mansions, and luxury flaunt its voluptuous trappings in the face of the industrial poor, debasing manhood, forcing them into vice and crime? President Lincoln said in his second message: "Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Cap-THE VOICE OF LABOR. 57 ital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior and deserves much higher consideration." Webster said in his speech in 1837: "The inter- est of this great country, the principal cause of all prosperity, is labor, labor, labor. The government was made to protect this industry; to give it both en- couragement and security, to that very end, with this precise object in view, power was given to Con- gress over the currency and over the money system of the country." Let us swear to make labor profitable and respect- able, whether it be hand work or brain work. La- bor and capital are joint partners in the production of wealth. Capital is to labor what the skillful hand is to the useful tool. Interest and profit deter- mines what each shall have. Then there would be no antagonism, unless one extorted from the other and brought on the conflict. The claims of labor can be no more forcibly shown than wealth in a state of nature. Trees in the forest, rock in the quarry, iron in the mountain, bricks in the clay, or glass from sand on the sea shore. In their primitive condition they are almost worthless. Built into a mansion they furnish most of the comforts and luxury of life, whose value is increased a thousand fold and ought to receive the first attention of its legislator. Men in affluent circumstances having no occasion for temptation claim superior nature, honesty, which58 THE VOICE OF LABOR. keeps them from crime, when, in fact, it is only for- tunate circumstances in life. Upon scanty allow- ance, coupled with hard work, they would be fre- quently ugly and criminal. A prominent divine once told his congregation of merchants, bankers and speculators that he was on too high a plane to be affected by a temptation to steal. He was then get- ting $20,000 per annum for his talk. Money is an instrument susceptible of being the greatest blessing human ingenuity ever invented. Money to commerce is what blood is to the system; money to commerce is what water is to navigation, or freight cars to railroad traffic. To shrink tlieii . quantity clogs the channels of trade. All the polit- ical economists from Richards to Mill, admit that ex- pansion of money is life, that contraction is death, and that the amount of money in circulation controls and fixes values and prices of all commodities,includ- ing land and labor. We have but two kinds of dollars in this country, one of gold, the other of silver. All others are a promise to pay a dollar, or be redeemed in coin. Any circulating medium whether of coin, or paper, that is not a full legal tender for public or private debts, is a fraud and a cheat. The control over the volume of money is mainly in the hands of the national banks, together with the right and profit .of issue. A usurped sovereign power they will never surrender, because of its profit, until com- pelled to do so by law. The volume of money in the United States asTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 59 shown by congressional speeches, is from $12 to $13 per capita. Subtract what is on deposit and held for redemption purposes, and there will not be left more tlian$9.70 percapitaavailable for actual busi- ness. Great Britain, thirty times smaller in area, and only about two-thirds our population, has $23.70 per capita. France with her 200,000 square miles of territory, has $43 per capita and her people com- paratively out of debt. Such are the facts, as un- welcome as they may be. Those countries are densely populated as compar- ed with ours, and the facilities of exchange far more convenient than in a country as expansive as this, and because of its wide distribution, payments of debts cannot proceed with the same rapidity. The bank of England was established in 1794:, and is 93 years old. It was originated by a Lon- don merchant by the name of Patterson, and was first chartered for eleven years. It has suspended specie payment eleven times, one of which lasted twenty-six years, each time tearing down the col- umns of British commerce and spreading financial distress, not only in England, but frequently in oth- er nations. With all its boasted pride of gold re- demption, its bank notes have been 41 per cent be- low par. Its mode of resumption has been invaria- bly over the road of contraction, the path of gloom and despair, where nothing flourishes but poverty and crime. Abraham Lincoln expressed to an intimate friend60 THE VOICE OF LABOR. a short time before he was assassinated, that he rery much doubted whether there was moral virtue and patriotism enough among the controlling classes to perpetuate our institutions. Mr. Greely upon his death bed said."TheTribune and country are gone, and I am going." The permanence of the government can only be secured by such property qualification as will pre- vent those who have no interest in the country from voting and controlling its affairs, shouts Hugh Mc- Cullough, ex-secretary of the treasury, the prime criminal of modern times. Government authority never shows its weakness and demoralized condition so much as when it resorts to physical and brute force to carry its ends. Caesar said: "The ides of March have come." When they had passed he was lifeless at the foot of Poinpey's statue. Bloated wealth can never com- prehend the suffering of the poor. Mary Antoinette, when told that the fisherwomen were revolting be- cause they had no bread, replied in her confused ig- norance with the insult, "Why don't they eat cake ?" When Paris was in a wild tumult the king played locksmith to avoid the danger, and wrote in his di- ary, "Nothing in particular happened to-day." Yet they had moved the foundation of his monarchy. Charles I, with contempt for the people, said : " France needs mowing," and asked, "What can these round-heads do ?" and he told them to go and eat grass. In one week from that time they wereTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 61 carrying liis head on a pole. Rousseau wrote a book pleading for honesty and purity in the French gov- ernment, which was treated with contempt by the aristocratic class. Carlisle says the second edition of that book " was bound in the skins of the sneer- ing aristocracy." The gold standard, the swindling bond system, the demonetizing of silver, the funding and refund- ing of national debts, the changing of inflated paper debts to a gold standard, is not the work of states- men ; it is the work of cunning, crafty tricksters, who betray their exalted trust, and barter away the most sacred principles of a confiding people. They are traitors to the republican form of government, and clamor for the gold standard to pile up collossal fortunes, notwithstanding it is the prop of a mon- archy, and leads to a centralized government of force, resting on a standing army. Nothing can be permanent based 011 a sham. Our banking system is based on debt, while debt and in- terest mean bankruptcy and the transfer of labor and property, without an equivalent. To illustrate, I cite the following as only one of hundreds that took place in the years 1863 and 1801: $10,000,000 of United States bonds were sold in New York in 1863 when gold was $2.57 in green- backs, which cost the bondholder in gold about $3,- 900,000; during the last fifteen years the interest amounted in gold, when the bonds were called and paid, to $9,900,000; and the principal, $10,000,000,62 THE VOICE OF LABOR. making a total of $19,900,000; subtract purchase money, $3,900,000, and this leaves a net profit of $16,000,000. King Philip said he had "no faith in the patriot- ism of any class of men who would be made to do wrong for a jackass load of gold." To first impov- erish and then enslave, has been the history of the downfall of all republics. Do not imagine for a moment that our languishing industries and low price of agricultural commodities, is the lack of wis- dom in legislation. Far from it. It is the work of a well-organized conspiracy, well known and long practiced in Europe, and forced upon this country by long-headed foreign tricksters. We have already paid the cost of the war in interest, the principal of which is over double in amount to-day, considering the price of labor and its commodities, as compar- ed with what it was at the close of the war. A statesman has said that were it not for the the ener- gy and enterprise of the people and fertility of the soil, American society would pine away beneath the blighting influence of marasmus. If national debt brought about by inflated paper currency was ever settled upon a gold basis, history fails to re- cord the fact. Burke says: 'It is to the life and property of the citizens, and not to the demand of the creditor of the state, that the original faith of society is pledged. The claim of the citizen is prior in time, paramount in title and supreme in equity.5 The bondholderTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 63 demonstrates why should a United States bond be guaranteed against all loss by storm, pestilence, war, and famine, exempt from taxation, principal and interest payable in gold and for ever afterward a lien upon everybody's property. Before the shrinkage in values took place, the long-headed men sold their property, invested it in bonds, moved into the towns and cities of the country and commenced clipping coupons, occasionally giving one to a gold- basis editor, who shouts the delusion that a national debt is a national blessing, the financial questions are settled, and gold and greenbacks are par. Political parties have their birth, growth and maturity by first serving the people wTith fidelity on the vital questions of the day. When they have ac- complished their mission and become rich and pow- erful, they boast of by-gone issues and fight battles over where they have once won a victory, and use their historic fame by appealing to the people for a new lease of power to acquire private fortunes by discriminating laws. No love or hate of old party issues, no pride or prejudice born of old conflicts should control your vote. New issues are upon us, and new ideas and new votes must pave the way for industrial emancipation, and then comes the tan- gible reality."64 THE voice of labor. CHAPTER IY. GOVERNMENT LOANS TO THE PEOPLE.1 man shall earn his bread by the sweat of his brow-interest and usury-the mosaic law— the power of interest-illustrations-loans to the people a feasible project-the government loans to the bankers-—loans to the people at a low rate would be a blessing-how the farm- ers would secure prosperity-millionaires and paupers are increasing-regulation of the vol- ume of money—Garfield's theory—total na- tional debt-hypocritical politicians-usury nothing more than robbery. "It is a decree of heaven that every man shall earn his bread by the sweat of his brow," and no man will deny that it is just and proper. Further- more, it will not be disputed that every man has a right to the product of his own labor. Under the present order of things men do not get the benefit of that which they produce, neither is it the practice for all men to earn the bread they eat. The rule 1 By Hon.W. I). Vincent, L, A., 3797, K. of L.FREDERICK TURNER, General Treasurer, K. of £jsTHE VOICE OF jlABOR. 67 now is, and has been, that the man who earns the most gets the least, and he who earns the least gets the most. A careful study of the subject of interest will convince any reasonable mind that it has been one of the leading causes in bringing about this state of affairs. Usury or interest upon money (which is one and the same thing), has been condemned by the better class of thinking men in all ages of the world —God himself condemns it. "Thou shalt not lend thy brother money upon usury." It was strictly pro- hibited by the Mosaic law; and for many years after Christ established the new order of things, any per- son in the church who was known to pursue or de- fend the practice of usury was subject to expulsion. It was prohibited because it was wrong. If it was wrong then it is wrong now. From no process of reasoning can we conclude that it is any nearer right now, than it was when Christ drove the money changers out of the temple. Every state in the union has enacted laws against the taking of interest above a certain per centage. True, these laws are not enforced, but the fact that they remain on the statute books is proof that the law-makers themselves know that high rates of in- terest are bad for the people. It is impossible for anyone who has the welfare of his country at heart to uphold a system that will enable men to exact high rates of interest. On the other hand, it is equally unjust to oppose any reform that would68 THE VOICE OF LABOR. lower the rate of interest. As before stated, the ex- isting usury laws are not enforced, and under the present system it is absolutely impossible to enforce them. The only way to form a proper idea of the power of interest to absorb is to make our estimates for long periods of time. Laws should be made, not only in the interest of all the people and on the principle of "the greatest good to the greatest num- ber," but they should be made for the people of the next generation, as well as those who are now living. * We have no right to enact laws that will be de- trimental to our children, or to oppose any measure that will be beneficial to them. We have no right to uphold customs which, even though they may not materially affect us, will eventually make paup- ers of a majority of our people. Three hundred years is a very short time in the history of a nation, yet if this government should give its note to-day for one dollar due three hundred years from date, at 10 per cent compound interest, the debt at maturity would be four times greater than the present assess- ed valuation of all the property in the United States. The farmer mortgages his place to-day for $1,000 at 12 per cent compounded annually, and leaves the debt for his grandson to pay one hundred years after date. At the end of the time the young man finds a debt of $84,675,000 on his hands. If theTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 69 three generations have done well and worked hard, the farm is worth $50,000. If sold, it will pay less than one mill on the dollar. One dollar put out at interest—2 per cent per month compounded annually—if allowed to run one hundred years would amount to the enormous sum of $2,551,797,404. In silver dollars this would weigh 89,612 tons. Two young men, James and John, start out in life at the age of twenty-one, with $1,000 each. James invests his money in a farm. At the end of twenty-five years, if he has no bad luck—if drouth and grasshoppers have not visited him too often, and if he has been able to stem the tide of periodi- cal panics, he is worth $40,000. He has accumula- ted this by hard work and the strictest economy, to- gether with the increase in the value of his farm. John settles in town and establishes a "loan agency." He is very shrewd, and manages to keep half his capital loaned out all the time at 2 per cent per month, compounded every three months. At the end of twenty-five years he is worth $170,000. He has performed no labor except to drive a good bar- gain when he could. James, the farmer, has worked hard through heat and cold, from early morn till late at night. He has been trying to keep up with his friend John, and has not taken the time to read good books and study finance. He has neglected the art of " addition, multiplication and silence." But he has produced something. He has helped70 THE VOICE OF LABOR. develop the country, and has added something to the world's wealth. Yet he is worth $130,000 less than John the money loaner, who has done nothing and added not one dollar to the resources of his country. Now we claim that this order of things should be reversed. If any one has the advantage, it should be the man who chooses to labor and build up the country, and not the man who decides to do nothing but accumulate the products of other men's labor. One of the greatest means for the accomplishment of this end is, for the government to loan money, in limited quantities, at a low rate of interest—the rate to be de- termined after proper deliberation. I am aware of the prejudice that exists against new ideas, and the pro- position for the government to loan money to poor people, is a new idea. The proposition has never been thought of, or agitated by the people to any extent. This will be one of the arguments used by our opponents. They will tell us that it is an ex- periment. I answer that government control of the postal system was once a new thing, and an experiment. Is that any reason why it should not be adopted ? It is an admitted fact that the people de- rive more benefits from the postal service, as admin- istered by the government, than from any other service of a public nature, as compared to the cost. And it will not be denied that if this system were operated by private individuals and corporations, itTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 71 would be made a means of oppression and extortion, equal to that which is now carried on by railroad, telegraph, standard o^l and moneyed monopolies. Every function that is now performed by the govern- ment, was once performed by individuals, and that unfortunate state of affairs would exist to-day, but for experiments and new ideas. Government itself was a new idea. Republican form of government is an experiment to-day, and yet I dare say the people do not wish it to be abandoned. The threshing machine, the printing press, the rail- road, the telegraph and the telephone are among the fruitful effects of experiments and new ideas. This is an age of progression, and none but the anti- quated "fogy" will adhere to old opinions because they are old, or oppose new ones because they are new. Our government has been in the loan business for almost a quarter of a century. For twenty-three years it has loaned out to national bankers over $300,000,000 at one per cent a year. Instead of loaning it out to poor men who needed it most, it has been loaning to a wealthy class who have need- ed it least. During all this time while all these rich men have been borrowing at one per cent they have been loaning the same money to their poor neigh- bors at from 12 to 24 per cent. This is a fact so well known and an injustice so glaring, that no ar- gument is necessary to demonstrate its truth or evil effects. The system under which this outrage is72 THE VOICE OF LABOR. permitted is so contemptibly wicked, that I dare say that its defense will not be undertaken. It is a self-evident fact that if the banker gets money of the government at one per cent, the farm- er ought to get it at the same rate, if he can furnish as good security. No one can possibly deny this, unless he takes the position that our government should be run in the interest of the rich at the ex- pense of the poor. On the contrary, I claim that the government should loan only to the poor. The rich man can take care of himself. But, if he can- not, if he finds this life too great a burden because of his riches, let him follow the Bible injunction, and give what he has to the poor. What harm can possibly arise from government loans ? Suppose the people get the money at three per cent interest. One per cent to go the county, in which the loan is made; one per cent to the state, and one per cent to the national government. In this way the people as a whole, would get back every dollar of interest paid by individuals. These sev- eral governments—county, state and national— would be benefited to the extent of every dollar of interest paid. Whatever benefits the government, under a just system of laws, benefits the people. The men who are now loaning money from 12 to 48, and a few as high as 60 per cent, would be com- pelled to come down to 3 per cent, or go out of business. The consequence would be that most of them would quit the business, andTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 73 take up some other calling. This of itself would be a blessing. There are to-day thous- ands of men who are making their living, or a greater part of it, by loaning money. Many of them do nothing else, and they are rapidly accumulating wealth. These men are positively not doing one thing toward developing the country. They are not adding one dollar of wealth to it. They do not even earn the salt that goes in the bread they eat, They consume as much as the producer, or more, but they pay for it with money that has been wrung from the producer by an unjust system. These men are living on the products of other men's toil. And yet we cannot blame these men. They are not responsible for the system, and without a change we could hardly get along without them. They are not, as a rule, more selfish than other men. They are virtually nothing but public paupers, but if the people have no more judgment than to support them, by keeping up the system, they should find fault with no one but themselves. We are apt to choose a calling which we think will bring us in the greatest returns. Every man in one sense of the word, is free to choose for himself with this exception. No man can go into the money-loaning business, if he has no money. The man who is now loaning money might have chosen to be a farmer, and the farmers might have decided to loan money, but this does not correct the evil. It is no proof that men should74 THE VOICE OF LABOR. come into possession of that which they do not earn. If by some means men were compelled to change conditions—if those who are now poor should become rich, and those who are now rich should be- come poor, the fact would remain that one class of society would be getting the benefit of the hard earnings of another class. The injustice and hard- ships would be just as great. That we all have equal chances is the lan- guage of the professional gambler. This he offers as consolation to his poor victim, and the deluded wretch will go off and repeat it. And while we often find the men who are suffering most from the curse of usury defending it, yet the fact remains that it is a curse. John Brown was the best friend the African slaves ever had, and yet they were among the first to resist him when he sought to free them. Verily, ignorance and preju- dice cover more sins than charity. We expect to hear from the opponents of this measure a great deal of talk about "an army of paid clerks''—that the people do not need a guardian. In the absence of argument they will offer for your consideration a long list of high sounding words and phrases. Ridicule will doubtless be resorted to, as that is one of the means used in fighting every just measure. When a lawyer has a weak case he invariably resorts to ridicule or abuse, and sometimes both. If they are consistent they will tell you that it is not the government's business to look after theTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 75 people—that uwe are not our brothers keeper." For- getting that this language was used first by a mur- derer who was trying to conceal his crime. Who can estimate the benefit our country would derive in one hundred years time from this vast army of men, if they were compelled to engage in some useful occupation? If they could get but 3 per cent for their money, they would prefer to invest in some factory or other enterprise, for the employment ot labor. This would increase the demand and price for labor. Their money would soon be in circula- tion in the hands of the people, without their having to pay one cent of interest. One or two men would be able to do the work of these men, and in a short time the postmasters at the different county seats would be able to do it in addition to their other du- ties. People would become so prosperous that few would want to borrow, even at 3 per cent. The farmer who is now paying these high rates of interest can lift the mortgage on his place with 3 per cent money, and gradually get out of debt. If it is expected that he will ever get out of debt, by paying the present rate of interest, it must be admitted that he can get out sooner at a lower rate. It must also be admitted, that the less interest money he is compelled to pay, the more prosperous he is. His increased prosper- ity enables him to pay—compels him to pay—an in- creased price for labor. In this way the poor man76 THE VOICE OF LABOR. who has no property to put up as security, derives a benefit from government loans. The men who now own their farms will be able to keep them. They will not be compelled to sell them to keep the sheriff from making a sale. How many of the men who owned farms fifteen years ago own them now ? I venture to say not more than one in twenty. What has become of the other nineteen? Most of them were compelled to sell out. Old Shy- lock had a death grip on them. They have gone fur- ther west where land is cheaper. In a few years from now, many more of our far- mers will have to travel the same road. In fact they are traveling that road to-day. We are told that this is a benefit to our country. That wealthier men are taking the places of the poor ones, who are moving away. This is true, but it only proves that poor men are being crowded to the wall for the benefit of those with greater capital. But this is not a matter of such serious consequence so long as there is plenty of va- cant lands. But " Uncle Sam" will not always be rich enough to give us all a farm. When the government land is all occupied, whicn can only be a few years at the longest, and these poor wretches are no longer able to find cheap lands, what will be the result ? They will become tenants, subject in time to eviction and all the at- tendant evils of a British landlord system. But we are told the American people will never submit to it. They would have been compelled to submit to it,THE VOICE OF LABOR, 77 ere this had it not been for our boundless resources, and unlimited area of public land. Our country has prospered. Indeed it has. Our resources and natural advantages are greater than those of any other nation on earth. America is still the best country in the world and, as good patriot- ic citizens, we should strive to keep it so. We have prospered in spite of bad laws and wicked systems, but not because of them. We even prospered in spite of African slavery, but that prosperity was not due to slavery. Neither is our present prosperity due to the usury system. While our material wealth has increased at a wonderful rate, it has been, and is being now, concentrated in a few men's hands. Millionaires and paupers are also increasing. There must naturally follow hundreds of paupers for every millionaire. " There are two things," says Socrates, " which the magistrates of Athens will be careful to keep out of our city—opulence and poverty. Opulence because it engenders effeminacy; poverty because it produces baseness; both because they lead to re- volution." It has well been said that these two evils go hand in hand. One cannot exist without the other. They are the two extremes of one evil. Another consideration of government loans will be the regulation of the volume of money. As the law now stands, the bankers can expand or con- tract the volume of money to almost any extent. It78 THE VOICE OF LABOR. was only a few years ago—1878—that they gave us an illustration of their power, withdrawing $19,000,- 000 from circulation in a few weeks'time, almost producing a panic, and compelling the president of the United States to veto a law of congress. About that time, the bank journals of the east op- enly boasted that the banks, by concerted action, could in a short time defeat any measure of con- gress that was detrimental to their interests. We all know the effect of contraction and expansion of the volume of money. The price of every day's labor, and every bushel of grain, is regulated by it. By this means the bankers have it in their power to make low prices or high prices, and they never fail to use this power in their own interests. In a speech in congress, Garfield said, " Whoever controls the volume of our currency is absolute master of the in- dustries and commerce of the country." With government loans, under proper regulations, this power would be taken out of the hands of the bankers and placed in the hands of the people. It may be said that if it is wrong for individuals to loan money, it is wrong for the government. But this is not true. The government may properly— and must necessarily—do many things which would be improper for individuals to do. The government makes money, but if the individual undertakes it, although he may use the same material and make a perfect imitation, he is sentenced to state's prison.CHARLES H. LITCHMAN, General Secretary, K. of L.THE VOICE OF LABOR. 81 Then again, the people as a whole, get every dollar of money derived from government loans. Under the present system a favored class get it. In the one case the people get the benefit; in the other, a few rich speculators derive all the benefits at the expense of the poorest class in the community. We have only to choose between these two classes. Which shall be rewarded, the poor laborer or the wealthy idler? It is often said that men have the same right to receive pay for the use of money, that they have to receive pay for the use of a horse. Again there is a difference. Money is not only a public necessity but it is a medium of exchange, an implement of trade and, in one sense, a measure of values. It is the only le_ gal tender for the payment of debts. To be in debt is to be a slave, and he who controls the one thing that can legally cancel a debt is the master. And as Mr. Garfield has said, is absolute dictator over our industries and commerce. We have already seen how the wealthy—and by the way, one of the most "dangerous classes'''—may control it by means of usury. One dollar, or even one cent, placed at the lowest possible rate of inter- est, if allowed to run long enough,will absorb every dollar in the world. This fact of itself, is proof that usury should be prohibited. It is possible with the aid of a few other wicked customs and laws, for a few men to own every dollar in the United States.82 THE VOICE OF LABOB. These means have been used to a greater extent than war, to bring about the conquest of nations. It is estimated that the total amount of indebted- ness, both public and private, in the United States, is about twenty billion dollars. Every dollar of this is drawing interest, and every dollar of this interest is paid by labor. There comes a time every few years when the interest falling due on this enormous debt, amounts to more than every dollar in circula- tion. The result is a financial crisis — a panic. Sometimes it is temporarily postponed, but it is just as sure to come, as effect follows cause. The men who control the currency—the one thing with which this interest can be paid—will not let it out. They draw it in as fast as possible to hoard it up. The law gives them this power and they use it. They make money by it, and that is what this class of men live for. It is their sole object in life—the summit of their ambition. They demand the pound of flesh and get it, but they laugh in their sleeves to think that their poor victims have not the manhood, patriotism—not even the good sense, to resist it. Men are thrown out of employment. Prices go down. Money is hard to get. Men are compelled to part with their property for less than it is worth—even less than it cost. Paup- ers, tramps and criminals increase. Law-suits and other calamities which naturally follow in the wake of hard times, come in their order. Hypocritical politicians, claiming to be statesmen,THE VOICE OF LABOR. 83 have educated the people to belie.ve that a panic once in eight or ten years, is a necessary consequence of good government. Sensible people absolutely enter- tain this foolish notion. Some of them believe this from the same reason that they hold on to many other absurd opinions regarding finance—because their fathers before them believed it. The thought never enters their minds, that they are the result of the manipulations of selfish and designing men. There is another difference between the hire of a horse, and the hire of money. The horse must be fed and attended. This is not necessary with money. The horse will wear out; money will not. The horse will grow old; money will not. Money is just as valuable as it was before. The horse is not. The argument which applies to one, does not apply to the other. Our opponents will tell you that if all the wealth of the world was divided equally among men, it would not be long before a few men would again have it all. This is an "old song," and some men have repeated it so often they really believe there is argument in it. We admit that this would be the result, if the cause is not removed. The same cause will invariably produce the same effect. Abolish usury, and other wicked systems, and the result will be different. This is what every just man should try to do—remove the cause. We admit that some men will grow riSh faster than others under a perfect system of laws. The84 THE VOICE OF LABOR. man who is more industrious than his indolent neigh- bor ought to receive more pay; but let us bear in mind that there is a difference between the industri- ous man and a miser. The man who hoards his wealth, and whose whole object in life is the accu- mulation of wealth, is a ten times greater curse to society than the indolent man. There is another class of men who will always grow rich faster than their neighbors—the sharp un- principled men. Because nature has given them the advantage of their fellows is no reason why the laws should step in and give them still greater ad- vantages. These are the strong men. They need no special legislation in their behalf. The object of law is supposed to be the protection of the weak against the oppressions of the strong. Blackstone defines law as "a rule of action, etc., commanding that which is right and prohibiting that which is wrong." Any law for the effectual abolition of usury will be a means of enforcing this principle. But it is not asked that there shall be a division of property. We would not have one dollar of Shy- lock's ill-gotten gains taken from him. We only ask that he be restrained from further robbery. Com- munism in any form is bad, but that particular form which takes from all and gives to all, is certainly no worse than that which takes from the many and gives to the few. There is but one just rule to govern in this mat- ter, and that is this: That every person should re-THE YOJCE OF LABOR. 85 ceive and enjoy the full value of the product of his own industry. This is impossible under the present system, as has been demonstrated. If it be true that every man has a right to the product of his own la- bor, it is equally certain that no other man has a right to it. It is an undisputed fact that men do get more, and they get it by the practice of usury. If there is any way except through government loans to cut off this practice, it has been beyond the wis- dom and intelligence of man to discover it.86 the voice of labor. CHAPTER Y. THE NATIONAL BANKING SYSTEM, i the monetary change demanded by workinomen—• aim of the knights of labor-soulless corpora- tions have no pity-attitude of banking cor- porations-u specie basis "-" intrinsic value " -" honest money"-money in ancient ages-- iron, brass, tin, cloth, leather and wooden money-great financiers on metalic money- how the national banks absorb the nation's wealth-debt their foundation-how the bank- ers secure double interest-enormous sums of money withdrawn from just taxation-the im- mense earnings of the indianapolis national bank—what workingmen should have. The Knights of Labor demand at the hands of congress a change of the present monetary system, whereby money shall issue directly to the people, and that all of the national money shall be legal tender for all debts. No other clause in their plat- form is so far-reaching in its influence, or one that 1 By j. w. Gaul, S. W. f., l. a„ 2691, k. of l.THE VOICE OF LABOR. 87 more nearly touches the vital interests of the people. Of one thing we may rest assured, that so long as the financial legislation of the country is left to be controlled by a class whose interests lie in the direction of increasing and perpetuating the indebt- edness of the country, as may best suit their own purposes, so long as that class retains the control, they will continue to wield it for their own aggran- dizement, utterly regardless of the periodically re- turning panics that sweep over the land like cy- clones, leaving ruin and desolation in their track, and just so long will the toiling millions of our brothers be deprived of the full, just fruits of their labor, and remain the veriest dependents, the " hew- ers of wood and drawers of water" for soulless cor- porations that have no heart and no pity. The necessities of the people are their opportuni- ties. The greater their extremities, the more inflex- ible are they in their demands. Those who control the money of a country control all else that it contains, and recognition of that fact, on their part, is sufficient explanation of the stubborn light they make to retain it. To-day we are confronted with just such a spectacle. In this boasted " land of the free," a moneyed ob- ligarchy, composed of some 2,400 national banks, boldly and openly assume it as their right to dictate as to the volume of our currency, the nature of the* material that shall compose it, and the source from which it shall be issued. They deny the right and88 THE VOICE OF LABOR. power of the people to supply themselves through the agency of the government: deny that the law can create money, except its material be gold, or such other metal as their unscrupulous greed may determine. As one means of perpetuating their power they strive to surround the whole subject with mystery by the use of terms invented to blind and mislead, thus making fraud and rascality less easily understood. They have succeeded to a most la- mentable extent in deceiving the producing millions, whilst they themselves are not deceived. "Specie basis," "Intrinsic value," and "Honest money" have been dinned into our ears unremitting- ly, and industry lies prostrate, millions starve, ruin stalks through the land, crime increases, strikes and riots prevail and blood is shed—all this while "great financiers" and " wise statesmen" quibble about & few grains more or less of gold or silver to the dol- lar. Let us turn to the pages of history and see if, from the practice and experience of the past, we cannot learn some lessons that will serve to expose the falsity of the ideas they have so assiduous- ly instilled into the public mind. Centuries before Christ, money was found to be necessary. The Jews used many forms, substances or materials for money. For a long time they held it by weight, considering the stamp of no value. They did not seem to have any confidence in any form of government they could adopt, or in its durability, nor did theyTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 89 have confidence in themselves sufficient to take each others notes or obligations without collaterals. They demanded property for property, taking noth- ing on credit except accompanied with a bond which would hold the debtor in slavery, even to death, for the benefit of the creditors. Services were paid for in female children, in cattle, sheep or asses. For a long time cattle were held as ready money by the ancient Romans and Grecians, and were de- clared a legal tender for the payment of debts. In Rome seven hundred years before Christ, by edict of Pompilius, the legal tender money was made of two materials, wood and leather. The leather was the most valuable, while small pieces of wood, re- sembling button moulds, constituted the small change. Pompilius refused to place his stamp, by which money was created, upon gold and silver, consider- ing them too expensive to be used for such a pur- pose. He established a treasury department and gave his chief officer of finance the right to fix the stamp of the emperor upon pieces of white leather, and burn it upon circular pieces of the hardest vari- ety of wood that could be obtained. Both kinds were legal tender for all debts. It was given by the king to all who served him, or furnished proper- ty. The man receiving it could pay it to the man he was indebted to, and by law it settled the debt. Thus it passed from hand to hand, until it came, through the tax collector, back into the treasury.90 THE VOICE OF LABOR. wlien it was again paid out, and after due time again taken in. This was the money of Pompilius during liis reign. Had he been as wise as our modern financiers, and as anxious for the interests of the people, when the wooden and leather money had reached the treasury, he would have refused to re-issue it, but would have " contracted the circulation" by de- stroying it, and have given to the holders interest bearing non-taxable bonds. He was not far-seeing enough to appreciate the blessing he would have conferred upon the people and their posterity, by plunging them into debt. He was woefully blind to the great truth—"A national debt is a national blessing." Had the kingdom of Pompilius been a republic, intended to endure forever, with 110 break in the law or power, with the people electing the presi- dents and the successors to administer the one di- rect, non-elastic law, there would have been 110 de- mand for other money, because property of all kinds could be accumulated with money made of wood and leather, as well as upon money made of gold or silver. The national banks deny the power of this sover- eign government of the people to create money of paper. They persistently refuse to recognize the greenback as absolute money, but name it as a debt to be paid in gold. They insist that money must have "intrinsic value" in its material, and thatTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 91 " intrinsic value" makes it money, and not the stamp, decree, edict, or, if you please, the " fiat" of the law. What made the wood and leather <*f Home, money—uintrinsic value?" No, it was the edict, the "fiat" of Pompilius, as expressed and cer- tified by the stamp of the royal seal, affixed thereon by his decree. Woe would have been to the traitor who had dared to deny it. With it the commerce of Eome was carried on, her armies were equipped and maintain- ed, her public buildings were erected, her internal improvements achieved; with it her children were educated, and all her citizens fed, housed and cloth- ed. With money of wood and leather, Rome pros- pered, and pursued steadily her onward march to imperial greatness. The first sixty millions of treasury notes issued by the government of this country, were legal ten- der at their face value, for all debts without an ex- ception, and never for one hour, from the date of issue to the present time have they been less valua- ble than gold, but actually commanded a premium over gold on account of their greater convenience. The bankers recognize that fact, and acknowledged them to be money, in the fullest sense of the term, by the very haste they made to obtain possession of, and hold them, and the frantic clamor they raised to prevent further issue of the same kind. Like Demetrius, the silversmith, they perceived their «raft was in danger.92 THE VOICE OF LABOR. The Carthagenians, for several generations used leather money, until there was such an abundance of gold and silver among the people that they did not know what to do with it, and so used it under the stamp of government as money. How was it that their "cheap" leather money did not drive all the gold and silver away? That is what our "fi- nanciers," with owl-like gravity, say would be the effect of our issuing " cheap" paper money. In 1158, Frederick Barbarossa, during his con- test with Milan, carried on war and afterwards the -industries of peace, with leather legal tender money. During this period gold was demonetized; was sim- ply property. King John of Franee, in 1360, issu- ed an immense quantity of leather money. William I, of Sicily, during periods of time between 1154 and 1150 compelled the Sicilians to surrender their gold and silver and receive in exchange leather money, which was not redeemable in gold or silver, but possessed of full legal tender power. This broke up the gold ring of that country and gave the peo- ple a respite from usurers, so they became prosper- ous. The continued issue of them would have an- nihilated the gold ring here, and have forever eman- cipated. labor from its burdensome and infamous exactions. Spain and Italy used leather money as late as 1574. China, in the thirteenth century, used the middle bark of the mulberry tree stamped with a mark representing the signature of the sovereignHON# W. Do VINCENT-THE VOICE OF LABOR. 95 who issued it. It was death to counterfeit or refuse it. In 1574 the Hollanders used pasteboard. In 1635 the colonists of Massachusetts used wampum, as full legal tender, and musket balls as small change at a farthing each, and legal tender in sums under one shilling. Slaves, land, iron, bronze, brass, tin, pieces of cloth, and numerous other things have been used as money, at various times and places. All served as, and were, money just as long as the law declared they should be legal tender for all debts. The republic of Venice for over four hundred years issued paper as its sole currency. It passed the world over, and commanded a premium of twen- ty-eight percent over the money of any other coun- try, never for one moment depreciating. Venice received it, as she issued it, for all dues. History through all the centuries past, brands as false the wilful statements and juggling sophistries used in behalf of u intrinsic value" money, and conclusively proves that money is an absolute creation of the law, and fiat,? alone is the power that confers full debt paying quality. Charles Moran, a distinguished French writer on political economy, says: "Metalic money whilst acting as coin is identical with paper money in respect to being destitute of intrinsic value. Coin, so long as it circulates for the purpose of buying and selling, for the time loses its intrinsic value. As commodities, gold and silver are capital, but as96 THE VOICE OF LABOR. money they are mere representatives of value." Of paper money, he says: "The simplest and most perfect form of currency is that which represents transferable debt—paper money with no intrinsic value. It is only when states have reached a high state of civilization that they adopt this perfect sort of money." Such men as Baron Rothschild, Fanchette, Isaac Buchanan, A. H. Gaston, Franklin, Jefferson, Wil- liam II. Harrison, Daniel Webster, and Buckles' History of English Commerce, might be quoted as to the effects of contraction, the unsuitability of a metalic currency, the power of the government to issue paper currency, etc. In speaking against the proposition to establish a United States national bank, Henry Clay said: UI conceive the establishment of this bank as danger- ous to the welfare and safety of this republic." "Specie basis," is another bugbear flaunted be- fore us. Let us see what it amounts to. Bonamy Price, the English economist, says that the business of England is done with ninety-seven per cent bank checks, drafts, bills of exchange and notes; two and one-half per cent with paper currency, and fifty cents gold to every one hundred dollars of the aggregate business transactions. The same holds good in this country, yet our bankers speak of " specie basis," and affect a horror of inflation of cheap paper in face of those facts. The interest of money loaners and banking syn-THE V01 UK OF LABOB. 07 dicates is to have money scarce; to have it of mate- rial the most costly possible: and if by any means it is likely to become otherwise, they will immedi- ately exert every effort to have it substituted with another kind. A strenuous effort is being made to suspend coinage of silver, in short, to drive it out of our monetary system. The mono-metalists insist that its presence there is dangerous to the business interests of the country, and that a wise regard for the preservation of those interests, and of course the prosperity of labor, demands that it be practically demonetized. Hundreds of thousands of poor dupes swallow the bait, and believe in the sincerity of their motives. Baron Rothschild understands finance quite as well as our financiers, and says: "The suppression (demonetization) of silver would amount to a veri- table destruction of values without any compensa- tion. " M. Wolowski, a European financier, says: " If by a stroke of the pen, they suppress one of their metals (gold or silver) in the monetary service, they double the demand for the other metal, to the ruin of all debtors." The truth of these statements is self-evident. President Harrison, in his inaugu- ral speech, made the following remark: "If there be one measure better calculated than another to produce that state of things where the rich are daily getting richer, and the poor are daily getting poorer, it is a metalic currency." What is this national banking system ? Its foun-98 THE VOICE OF LABOR. dation is the interest bearing, bonded indebtedness of the people, and upon the perpetuation of that debt its existence depends. The full legal tender power was taken from the treasury notes; they are not received for custom dues, or interest on the pub- lic debt, and they must be paid in gold. A law was passed to authorize the issuing of bonds, bearing in- terest, into which we can convert, or by which we can redeem the greenbacks. The foundation was now laid for a perpetual debt, to be saddled upon industry and serve as a basis for the banking system. Congress authorized the es- tablishment of a national system of banking upon the basis ot depositing the bonds with the United States treasurer, as security for our circulation: the bonds thus deposited to continue drawing interest, and to be exempt from all taxation. A national currency was supplied to constitute our circulation, at the rate of ninety per cent of the face of the bond deposit. On the sale of bonds from 1862 to 1868, embrac- ing seven issues of-six per cent, and one of five per cent bonds, according to a statistical table prepared, the people lost, and the bondholders gained, the enormous sum of $678,551,460. In fifteen years, labor paid as interest on bonds, nearly $1,700,000,- 000, and also paid to bankers and money lenders during the same period, as estimated by the Nation- al Banking Association, over $5,000,000,000. In twelve years of that time it was directly taxed overTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 99 $1,200,000,000, the amount of currency taken from the channels of trade and converted into idle, un- taxed bonds. The money so taken from circulation, was, at the behest of this grasping money power, never reissued, but cancelled and consigned to the flames. For further illustration, let us take the report of Hon. Wm. E. English, retiring from the presidency of the First National Bank of Indianapolis: "I congratulate the officers and stockholders of our en- terprise. The bank has been in operation fourteen years under my control, with a capital of $500,000. In the meantime it has voluntarily returned $500,- 000 of capital stock back to its stockholders, besides paying them in dividends $1,496,250, a part of which was in gold. And I now turn it over to you, with a capital unimpaired, and $327,000 of undivid- ed earnings on hand. To this may be added the premiums of United States bonds, at present prices amounting to $36,000, besides quite a large amount for lost or destroyed bills." Total amount of profit in fourteen years, on half a million dollars capital—$2,383,250 ! The whole burden rests upon the shoulders of labor, since labor alone can supply the means of paying the enormous tribute so pitilessly exacted. The cause of labor demands that the bonds be paid, that congress shall not delegate the control of the currency to any one class of citizens, or issue100 THE VOICE OF LABOR. interest bearing obligations, and that a purely na- tional currency shall issue directly to the people, based upon the credit of the people, a legal ten- der sufficient for commerce and productive in- dustry.THE VOICE OF LABOR. 101 CHAPTER VI. TRANSPORTATION.! government prerogatives dangerous in the hands of corporations—no one class independent- corporations not entitled to discrimination- the country suffering from railroad extor- tions-what the ballot should accomplish— the telegraphs-telephones-railroads-the government's success with the postal system-- the power of syndicates and corporations-- their immense wealth—daniel webster^ great warning. The opinion of the workingmen upon the subject of transportation, is fully expressed in the eigh- teenth section of the preamble of the principles de- clared by the Knights of Labor. In a recent ad- dress, Mr. J. R. Sovereign made the following re- marks: To delegate any of the prerogatives of republican government to private individuals or corporations, 1 By J. R. Sovereign. L. A„2116, K. of L.102 THE VOICE OF LABOR. is dangerous to national liberty and personal secur- ity. That the operation of the great agencies for transporting intelligence, passengers and freight, is clearly the duty of the government, can scarcely be doubted. For when we consider the fact that they control the destinies of the nation; that they are the mighty cords which bind us together as one people, we can only conclude that the rights, the liberty and the happiness of every citizen depends upon the operation of such agencies in such a way as will preclude the possibility of private interest menacing the public welfare. It is a great truth that no part of this nation pro- duces all the necessaries and comforts of life, and that no man produces with his own hands a suffici- ency to feed, clothe and house himself and those dependent upon him. Every toiler, then, marches to the music of machinery and the hum of industry, upon the hope that he can produce more of one par- ticular article than he wants for himself, and that he can distribute his surplus productions among men engaged in other vocations, and receive in exchange a just proportion of their productions. For instance, it is by this means, and this alone, that the farmers of the West are permitted to wear the clothing made in the East, and the weavers and clothing makers of the East are permitted to eat the bread raised in the West. In fact, the prosperity of every people may be measured not alone by their power to produce butTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 103 by their opportunities to distribute as well. It is, therefore, one of the first duties of government to see that nowhere on the great highways of dis- tribution, shall the people be subjected to rank discriminations or unjust exactions. This prin- ciple is the corner stone of republican government, and the bed-rock of American society. With faith in the enforcement of this principle, the people have penetrated the dark forest and the.unbroken waste, reared great cities, built homes, erected factories and developed industries. How is this principle of justice to be guaranteed to every citizen of this great nation, and every stumb- ling stone which greed and avarice has erected upon the avenues of transportation to be re- moved 'I There is but one method that will embody all the safe guards of justice, and that is for the govern- ment to become the owner and operator of all tele- graphs, telephones and railroads. Ah ! but says some one, there is an easier way and shorter road to a remedy for all these evils. Let the corporations continue to own the telegraphs, telephones and railroads, and the government con- trol them by statutory enactment. Municipal law, says a great jurist, is the rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power in a state, commanding what is right and prohibiting what is wrong. And while I hold this definition to be true, yet there is not a teacher in jurisprudence,104 THE VOICE OF LABOR. there is not a practitioner at the bar, nor a judge on the bench, who will not freely confess that to combine private interests with government functions and pub- lic agencies, jeopardizes liberty and places the ad- ministration of justice outside of the pale of statu- tory enactments. To combine corporate interests with public insti- tutions always involves the government in an irre- pressible conflict and a never-ending struggle for su- premacy, and is always a question of doubt with the people, as to whether the government controls the corporations, or the corporations control the govern- ment. Viewed in the light of history, this doubt is dispelled by a preponderance of evidence showing that corporations control the government. In solving the powers of government, we must not forget that there are impossibilities in law, and the benefits of a law depends upon the power of a gov- ernment to enforce it in spirit, without giving life to others and more dangerous evils. To-day our people are suffering from railroad ex- tortions. Let our government pass a law prohibit- ing such extortions, and, if need be, enforce it with the strong arm of the military, and who will prevent the railroad companies from retaliating with a pro- portionate reduction of the wages of their employes. Who will prevent them from wreaking their venge- ance upon the law by discharging free American laborers, and contracting in a great measure the me- chanical operation of the roads with Polish, ItalianTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 105 and Hungarian serfs ? It is folly to say we can pre- vent such an evil by prohibiting the importation of foreign serfs, for the serfs are already here in count- less numbers, and are ready to bow at the bidding of corporate greed. Let our government enact a law preventing rail- roads from discriminating against persons and lo- calities, and who shall have authority and power to prevent the railroad companies from engaging in mining, manufacturing and other industries, and put their own products on the market at such prices as to force into bankruptcy all opposition. Ah ! says one, under such circumstances could not the government resort to the Missouri law, and the laws of other states, prohibiting railroad companies from engaging in any other business than the operation of their roads? Yes, we could resort to a great many farces. How often has this power of govern- ment been tested and found too tardy to meet the demands of justice? Nearly a quarter of a cen- tury ago our law-makers framed out to opulent and arrogant corporations, the monetary prerogatives of the nation. In that law is combined private gain with the functions of government. But the govern- ment sought to control it in the interests of the peo- ple by statutory enactment, which provided among other restrictions that no national bank should charge or receive a greater rate of interest than that pre- scribed by the laws of the state in which the bank was operated, and that no national bank should re- 8106 THE VOICE OF LABOR. ceive real estate security for the loan of its notes. How is that law respected and obeyed ? As an expression of their defiance of law and the expressed will of the people, a little office adjacent to nearly every national bank in the land, is appro- priately furnished, and in these private offices you will find the cappers of the banks who loan the funds of the banks under the pretense of private ac- count, at from one to two per cent per month, and on real estate security. Here is a striking illustration of the inability of the government to control public institutions when combined with private interests. They have defied law, they have clasped their icy fetters about the throats of presidents, and now openly boast that, on a single day's notice, they can act together with such power that no act of con- gress can resist their demands. Let our government attempt to control telegraphs, telephones and railroads while they are permeated with corporate greed, and who shall be the giant to march forth upon the plain of equal and exact jus- tice, and wring out the four billion dollars of wa- tered stocks which the confederate monopolies of to- day are using, as an instrument of torture and a har- binger of slavery, that their own coffers may be fill- ed with ill-gotten gains? Legislate to control these agencies, and leave the ownership where it now is, and what power under heaven will prevent them from becoming the bulwarks of every politi- cal contest? While this remains a free govern-HON. HENRY SMITH, State Master Workman, K. of L.,WJS.THE VOICE OF LABOR. 109 ment, what law can prevent them sending a hired lobby of cunning sharpers to the council chambers of the nation, to corrupt courts and bribe legisla- tures. It is the first duty of government to obtain possession by purchase of all these agencies. Let us turn our attention for a moment, to one of the avenues of public distribution from which the government has served private ownership. Refer- ence is made to the postal service. During all the time the government has operated the mail routes, we never hear of postoffices combining to harangue the people in political contests, except the mere clamor for office. We never hear of a postoffice lobby in Washington. We never hear of the post- offices charging more for a " short haul" than for a "long haul." We never hear of the postoffices wa- tering stocks. We never hear of them discriminat- ing against localities. We never hear of them send- ing abroad for the paupers of the old world to take the place of free labor. We never hear of them spending millions of dollars per year, to subsidize the press and deceive the people. And now comes the question : Is the transmission of human intelligence upon paper, any more the duty of government than the transmission of life and property ? Is human thought more sacred when inscribed up- on paper, than when upon the electric wires it flash^ es across the continent in the twinkling of an eye.110 THE VOICE OF LABOR. During all the time the government has operated the postal service you never heard of the em- ployes of that department going 011 a strike. On the other hand you never heard the people com- plain of excessive rates or extortionate charges in the transmission of the mails. But how different is the feeling and the situation, when applied to the railroads, the telegraphs and the telephones, every- thing is confusion and dissatisfaction. While the employes are striking for increased wages, the peo- ple are threatening confiscation, or a return to the old stage coach system, as a possible refuge from the grasp of monopoly. Nowhere is there a single instance where the gov eminent has succeeded in controlling a public in- stitution in the interests of the people while it em- braced private ownership. This government started out in life 011 the basis that a white man could have ownership in the flesh and blood of a black man, and all that was necessa- ry was to control it by law, but that evil corrupted legislation, and defied the will of the people, until it costs millions of lives and billions of treasury to subdue it. In 1791 our government started a bank with $10,- 000,000 capital. Four-fifths of it was private prop- erty, and it nearly choked the life out of the gov- ernment. It had to be abolished to save our free institutions. In 1816 our law makers were induced to try theTHE VOICE OF LABOR. Ill experiment again, and another bank was establish- ed with $35,000,000 capital, four-fifths of which was private property, but it darkened American freedom and became so oppressive that in 1832, Jackson had to put his foot on the neck of the mon- ster and crush the life out of it. Then that func- tion of the government was turned over to state banks, and they nearly bankrupted the nation. The national banks of to-day have become so haughty and powerful, that they can grasp the arm of the president of the United States, as they did a few years ago, and compel him to veto a bill which was passed in the interest of the people. But what has all this to do with the operation of the railroads, or the telegraph and telephones. It shows the weak- ness of the law and the power of corporations, and the dangers which threaten the liberties of the peo- ple, when private interests are combined with public institutions. Our government has gone further than the mere attempt to control a railroad. A few years ago our government formed the acquaintance of a railroad magnate and his company, and the govern- ment gave them a strip of land forty miles wide, extending from the Missouri river to the Pacific coast, then the government loaned them $16,000 on every mile of road they built. Then the govern- ment released the lands and bonds from taxation. Yet, with all this public charity, that railroad has become a robber of the people and an oppressor of the poor. Not only that, but they nearly annihilat-112 THE VOICE OF LABOR. ed the government's claim, by slipping a first mort- gage under it, and for years they have refused to pay even the interest on the loan the government gave them, and to-day more than $50,000,000 of interest remains unpaid. Their last great act of charity that came under my personal notice, was when the leading officers crossed this country in their gold mounted cars, and drank their fine wines and whisky under the dazzling ban- ners which bore the motto of "Victory." Under the present administration, we have a railroad law that the angels in Heaven cannot tell what it means, and we have five railroad lawyers to execute that law. Give us statesmen who have the honor, and the will, to spurn the flattery of these corporations, and can damn their devilish treachery without flinch- ing. For many years past it has been the custom of the people to donate large sums to aid in the con- struction of railroads. In many localities the people have taxed themselves poor for this very purpose. Millions upon millions of dollars have gone into the pockets of railroad companies from this source. But no sooner did the railroad companies receive these donations, than they rated them with their own cap- ital stock, and as soon as the roads were in running- order the people were forced to pay dividends on their own donations. It is not just that a man who donates $100 to aid in the construction of a railroadTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 113 to-day, shall be assessed to pay a dividend on that same $100 to-morrow, and when he is dead and gone, his children to be assessed on their father's charity. But what is worse, the railroads no sooner get the $100 you donate them, than they water it 100 per cent, and assess you to pay a dividend on $200, when you only donated $100. It is, therefore, clear to every investigating mind that there are scores of evils growing out of the present mode of operating the public agencies of distribution, which cannot be remedied except the people take them in their own hands. The best results the people can hope for, under any attempt to control by law the agencies of trans- portation without government ownership, is that they will be put on the same commercial basis .with mining, manufacturing, agriculture and other indus- tries. Put the telegraphs, telephones and railroads under such restrictions only, and the same tenden- ciestowards centralization from which we suffer to- day will still continue. And why? Simply because these agencies are public institutions—they are of such a character that sixty millions of people are by force of circumstances compelled to patronize them, and they are owned and controlled by the few. Thus we have every element of concentration. Give a man the exclusive ownership of the postal system, and place it on the same remunerative basis with other industries, and in less than fifty years he will own nine-tenths of the wealth of the nation,114 THE VOICE OF LA BOB. and nine-tenths of the people will be his servants and he will be their master. Private gain must not be the motive for operating a public institution. For so surely as it is, will Daniel Webster's great warning be realized, u Liberty cannot long endure in any country where the tendency of legislation is to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few."THIS VOICE OF LABOR. 115 CHAPTER VII. « OVERPRODUCTION."1 there can be no overproduction when money is plenty-scarcity of money produces strikes and riots—why money is withdrawn . from circula- tion-lincoln's warning in 1861-overproduct- ion does not starve children-interest on bonds a great vampire to the nation-bonds taxed in england and france-gen. weaver on taxation -the inter-state commerce law-report of the silver commissioners -plain facts -showing made by united states treasurer in 1887 of the nation's money-idle capital makes idle ma- chinery and the workingman suffers. The cry that " overproduction produces these hard times," is a farce. There would be no over- production of cereals, clothing or any other com- modity, if we had a sufficient amount of money in circulation. If men are on the verge of starvation —half-paid and large families to keep, how can 1 By Hon. William Baker116 THE VOICE OF LABOR. they get the money to buy a sufficient amount of clothing ? If clothing, cereals and produce are not bought for the want of money among the labor- ing class, then overproduction must follow. With wages hardly enough to support families and nothing to buy clothing, manufactures must stop, or if they run on half-time and at reduced wages, then dissatisfaction is followed by strikes and riots. If laborers get good wages they are gen- erous with the distribution of their money. Instead of mending up old garments they get new. There never was "overproduction" with plenty of money in circulation. Not more than one-third of the mon- ey in the country is in* circulation. Over five hun- dred million dollars are locked up in the United States treasury, the rest is in the banks, and in the vaults of insurance companies, to loan at usurious rates. When money is scarce, interest increases—when plenty, it decreases. As long as men can loan their money at frofti 6 to 10 per cent, they will hoard their money to loan. If a law was passed, allowing only four per cent interest, money would leave its hiding places. It would invest in realty, manufac- tures and other channels of trade, wages would go up, and the busy hum of industry would be heard throughout the republic. Nothing pays as well as money at a high rate of interest. The capitalists know this, and do all they can to cramp the money market so as to create a higherTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 117 rate of interest. If farmers borrow money at over live per cent it will eat them up, as farming as a rule will not pay over three per cent. Much is said about paying the national debt. The debt cannot be paid under the present national banking sys- tem. Let the government cease to issue any more bonds to the banks, issue none but legal tender money. Call in the National Banks' money as soon as their charters lapse, reduce by law the rate of interest to four per cent, keep the circulation up to fifty dol- lars per capita. Do this, and panics will be un- known—strikes a thing of the past, and prosperity and contentment will cease only with the Republic. Venice had one hundred dollars per capita, and for six hundred years down to the time that Napoleon crossed her Lagoon, and destroyed a republic which had kept the civilized world at bay for thirteen hundred years, she never had a failure. England with her irredeemable currency and a large per capita circulation, during her Napoleonic war of eighteen years, enjoyed a prosperity she never had before or since. Failures were unknown, the hum of industries was heard throughout the day, and the midnight sky was brightened by the glow of hot furnaces. " Each day a link is forged in the change which makes labor subservient to cap- ital." Abraham Lincoln in 1861 warned the people to watch, lest capital be put above labor. He said:118 THE VOICE OF LABOR. " I bid the laboring people beware of surrendering a power which they already possess, and which sur- rendered will surely be used to close the doors of advancement to such as they, and fix new disabilities and burdens upon them until all liberty is lost." We must be on our guard. We hear the muffled sounds of discontent. We had better heed the warn- ing voice of Lincoln, and not stand like abject slaves and tremble before the marble face of power. The laboring class are battling for their rights. "It is billions of money against millions of men." The people must settle their difficulties through the ballot, not by the bayonet, and their strikes by arbi- tration, not by riots. Unity of action is indispensa- ble to success. Let not cunning Catilines mislead you. Select those whom you can trust to defend your cause. Eare scholastic attainments and brilli- ancy of mind are not required. Good judgment, and a clear perception of right and wrong, is a better equipment for a public officer than eloquence or polished manners. No nation can prosper with our limited circulation, cornered as it is by demagogues, to raise the interest, cramp the people, and to sell their homes. We want no more such scenes as red flags in the sheriff's hands, as pitiless for humanity as the black flags of the pirates. We want no more to see chil- dren driven from theiv homes, with bony hands ex- tended heavenward, with sunken eyes, pallid cheeks, but gnawed by the pangs of hunger, piteous-THE VOICE OF LABOR. 119 ly exclaiming, 46We've got no home! Oh, God, we've got no home !" We want, with the keys of Justice, to unlock the coffers of the nation, by pay- ing the bonds now almost due, that times may ease and happy homes and comfort once more reign. We must either have an income tax, so as to com- pel the untaxed bondholders to help the poor liquid- ate the enormous taxes, or pass a law not to allow over four per cent. The capital which seeks hiding places for the purpose of contracting the currency, so as to increase the rate of interest, would then pass into the channel of trade. If those in power will not do that, then recall the bonds. W e have paid them over and over again. In a speech in 1870, delivered by Hon. Daniel Yoorhees, he said: "I think it safe to say, that up to the present time the bondholders have realized in bonds and interest, not less than $4,000,000,000. There is nothing parallel to it in the history of con- stitutional government. In what government, or land, governed by written law, will the explorer of other countries find such a wholesale plunder of the people. Where else, than in this land of professed equality, has wealth ever committed a crime against industry and liberty, of such huge proportions as towers up in our midst, and darkens the homes of our people with its cruel and unjust demands? The funding of the bonds though the interest be lessened, will not relieve labor of its oppressive taxation. The mort- gage of the bondholder on all their homes and farms120 THE VOICE OF LABOR. will still continue. Their children, and their chil- dren's children will be subject to the same undimin- ished burdens. Interest, interest, with its frightful accumulation will compel the tax payer to pay it over and -over again, and yet it will never be can- celled. The principle of funding, established an in- exhaustible mine of gold for the bondholders, and an eternity of hopeless toil for the people. On the chancery side of the court, there is always relief to be found against an extortionate transaction. This is a well known principle between individuals. It will hold good also in behalf of a whole people. They have been imposed upon, and defrauded in the cre- ation of the debt, and they may justly and without breach of contract appeal to the greater equity of the case. Do we live in the days of the Medes and Persians, when it was an offense punishable with death to repeal a law once enacted?" In this land of boasted freedom, the moneyed pow- er imposes laws upon the working class more unjust, than those of France or England. Heath says: "In both England and France, the government obliga- tions are taxed pro rata with all other investments, and have to bear their proportions of the public bur- dens, while in America they are exempt from all taxation, thus throwing their entire burden upon those who reap no profit from them." Is it not a disgrace that such a law is not repealed? Is it any wonder that the people are oppressed ? Statistics show that our mortgages aggregate $800,000,000,J. R. SOVEREIGN,THE VOICE OF LABOR. 123 that the average interest is 8 per cent, which per annum amounts to over six hundred million dol- lars. General Weaver says "that we are in debt twenty billions of dollars, out of say, six billions of dollars of wealth, that the lowest average tax is 6-| per cent, and that on twenty billions of dollars,it is one billion three hundred thousands of dollars of simple interest, say nothing of compound interest, that the people are paying on national, state, corporate, municipal and private indebtedness, that the annual net in- crease of wealth of this nation is scarcely 3 per cent, but call it three, and that on sixteen billions of dol- lars is one billion, eight hundred thousand dollars, and you pay in usury alone, simple interest, one billion, three hundred thousand dollars of it to money loaners, then add interest, then extortionate charges of railroads, then add the enormous rentals paid by the laboring poor, and you find you haven't a farthing left to add to the wealth of this country as a whole." There is another power we need to fear besides the banks and bonds, a power that by the stroke of the pen can increase or decrease the price on every thing we eat or wear. It is the railroads with their power of wealth. To hush the general cry on such abuse which railroads have imposed, congress passed an inter-state commerce law that would have raked the brains of Coke, Blackstone, Kent, Grotius, Vat- tel or even Mucins Scaevola, the greatest lawyer124: THE VOICE OF LABOR. then in Kome, whose pupil was the great Cicero, who once did wield the palm of eloquence, to decipher it. The law says: 4 'Shall not charge more for a short haul than a long haul under substantially similar circumstances and conditions over the same line run- ning in the same direction." If a poor man is in- jured, what chance has he in the upper courts, he must then perchance to five commissioners appeal, who in a Trojan horse perchance will sit, with paid retainers to favor my lords, the kings of railroad fame. In 1874 the United States senate committee on transportation routes said: In the matter of tax- ation there are four men representing the four great trunk lines between Chicago and New York, who ex- ercise power which the congress of the United States would not venture to exert. An additional charge of 5 per cent per bushel on the transportation of cereals, would have been equivalent to a tax of forty- five millions of dollars on the crop of 1873; that the day is not far distant, if it has not already arrived, when it will be the duty of the statesmen to inquire whether there is less danger in leaving the proper and industrial interests of the people thus wholly at the mercy of a few men who recognize no respon- sibility but to their stockholders, and no principle of action, but personal and corporate aggrandize- ment, than in adding somewhat to the power and patronage of a government directly responsible to the people and entirely under their control." General Weaver says, "That Iowa and in IllinoisTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 125 farmers are yearly losing money that the enormous rates of transportation has made them poor, and that the railroads make out of every dollar of their gross earnings, thirty-six cents out of every dollar, which represents actual profit." Where is there a farmer who makes annually over four per cent? The na- tional banks themselves are dangerous. They hold the purse that means the sword. They tell the gov- ernment that if they dare to make laws against their rights, they will make such a combination that panics will ensue. No more right have they to thus hold the purse and sword, than brigadier generals the right to make war or peace. Besides that, these railroad kings have 1,800,000 employes under their command, six times more than Napoleon had, when he disposed of crowns and kingdoms, and made all Europe tremble. Forty times more than Alexander, or Caesar, or Pompey commanded. This shows the wealth which they possess. People, and those who ought to know better, re- peatedly exclaim, "Oh! there is as much money in the country as ever." If they would take the trouble to examine Secretary Bristow's statement under the head of Destruction Account, they would be shocked at the amount of money destroyed. General Logan in 1874, said in congress, that the circulating medium had been diminished $1,018,167,784. To show the terrible effect the contraction of the currency has had, take the report of the silver commission of the second session of the 44th congress, which commis-126 THE VOICE OF LABOR. sion consisted of Messrs. John P. Jones, Lewis Y. Bogy and Geo. M. S. Boutwell, of the senate; Ran- dall L. Gibson, Geo.Williard and Richard Bland, of the house of representatives; Hon. W. Groesbeek, of Ohio; Prof. Francis Bo wen, of Massachusetts; and Geo. M. Weston, of Maine. They said: 4'■The loss which this country sustains by the 4 'shrinking of money is awful. The depression in pro- ductive industries will become more deathly, and "the number of idle laborers will indefinitely in- crease. The loss which this country sustains by "the enforced idleness of three millions of persons, "who although idle, must still, in some scanty way, "be supplied with food, clothing, and shelter, is in "aggregate, very great. If it be estimated at one "dollar a day, for each laborer it would amount in "two years to a sum sufficient to discharge the na- tional debt. It would pay the interest at 5 per "cent per annum on eighteen thousand millions of "dollars. It would be a sum more than sufficient to "supply anew each year, the circulating medium of "the country. It would amount in four years to a "greater sum than the world's entire gold produc- ; 'tion, in the last fifty prolific years. It would ag- gregate in ten years far greater than the value of "the world's entire product of both gold and sil- ver, for tlie last hundred years. It would amount "in four years, to a sum more than sufficient to du- plicate, and stock every mile of railroad now in ''the United States. No more fatal blow, therefore,THE VOICE OF LABOR. 127 "could be directed against the economical machinery "of civilized life, than one against labor, and that "blow can most effectually be delivered through a "policy that strikes down prices. If all debts in "this country had been doubled by an act of legisla- ture, it would have been a far less calamity to the "debtor and to the country than the increase of their ' 'real burden already caused by a contraction in the "volume of money. Indeed this country could bet- "ter afford,in an economical view to support one mil- lion of soldiers in the field, than to support its "present army of three millions, that fallen prices "have conscripted into the ranks of non-producers. "Without money, civilization could not have a be- "ginning with a diminished supply, it must languish "and unless relieved finally perish. It is a volume "of money keeping even pace with advancing pop- ulation and commerce, and in the resulting steadi- ness of prices, that the wholesome nutriment of a "healthy vitality is found. The highest moral, intel- lectual, and material development of nations is "promoted by the use of money unchanging in its 4'value." One can see from the above report what money does and the power it has. In 1865 we paid the government in taxes three hundred and thirty-two million dollars. Last year three hundred and thir- ty-six million. What means these figures? We are told the debt is being quickly paid and four-128 THE VOICE OF LABOR. teen million dollars more of taxes than in 1865. We have over five hundred million dollars in our national vaults, and manufactures stopped, and mon- ey scarce, and working men crying for bread. Still it flows in, three hundred and thirty thous- and dollars a day, ten million dollars in one month, and in one year, at least, one hundred and twenty million dollars more than used for expenditures and appropriations. Without stand the grinning Shylocks, like the one at Rialto, demanding his pound of flesh, amid this cry of hunger and of woe. Look in the vaults with a prophetic eye and see what they contain. The Iowa Tribune says, " On the 18th of July, 1887, the statement of the United States treasury showed gold, silver, United States notes and other funds in the treasury, as follows: Gold coin and bullion.............$178,719,037 Silver dollars and bullion.......... 215,716,600 Trade dollars redeemed............ 7,025,852 Fractional silver coin............. 26,808,959 United States notes............... 28,618,442 National bank notes.............. 203,993 National bank notes in process of re- demption ................. 2,363,899 Deposits with national bank depos- itories .................... 28,295,798 Total, v........$577,752,580the voice of labor. 129 Certificates Outstanding : Gold ... Silver .. Currency $ 96,7.64,067 143,278,781 8,750, 000 Total.. . Balance available cash $248,792,848 $328,959,632 " That sum enables the Secretary to redeem at once the $250,000,000 of four and one-half bonds now outstanding, and $50,000,000 of the fours. The four and lialfs have four years to run, and the an- nual interest is $11,250,000, to redeem them would save the people $45,000,000. The interest on $50,- 000,000 fours is $2,000,000 a year, and they run twenty years, so the saving on them would be $40- 000,000. These two items foot up $85,000,000, which Secretary Fairchild can save the people of the coun- try, besides relieving the pressure in money mat- ters, by putting $300,000,000 out of the vaults of the treasury into circulation. The law authorizes this act." Any one can readily see what this country would save by the redemption of the bonds. It would not only lessen taxes, increase trade, but make times good. Idle capital is like idle machinery. When idle, neither produce anything. We not only lose the interest of the money in the vaults, but what it would produce if put into circulation, besides mak-130 THE VOICE OF LABOB. ing homes once more bright and happy, seeing every arm one€ more employed, and all the avenues of trade exulting with the shouts and peans of victor- ious labor.the voice of labob. 131 CHAPTER VIII. HARD TIMES. the knights of labor at richmond-a committee on hard times-their report--the intricacies of distribution of wealth-an analysis of the subject—senator sherman^ ideas in 1869—john a. logan's theory—the united states treasurer in 1820-john stuart mill, the great english economist-sir archibald wilson-secretary m'culloch -boutwell-the burning of $100,- 000,000-peter cooper on industrial depression -the fluctuation of finances the cause of hard times-a steady standard a firm foundation. At the general assembly of the Knights of Labor held at Richmond, Va., October, 1886, a commit- tee was appointed to investigate and report upon the question of hard times. The committee was composed of able men, chosen from live states, viz.: John Davis, Kansas; Richard F. Trevelick, Mich.; J. R. Sovereign, Iowa; John H. Conner, La. ; and James Collins, Pa.; and their report contains inter- esting matter upon the financial and industrial de-132 THE VOICE OF LABOR. pression which the workingmen find is laid heavily upon them. The report is a succinct commentary on the general situation, and may be justly termed a chapter of practical political economy. They re- ported as follows: In examining our subject, we discover that the more civilized nations of the earth, including the people of the United States, find themselves face to face with the problem of their existence and contin- ued progress. The problem of savagery is plain and simple. It comprehends physical force and personal prowess only. It means "to the vicious belong the spoils," and death or slavery, to the vanquished. The prob- lem of civilization is more complex, yet the state- ment of it is short. The great Victor Hugo, of France, has stated the problem of civilization in these words: "The creation of wealth and the dis- tribution of wealth." The people of the United States, England and other civilized nations, create wealth magnificently, but they distribute it oadly. So perfect and so rapid is the creation of wealth in recent times, that the first half of the problem of civilization may be considered solved. The last half of the problem is still before us, as much unsolved as in the crudest conditions of savagery. Among the more civilized nations, in- cluding the people of the United States, we find whole classes of the creators of wealth suffering in a state of the most abject poverty and want, whileTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 133 other classes that are not creators of wealth at all have accumulated such enormous amounts of the earnings of labor, that their presence in society has become absolutely dangerous to the liberties of the people. What, then, are the intricacies and difficulties connected with the distribution of created wealth in civilized society? Let us analyze the subject. The distribution of created wealth consists of two parts: The change of place of commodities, and the change of title to commodities. What are the agents and implements in the performance of these functions and transactions? For the change of place of com- modities we use wagons, boats and cars; for sim- plicity, let us say, we use wheels. For the change of title, we use dolliars. Now suppose that in the transportation of com- modities from producer to consumer, there are wheels enough in existence and in motion; the trans- portation goes on smoothly and normally. In the midst of this felicitous and prosperous condition of things, let some unseen power withdraw or suppress one-half, or one-fourth of the wheels. The result is disastrous in the extreme. Producers cannot deliver their commodities, and suffer in consequence; con, sumers cannot receive the commodities, that they desire, nor the necessities that must sustain their lives. Society is afflicted with congestion and paraly- sis in all its parts; and, if the unseen interference con- tinues, confusion and suffering must continue.IU THE VOICE OF LABOK. What is the remedy? Plainly this: Restore the wheels and, for the future, add wheels as the exi- gencies of transportation shall require. On the matter of the change of title to the com- modities, suppose that a requisite number of dollars are in existence and floating, and that the buying and selling of commodities is proceeding normally and smoothly—that the requisite change of title to com- modities is practicable, in accordance with the neces- sities of society. Now suppose that some unseen power shall withdraw one-half, or one-fourth of the dollars, what is the result. The same as that seen when part of the wheels were withdrawn. There can be 110 general change of title to commodities, except upon the most disadvantageous terms. There must be a general over-loading of the remaining dollars which is recognized as a general reduction, or fall of prices. Falling prices means general de- pression of trade and industry; and loss and distress among all classes engaged in changing title to com- modities are the inevitable results. As titles to articl es cannot be safely exchanged, change of title musl cease, or proceed under very adverse circumstances, and so imperfectly that society must suffer the most severe distress. So insidious and so deceptive are the processes and results of the withdrawal of the money of so- ciety, that your committee beg leave to introduce authorities on this important part of the subject. First, we refer to the language of the United StatesHON. WILLIAM BAKER-THE VOICE OF LABOR. 137 monetary report of 1877, respecting the depression of industry then existing, as follows: The true and only cause of the stagnation in in- dustry and commerce now everywhere felt, is the fact now everywhere existing of falling prices caused by a shrinking volume of money. This is the great cause. All others are collateral, cumulative, or really the effect of that cause. Speaking of the progressive contraction of the currency then going on, Senator John Sherman, in 1869, said: The contraction of the currency is a far more dis- tressing thing than senators suppose. Our own and other nations have gone through that process be- fore. It is not possible to take that voyage without the sorest distress; to every person except a capital- ist out of debt, a salaried officer, or an annuitant, it is a period of loss, danger, lassitude of trade, fall of wages, suspension of enterprise, bankruptcy and disaster. To attempt this, is to impose upon our people, by arresting them in the midst of their law- ful business, and applying a new standard of value to their property, without any reduction of their debts or giving them any opportunity to compound with their creditors, or to distribute their losses, and would be an act of folly without an example of evil in modern times. Speaking of the long continued and disastrous depression existing in 1874, Senator John A. Logan said : "It is a money famine and nothing else." In his great speech of March 17, 1874, Senator 10138 THIS VOICE) OF LABOK. Logan quoted approvingly from Hon. Isaac Bu- chanan, of Ontario, Canada, as follows: It is seen that the question of money, and the ques- tion of labor, are one and the same question, the so- lution of one being the solution of the other; plenti- ful, and therefore cheap money, being a convertible term for plentiful and well paid employment. Wm. H. Crawford, secretary of the United States treasury, in 1820, said: "All intelligent writers on currency agree thatwhenitis decreasing in amount, poverty and misery must prevail." John Stuart Mill, a great English economist, states: If the whole money in circulation was doubled, prices would double. If it was increased one-fourth, prices would increase one-fourth. Kicardo, of England, says: That commodities would rise and fall in price ii\ proportion to the diminution of money, I assume as a fact that is incontrovertible; that such would be the case, the most celebrated writers are agreed. Your committee have been absolutely over- whelmed and embarrassed by the volume of testis mony accessible, showing that, as tersely stated by President Grant, "Prices keep pace with the volume of money;" and, with this mass of available material, we have selected only the best known American and English authors. We call special attention to the following addition-THE VOICE OF LABOR. 139 ai testimony from the report of the United States monetary commission, 1877: Primarily, then, prices must have been entirely controlled by the volume of money unaffected by credit. There can never occur a universal fall in prices, and a general withdrawal of credits, without a preceding decrease in the volume of money. As the volume of money shrinks prices fall. When money is decreasing in volume prices have no bot- tom except a receding one, and they are inexorably ruled by the volume of money. In the whole his- tory of the world, every great and general fall in prices, have been preceded by a decrease in the vol- ume of money. At the Christian era the metalic money of the Roman empire amounted to $1,800,- 000,000. At the end of the fifteenth century it had shrunk to $200,000,000. During this period a most extraordinary and baleful change took place in the condition of the world. Population dwindled, and commerce, arts, wealth and freedom all disap- peared. The people were reduced by poverty to the most degraded condition of serfdom and misery. The disintegration of society was al- most complete. The conditions of life was so hard that individual selfishness was the only instinct con- sistent with self-preservation. All public spirit, all generous emotions, all noble aspirations of men shriveled and disappeared as the volume of money shrunk and prices fell. That the Dark Ages were caused by decreasing money and falling prices, and that the recovery therefrom, and the comparative prosperity which followed the discovery of America were due to the increasing supply of the precious metals, and rising prices will not seem surprising, or unreasonable, when the noble functions of money140 THE VOICE OF LABOR. are considered. Money is the great instrument of association, the very fibre of social organization, the vitalizing force of industry, and as essential to its existence as oxygen is to animal life. Without money civilization could not have had a beginning —with a diminishing supply it must languish, and, unless relieved, finally perish. Sir Archibald Allison, the great English historian, corroborates the foregoing testimony to the fullest extent, and says: The two great events in the history of mankind have been brought about by a successive contraction and expansion of the circulating medium of society. The fall of the Roman empire, so long ascribed in ignorance to slavery, to heathenism and to moral corruption, was, in reality, brought about by a de- cline in the silver «zid gold mines of Spain and Greece. And as if Providence intended to reveal in the clearest manner possible the influence of this mighty agent in human affairs, the restoration of mankind from the ruin this cause had produced was owing to the directly opposite set of agencies being put in operation. Columbus led the way in the career of renovation; when he spread his sails to cross the Atlantic he bore mankind and its fortunes in his bark. The annual supply of the precious metals—of money—for the use of the globe was trebled; before a century had passed the price of every species of produce was quadrupled. The weight of debt and taxation insensibly wore off under the influence of that prodigious increase; in the renovation of industry society was changed, the weight of feudalism cast oft' and the rights of man established.THE VOICE OF LABOR. 141 No earthly force can withstand the enginery of the financial autocrats. Thomas H. Benton said: "All property is at their mercy." In view o»f the transcendent importance of the quantity of money afloat, we now proceed to inquire as to the usual manner and processes of reduc- ing its volume. Prior to 1861, the usual and very successful plan for suppressing the currency of the country was by a run 011 the banks. This plan not only destroyed the money in the pockets of the peo- ple, but, by the sudden and complete contraction of the currency, it almost entirely destroyed the « prices of all property. After 1865 the old plan of contraction was not practicable; but, in 1866 a law of congress was pass- ed for the material reduction of the volume of cur- rency, and Secretary McCulloch advised that: "The process of contracting the government notes should go on as rapidly as possible without producing a panic." The same secretary reported, in December, 1866, that he had during the year, "counted and retired $211,000,000." In 1872, Secretary Boutwell reported that he had cancelled, " by burning," $100,000,000. The continued contraction of the currency produced the disastrous depression of 1873, which con- tinued until the remedial measures of 1878 were passed. One of these remedial measures forbade the further retirement of United States notes; the other provided for the coinage of silver, and the is-142 THE VOICE OF LABOR. suing of silver certificates. They added to the mon- ey facilities of the country and gradually, and par- tially, relieved the financial and industrial depres- sion. ? Since 1878 suppression of currency, by burning, has not been lawful or practicable, hence a third plan has been adopted; the policy of hoarding, or locking up, the money of the country in the treasury, and, by various excuses and devices, the amount of available assets in the public treasury is unprece- dented. From 1865 to 1882, a period of eighteen years, the average available assets in the treasury was $160,000,000. In 1882 the treasury hoard be- gan to permanently increase, and has since contin- ued to do so. The amount now reported monthly by the United States treasurer has, for several months, ranged above $550,000,000. This material contraction of the currency by lock- ing up, has afflicted the country with falling prices, compelling all business men and investors to hoard in self-defense. Thus we see piled up in the great money centers unusual amounts of money, belong- ing to individuals, waiting a change from the continually receding prices of the products of labor and the commodities of commerce. And, as in all cases of suppression of the money, and consequent falling prices, we hear on all hands the moans and cries of distress, and the earthquake rumblings of threatening revolution and anarchy. Such scenesTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 143 and dangers were witnessed under similar circum- stances during the years 1873 to 1877. The great Peter Cooper stated, that during his long business life, he had witnessed ten disastrous industrial depressions, always from the same cause; always and uniformly from a destruction, or suppres- sion, of the money of the country. And British his- tory informs us that a law for the suppression of the currency of that country was passed in 1820. At that time the country was prosperous and the British people were employed and contented. Un- der the influence of the Peel contraction bill, four- fifths of all land-holders of England, through bank- ruptcy and forced sales, lost their lands. The people were without employment, and were suffering every- where for the commonest necessaries of life. The suffering country was relieved by five money bills in- troduced in a single night by Lord Castlereagh, and passed under a suspension of the rules as matters of urgent necessity. Every bill was designed to increase money facilities. The relief was sudden and effective. Your committee now submit, that the primal and general cause of financial and industrial depression, is a suppression of the means of changing titles to the products of labor, and that this blocking of the means of distribution should be remedied by a res- toration of the currency of the country. We agree in this report, that the general government should resume its exclusive sovereign right to coin and issue144 THE VOICE OF LABOR. the money of the country, and that all money so issued, whether metal or paper^ should be receiva- ble by the government for all dues, and a legal ten- der for all debts and taxes. That the money so is- sued shall be gradually increased to the volume per capita that existed in 18f>5, before the law for its suppression was passed; that it be floated from the treasury in payment of the interest-bearing debt, and other liabilities of the government, giving bond holders their option of coin, or paper, in such pay- ments. And we further report, that such volume per cap- ita should be substantially maintained forever here- after, by the issue of new coin, or treasury notes, in accordance with the increase of population; said money to be circulated through the usual disburse- ments of the government. To shield from the evils of falling prices through the hoarding of money, or other causes, your committee suggest the creation of a Bureau of Prices. Said Bureau should have a central head at the seat of the general government, with branch offices in the principal commercial cit- ies of the country. It should be the business of the branch offices, to observe and note the daily prices in their respective cities, of all the important products of labor that are the commodities of commerce. Each branch office should make a full monthly report to the head office iv Washington, where the average price of each com- modity, and of the aggregate commodities, must beTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 145 arranged and published monthly. Then if these monthly reports show an average monthly fall in the sea level of general prices, the per capita addi- tions to the currency must be increased. But, if three consecutive monthly reports show a rise in the gen- eral sea level of prices, then the per capita additions to the currency should be smaller. It is the opinion of your committee that the vol- ume of the money should be maintained as nearly as possible unfluctuating, and that the general aver- age, or sea level or prices, should be maintained as nearly as possible the same. In discussing the general and bottom cause of financial and industrial depression, your committee does not forget that there are many collateral and cumulative causes. We recognize the grievances that continually arise between the money earners and their employers, but we know that the interests of both parties are best served by steady prices, and an unfluctuating money market. "We know that strikes and lockouts occur oftenest, and are most difficult of management, when the volume of currency is shrinking and prices are falling. We know that individuals and syndicates may lock up money, and bringdown prices, as well as the United States treasurer; but our Bureau of Prices will correct that. We know that there is still left for discussion the land, labor and transportation questions, in a hun- dred varying forms; yet we believe that the asperi- ties and afflictions on the body of civilized society,146 THE VOICE OF LABOR. may be smoothed down and healed with greater ease, and certainty if the circulating medium of society is normal. We believe that our Bureau of Prices, in its monthly reports, will reveal the fact and local- ity of corners in the products of industry, and may lead to the discovery, exposure and punishment of the criminals. We know that the gold corner of Black Friday, 1873, became a possible and accom- plished fact, after a period of seven years of sup- pression of money and falling prices. We do not believe that an unfluctuating system of finance will cure all the evils of land monopoly, but it is a historic fact that every money panic has caused thousands of the homes of the people to pass into the hands of the money lords at merely nominal prices, through sheriff's sales and foreclosures of mortgages. We do not believe that the adjustment of the money question will heal all the differences between capital and labor, but it may be safely stated, that ninety per cent of the strikes and troubles in this line have occurred during a period of falling prices. At such times the capitalist has the advantage in these fights, while, on a steady, or rising market, the employes usually gain easy victories. We do not, either as a committee or as individ- uals, claim that all the ills of society can be cured through the manipulations of finance. We do be- lieve that all reforms, and all adjustment of troubles, may be easily accomplished if we have at all timesTHE VOICE OF LABOK. 147 steady, unfluctuating financial ground to stand upon. In our opinion, he would be a very foolish man who, designing to build an enduring edifice of masonry, should select a volcanic region where the earthquakes beneath his feet would continually change the level of his foundations. We think he would be a very unwise man who, when navigating the broad ocean, should choose as his guiding star a fluctuating and moving planet, in- stead of the polar star of fixed certainty. So, in the construction of an enduring civilized society, that is expected to live through the ages, dispensing justice and protecting the liberties of all its citizens, the system should be erected on a steady and unfluctu- ating foundation, and its founders should be guided by the fixed and unchanging principles of justice. Such a system cannot be established on the shifting and treacherous sands of a fluctuating medium of exchange, but must stand on solid ground, where all citizens may meet on equal terms for the adjustment of their grievances, and the enjoyment of citizen- ship.148 THE VOICE OF LABOK. CHAPTER IX. HARD TIMES—Continued. the different classes of society-money earners and money users - the predatory stratum- laws for the contraction of money volume- 7 years of shrinkage in the united states-the practical questions of to-day, land, labor, fi- nance and transportation - the decision of judge gresham in the wabash railroad case- the knights of labor an order of peace and education. In connection with the report of the committee on Financial and Industrial depression contained in the previous chapter, Mr. John Davis, the chairman, made the following illustrative remarks, which may be properly considered with the report. He said, for the convenience of discussion, civi- lized . society in the United States may be divided into four classes: Two useful classes, devoted hon- estly and earnestly to the creation and distribution of wealth; and two predatory or vicious classes, ad- ding to the burdens and misfortunes of society,A. MINEIi's cottage.THE VOICE OF LABOR. 151 hindering the creation of wealth, blocking its distri- bution, and, in a thousand ways, making themselves a clog and a menace to civilized communities. The useful classes embrace the men who labor and earn money on the farms, in the mines and in the factories. Also the men of business who have money or borrow it, and employ men in all the de- partments of industry and commerce. The two use- ful classes of society embrace all the men and wom- en engaged in the creation and distribution of wealth, in all the existing forms of labor and legiti- mate business. They may be defined as <4 The mon- ey earners" and "The money users." One of the predatory classes of society under- mines, steals and debauches from the bottom, and the other attacks from the top, endangering the very existence of free institutions. The substratum class embraces the indolent and vicious who decline to labor for a livelihood, living and dying as parasites and burdens on society. They are usually without visible means of support, and spend much of their time in the hands of the police and peace officers of society. They are the thorough- ly discouraged wrecks of humanity, destitute of cour- age or hope; the debauched offal of societary mis- fortunes. During periods of industrial prosperity this substratum of vicious indolence is not large in America. Its numerical volume is reduced to a minimum, and ultimately, with continued industri- al prosperity, it would cease to be of observable152 THE VOICE OF LABOR. importance. But during periods df industrial de- pression, this substratum class grows rapidly in vol- ume, becoming very burdensome, and sometimes absolutely dangerous to the peace of large commun- ities. * * The upper society embraces men who live not by earning money, nor by legitimately using mon- ey, but by the usury of money, and by gambling and speculating on the necessities and misfortunes of society. Since they thus live and fatten, it is to their selfish interests that society shall have as many and as great necessities and misfortunes as possible. Hence they are devoted, body and soul, to the bus- iness, not of creating and distributing wealth, but to creating societary necessities and misfortunes. They desire high and usurious rates on their loans to men, to states and to the nation. Money being dear in proportion to the limited supply, they favor and procure scarce and dear money through legislative action for its contraction and suppression. The laws for the contraction of money are always passed in the interests of these usurers and specula- tors. Scarce money makes borrowing compulsory and usury high. It reduces the price of all prop- erty and makes the payment of money obligations difficult or impossible. Then when foreclosures and sheriff's sales occur, the usurers become the owners of landed estates and the creations of labor at nom- inal rates. Scarce money and falling prices offer unusual opportunities to stock gambling and the mo-THE VOICE OF LABOR. 153 nopoly of the necessities of life, and of everything that money can purchase. During five years of shrinking money in England, four-fifths of freeholders of England lost their homes, and those independent English farmers became the tenants of the money vultures of the country. Dur- ing a period of seven years of shrinking money in this country, from 1866 to 1873, the people of the United States passed from a state of abounding prosperity to a condition of deplorable bankruptcy. In 1866 they were virtually out of debt; in 1873 the red flag of the auctioneer floated on every street in all the cities; farmers gave up their homes to the holders of the mortgages, and invaded the western wilderness to begin life anew. Men of enterprise who had been using money in the creation and distribution of wealth became bankrupt, and their former employes became idle, discouraged and vicious, swelling the substratum class to dangerous proportions, tramping everywhere for a living, as dangerous marauders on society. These deplorable conditions of society are period- ically produced at the bidding of the usury classes who are interested in scarce and dear money, and who prey on the necessities and misfortunes of civi- lized society. What are the remedies? There are two. One is legitimate, safe and effective. The other, illegiti- mate, unsafe and ineffective. The legitimate and safe plan is public enlightenment on financial and154 THE VOICE OF LABOR. industrial subjects as taught by the Knights of La- bor, and to be consummated through the ballot box and wise legislation. The illegitimate and unsafe course is that taught and practised by the advocates of violence for legislative evils, and consummated in the flames of burning cities and the general de- struction of property and human life. In fact they are anarchists, through their persistent violations of the very principles of all just government. Thoy not only engage in anarchy, in their high sphere, corrupting the sources of law and justice; but are logically and certainly the parents and producers of the less harmful anarchy found in the vicious substratum of society. Paid exorbitant rates for building railroads and telegraphs, in bonds, lands and money, they still hold them as their own property, and tax the pub- lic to whom the lines rightfully belong, "all the traffic will bear." The remedies for these evils are not the tearing up of railroads, the burning of cities9 or the destroying of property. But public enlight- enment on the practical questions of the day—on the subjects of land, labor, finance and transportation. Public enlightenment will beget public action. It will procui e the repeal of class laws and the prompt arrest, trial and punishment of great crim- inals as well as small ones. The use of dynamite in Chicago was the violonce of thoughtless anarchy. The enlightened vote for Henry George in New Yorb? and the just and patriotic verdict of JudgeTHE VOICE OF LABOR, 155 Gresham in the Wabash railroad case, have changed the tone and course of a thousand newspapers, and have almost revolutionized the sentiment of the en- tire country. The decision of Judge Gresham act- ually wrung from Jay Gould, our great American anarchist, a real shriek of pain! These results of enlightened and patriotic action demonstrate and illustrate the practical superiority of the ballot as compared with physical violence. The dew and the sunshine are creators of wealth, while the blind cyclones only destroy. Enlightened labor will al- ways accomplish happy results by the use of peace- ful, lawful and civilized methods; while the blind, violent methods of savagery can only end in chaos from which spring individual and class usurpations of power and public oppression. It was the object of the committee at Richmond to point out the central and main cause of industrial depression and public distress. It is our object now to point out and classify the principal agencies at work in civilized communities, for both good and evil, and to further illustrate the subject. From what is here stated it will be seen that there should be no fight between employing capital and labor—between the money earners and the money users; yet such fights are common from the fact that suffering and uninformed men usually strike those nearest them; or because employing capital finds itself amid falling prices with no profits on the pro- ducts of labor; or because employing capital, not156 the voice: of labor. satisfied with legitimate profits, enters the field of speculation and gambling on the products of labor. These questions must be solved, understood and peacefully settled. Herein is the mission of the order of the Knights of Labor. It is an order of peace and education. In all mention of capital we should bear in mind the important distinction between employing capital and speculative or gambling capital—between the class of so-called "capitalists," and the capital- using, wealth-creating business men. And in our mention of labor and laboring men we must remem- ber the important distinction between sober and in- dustrious wage-earners, and the idle, vicious class of parasites who avoid labor as much as possible. These distinctions between the useful and the pred- atory classes will materially aid us in understanding each other.the voice of labor. 157 CHAPTEE X. WAGES. wages a subject of vast importance-great na- tions are now dealing with it-the economics of wages - industrial conditions incessantly change-a table of statistics—the progress of wages'-economy does not demand low wages-- what high wages will do—hon. william walsh on wages —. increase of capital demands in- crease of labor-to protect labor a sacred du- ty-dr. parker on regulation of wages--co-op- eration the ultimatum of productive industry. The question of wages, as one of the phases of the labor movement, is of vast importance to the workingman. All who have investigated the sub- ject are irresistibly driven to the conclusion that in- dications point to a contest in every civilized na- tion. We read daily reports of the proceedings of the English parliament upon her land system and the struggles of her Irish tenantry; sensational accounts of Russian nihilism startle the world; Austria and158 THE VOICE OF LABOR. Germany are kept in a continual state of fear lest the death of Bismarck will leave them helpless; and everywhere there are unmistakable signs that an un- dercurrent is agitating the masses. This agitation assumes various phases in different localities. At one place it is a difficulty between mill-owners and their operatives; in another it lies between the rich and the poverty stricken; again, it is between land holders and peasants, and between privileged classes and the proletariat. Wages, or the compensation for work performed, is that proportion of the value of any product to which each contributor to that product is entitled. This proportion may be either nominal or real. Nominal wages is the amount of money paid for a certain amount of work done, and real wages refers to the quantity of the commodities which the money received for the work will purchase. The two great forces which are engaged in the production of the substances which comprise food, fuel, shelter, or the materials which may be converted into capital, are labor and capital. Land is worthless unless labor and capital render it valuable. It is by the co-operation of these two forces that an annual pro- duct is brought into existence, wherefrom wages may be obtained. A careful review of the economic development of the United States during the last fifty years, leads to the conclusion that the workingman has secured results for a given amount of labor which haveTHE VOICE OF LABOB. 159 gradually increased. The industrial conditions have been in a perpetual movement, and this move- ment has been controlled by artificial encourage- ment and restrictions. It is, therefore, difficult to trace the economic progress with exactness, and al- most impossible to accurately determine the situa- tion at any given time. In the tenth annual report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1879, will be found a comparison between the wages of 1860 and those of 1878. The returns from 63,515 workingmen tended to show that the weekly wages were twenty- four and four-tenths per cent higher in 1878 than they were in 1860. A comparison made by Mr. Carlisle shows that between 1850 and 1860 wages advanced seventeen per cent, in gold, and only four per cent in purchasing power, but in the next ten years wages declined ten per cent in purchasing power. In the next decade they fell ten per cent, but increased eighteen per cent in purchasing power. By taking the average annual wages in cotton, woolen and iron industries in each census year, and the cost of living, the following comparison table was obtained: Year. Currency. Gold. Purchasing power. 1850 . $244.83 $244.83 $244.83 1860 1870 1880 287.00 287.00 255.32 358.12 306.55 230.83 277.00 277.00 272.91 Similar estimates from labor statistics of other160 THE VOICE OF LABOR. states show a like increase in the rate of wages, despite the gradual centralization of capital. It is not the amount of money received for wages that determines whether labor is cheap or dear, but the rate is fixed by the amount of valuable product secured by the money paid. An employer may pay two dollars for one man's work, and one dollar and a half for that of another, but the higher priced may be the cheaper. The two dollar man may be able to do twice the amount of work as the one who is paid one dollar and a half. Low wages are often the cause of poor labor, and it is from this point of view that capitalists may see that an apparent sacrifice may result in their ultimate advantage. Economy does not demand the lowest priced labor, but the labor which produces the most at the least expense is always the most profitable. It is certainly clear that the employer who engages the man who is vigorous, intelligent and in best physical and mental condition, will profit more by high wages paid, than for low wages paid to a miserable, ignor- ant and half-starved animal. E. P. Smith, in his Political Economy, says: "Looking upon a human laborer, then, as we would upon a steam engine, we see that the amount of force which he is capable of creating depends upon the amount of food supplied to him; a part of it an- swering the purpose of the coal which gives heat, another answering to the water which is converted into steam and generates motion. A sheet ironTHE VOICE OF LABOK. 161 jacket put around the boiler prevents the waste of heat in one case, just as a woolen jacket about the body of the laborer does in the other. But food, clothing and shelter, are supplied to the human machine in the shape of wages. To stint them, and to keep the laborer down to the lowest point that will induce him to live, without deterring him from propagation, is precisely the same kind of economy which would keep the steam engines of a nation at half their working power to save wood, water and sheet iron. The rate of wages which such con- siderations would demand has been attained in very few regions of the world. Suppose it anywhere to have been reached: the laborer is only brought up to the condition of an ox." At a Knights of Labor celebration in 1887, Hon. William Walsh, among other remarks, said: "Wages arise where one is paid for his labor or services to another. Profit arises where one puts his capital at risk in production of some beneficial kind, and what has been gained after paying wages, rent, interest and other expenses, is profit. "Labor is to some extent capital, because it re- quires a good deal of capital to bring an infant to manhood and educate him for the occupation he is to follow. It cannot justly be treated as a mere commodity. The workman cannot be separated from humanity, and the rights and duties that en- viron him as a man and a citizen, and I regard all who labor with hand or brain as workmen. All162 THE VOICE OF LABOR. who think, plan, direct, record, invent, who con- tribute to whatever sustains, enlightens, graces, hu- man life, are workmen. Every increase of capital creates an increased demand for labor of some sort; for capital will generally seek profitable use. It is only the weak and ignorant who bury their talent. Hence we are all interested in the increase of capi- tal, and desire to give all the safety to its invest- ment that may be consistent with the welfare of so- ciety in reference to the great objects for which so- ciety is organized. "We all are interested with wages and profits. Between these two poles the labor questions chiefly play. While the rate of movement in population and in capital, and the fluctuation in the cost of necessaries have effect on wages, yet it is recognized by all economists, and is a truth which the work- ingmen should stand firmly to, that the standard of living is one of the chief foundations to establish good wages upon. " 'Is man's life cheap as brutes?' is a vital ques- tion in this discussion, which Shakespeare puts in the mouth of one of his characters. Universally wherever the standard of living has been kept high, wages have been best maintained. Wages will never go higher than the point where profits cease. The capitalist will quit the business ultimately if profits cease. Fair profits then give the upper limit of wages. The standard of living is the lower limit. Keep this standard high and let it become traditional,THE VOICE OF LABOR. 163 bred in the sentiments and habits of the people, and wages will never go below it. The capitalist will withdraw when his profits vanish. The worker must cease to work and retire from the field when the wages offered will no longer furnish himself and his family with means to procure comfort and respect- ability, and make his home a place of sanctity and endearment. uWorkers must start from a high point 01 self-val- uation, and never go below it. In a political sense, the high standard of living is a chief requirement for the preservation of our republican institutions. And it is a public duty of the most sacred kind to protect the workingmen of the country in all means and all natural and civil rights to secure a high standard of living. They are American citizens, and the safe guarding of liberty and public virtue is entrusted to their charge. The high standing of living has saved the labor of Switzerland from de- gradation, though the country is not ricli in capital. The low standard of living has produced the degra- dation of labor witnessed among the Orientals. The low standard, if once allowed, will be further re- duced until man's life will be cheaper than the brute's. In the slave days, a Southern master asked his servant to do a piece of work attended with danger. He said to the master: 'You had better let John (the white man) do that.' The master asked him why. The colored man said: 6 If I go up there and fall Twill be killed, and you will lose $1,-164: THE VOICE OF LABOR. 500; but if John falls you will lose nothing.' The master saw the point and sent John. The freeman must look out for himself, and all are now free. "The tendency of the fierce competition between capitalists, the multiplication of machinery, the ever-flowing tide of emigration, woman labor and child labor, to reduce wages may be largely resisted by the elevation which a high standard of living communicates to the sentiments and expectations of the wage earners and to wages. If this standard is lowered the American workmen would in time be prostrated to the level of the degradation which may be seen among the toilers of the eastern world. American citizenship would be debased, and the ar- rogance of wealth and the insolence of its satelites and dependents would dominate over us. W e would have proved ourselves unworthy of freedom, because we were unable to preserve that elevation of senti- ment and dignity of character which are essential to the permanence of our American freedom. "The capitalist fights everything that resists cheap production and lessens profits. He regards labor as a commodity. He sees no law but that of sup- ply and demand. He forgets that the laborer is a man, a citizen and Christian, that he raises a fami- ly, and that families make the state, and that the state will reflect the elevation or degradation of the families that compose it. He takes no account of the ten commandments, nor of the grandeur and glory of the state.THE VOICE OF LABOR. 107 "If labor submits to a low standard of living, low wages will prevail, and the workingmen will find poor, low priced goods and unhealthy tene- ments prepared to suit their fallen condition. Work- ingmen should never buy adulterated food or drink, shoddy or sizing clothes, or occupy filthy tenements. They should boycott these and stop the production of them, because they will be produced to meet the lowered condition of wage earners. "There is one method of elevating wages that capital could not possibly resist, but it will take time and sacrifice from wage earners to place them- selves in the condition to apply it. "The capitalist treats labor as a commodity. He is governed solely by the law of supply and demand. He encourages by emigration, long hours, spasmod- ic activities, and suspension of production, and other means, a surplus supply of labor. Labor has no capital ahead. The workingman and his family must have food and shelter from day to day. He cannot withdraw his labor from a low market, as the capitalist can his productions. Providence has arranged that crops come in annually to encourage prudence, foresight and economy among men. The man that has saved enough to support himself and family for one year is independent. Produc- tion cannot stop for one year. And if wage earners would determine as rapidly as possible to save and accumulate one year's living, they would be absolutely independent of the fluctuations, arti*168 THE VOICE OF LABOE. ficial or otherwise, of the excessive supply of labor. They would be able to withdraw their labor from the market until the wages come up to the Ameri- can standard of high living. "It is one of the few well-established doctrines of political economy, that increase of wages never comes off the consumer, and must come out of pro- fits. Good wages reduce the profits of the capitalist, but do not inhance the price to the public. The rule is, that it is the quantity of labor required to pro- duce an article that increases its price to the con- sumer, and that the value or cost of the labor cannot in the workings of economic laws, be transferred to the consumer. But, even if high wages did not come out of profits alone, but enhanced the price of the commodity, the community would suffer in- finitely more from the moral and political degen- eracy which must inevitably result, and always and everywhere has resulted, from low wages and low standard of living than it would lose by any cheap- ening commodities effected by lowering wages. Our institutions are priceless, and must be maintained and handed down to all the generations that are to spring from the present. "We cannot barter them away for cheaper goods. "The wealth of the world would be no compen- sation to freemen for the degeneracy of their man- hood and the debasement of the uplifting spirit that animates our glorious republican institutions. The constant increase of machinery, steam transit, andTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 169 the whole tendency of the present industrial system is to release capital, dispense with the quantity ot labor required in production, increase the surplus of labor, and lower wages down to the starvation line, and far below the standard of respectable, dig- nified and decent living, without which the days of our freedom an< glory will rapidly pass away, and the great American Republic will die from the in- ordinate avarice of the few, and the lack of maniy spirit and public virtue in the many. " Freemen were never charged with a more sa- cred duty than now commands the American people to unite together and concentrate all the force of enlightened and patriotic public sentiment and opin- ion against low wages, and that inevitable degen- eracy of the spirit of the people and institutions which have followed low wages always and every- where." In answer to a question as to the manner in which wages might be regulated, Dr. H. J. Parker replied as follows: "It is all right and proper for workingmen to form unions and associations for mutual protection and improvement, but when they attempt to keep wages up on a par with the general advancement in other fields, without taking into the account the un- derlying forces of legislative enactments affecting money, commerce and labor, they are swimming against the current and will finally sink. "Workingmen vote for men and parties that legis- 12170 THE VOICE OF LABOR. late for the Shylock money oppression, that permit high tariffs on articles of general consumption, and the free importation of labor to take the places of home laborers, and yet expect by some means to main- tain a condition of labor superior to that of the European wage slave. It will be a failure. They may benefit themselves locally and temporarily, and in a few instances may protect themselves during their natural lifetime, but it cannot be a lasting nor a general protection that in its efforts ignores legis- lation that alone and inexorably determines the destiny of a people. "As our country becomes developed we must sink to the European level, unless we refuse to yield to the shaping of our institutions in the European channel. "With the European money system, tax and land systems, with the same laws governing the produc- tion and distribution of wealth, it is only a question of time as to where we will go. Wages cannot Be regulated arbitrarily. They must go with every- thing else sooner or later. "Co-operation is the ultimatum of productive in- dustry, the highest point to be attained in manufac- ture. Labor will have its reward when it gets what it produces. Then its reward will be regulated by the demands of consumption and will seek an equil- ibrium and its proper fields of action, according to the demands which may press from various quarters. "Until co-operation is perfected we must regulateTHE VOICE OF LABOB. 171 wages by regulating incomes or capital, supply of labor, etc. If we have the right to restrict interest on money, we have the same right to limit incomes on money invested. Limit incomes of all enter- prises to a given per cent, and let the balance goto a fund to be distributed pro rata to employes accord- ing to skill and time put in, and you have the scien- tific solution of the labor question, when considered apart from general legislation. This need not destroy the spirit of enterprise and will not. It will give an extra stimulus to the laborer, and make him contented and emulative. He will try to do some- thing for himself, because he sees an opportunity for something in the future. "Just how far this kind of legislation may be necessary, is the question to be solved by an intel- ligent ballot from time to time. "We may remember that government itself or civilization itself is based properly on the premise of protecting the weak against the strong, the good against the bad." All countries, whether commercial or manufac- turing, are visibly affected by periods of adversity and prosperity, and are subject to changes of varying intensity. Laws regulating the hours of labor, the collection of revenue and the like, may alter conditions and situations to some degree, but there can be no permanent effect. In the long run wages will be highest in that country or locality where capital and labor fully co-operate and, at the172 THE VOICE OF LABOR. lowest cost, together make up the greatest amount of product. As conditions change, labor may be displaced for a time, and poverty may ensue, but this poverty is brought about more from the destruc- tion of capital and in rendering land valueless, than from other causes.THE voice of LABOR. 178 CHAPTER XI. ORIGIN AND PROGRESS CF TRADES UNIONS. /he disclosure of history-antiquity of combina- tions by workingmen—the old guilds of europe -the first authentic organizations—the pow- er of organizations six hundred years ago- the cruelties practiced in england-the secret of their strength-unions have elevated wages -workingmen cannot be too well paid-union men the best workmen-literature for labor- unions are educating workingmen-their great future. It is a singular fact that history discloses a sys- tematic oppression of labor in all ages, and from time immemorial there has been a constant resist- ance on the part of the laborer. In attempting to trace the origin of combinations and organizations among workingmen and laborers, we find their beginning lost in the remote ages. The first authentic evidences of such organizations, according to Brentano, are found in the history of1 V4 THE TOICE OF LABOB. ,the northern German tribes of Europe, which were called guilds or gilds. Guilds were originally feasts and gatherings held in celebration of births, marri- ages and deaths. Other events, such as coronations, national assemblies and the like, were the occasion of similar banquets and deliberative assemblages. These guilds led to the formation of a kind of brotherly alliance between those of similar occupa- tions or modes of life, and eventually the term guild expressed the idea of a common community or so- ciety. The spirit of association naturally found its way into the ranks of labor, and as early as the eighth century the organization of guilds had become al- most an universal custom. These guilds assumed a general classification and were divided into Religious, Merchant and Craft guilds. The religious guild was the prototype of church denominations, the merchant guild the pre- decessor of corporations, and the craft guild the arch- etype of the modern trade union. The craft guild grew up among the old freemen hundreds of years ago, and to-day we see trades unions as combinations of workingmen united in common defense of their rights as against the oppressive tendencies of greaf capitalists. It was in the twelfth century, during the reign of Henry II, that the first organization, akin to the present trade union, was formed in England, and since that time the general tenor of legislation hasTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 175 been much against the interests of the workingman, and proportionately, has been enacted in behalf of the capitalist. The essence of the craft guilds was " mutual sup- port, mutual protection, and mutual responsibility." Their exclusiveness widened the separation between the craftsmen and their employers, and served to give each different views and interests. In the four- teenth century the masons maintained a higher rate of wages than was received by other trades, solely on account of their organization, and in 1383 the authorities of London, alarmed at the power exer- cised by the unions, forbade all " congregations, covins, and conspiracies of workmen." In 1396, a coalition of shoemakers was disbanded by the authorities. Notwithstanding the legislation against them, the workingmen continued to com- bine, but the history of the working classes during the next three centuries is a tale of suffering and sadness. They resisted in every way possible, but were met at every hand with brutal force and infa- mous laws. While Edward VI was on the throne, an act was passed to brand a man who refused to work at "statute prices," with the letter "V" (vag- abond), and reduce him to slavery for two years. Nearly all of the attempts of parliament to fix wages were failures. At the dawn of the eighteenth century, the combination laws were universally in operation, and the workingman worked sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. With the introduction176 THE VOICE OF LABOR. of steam power, the domestic system of manufac- turing declined, and trades unions perfected their organizations. The workingmen met the combina- tions of their employers to keep down the price of labor, with organizations to keep them up. Capital has heretofore been directed against ignorant and uneducated men, but the conditions have changed in the last fifty years. In speaking of trades unions, Trant says : "They are built on a rock—a firm, sound, substantial ba- sis. They cannot be annihilated. If they are done away with to-day, they would spring up again to-mor- row the same as in the celebrated dispute with Messrs. Piatt, of Oldham; when the men were starved into submission, and were obliged to give up their un- ion, yet they rejoined as soon as they were at work." It is evident that workingmen are everywhere becoming less and less indifferent to the caprice of their employers. When they demand just laws their request cannot longer be passed unheeded, be- cause they are able to show that they are as com- petent as any other class to judge of their own needs and requirements. One of the fundamental elements which go to make up a trade union, is brotherly sympathy. This admi- rable sentiment seems to be peculiar to workingmen. Prof. Rogers writes: "I confess that I look for- ward to the international union of labor partner- ships as the best prospect the world has of coerc- ing those hateful instincts of governments, all alikeTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 177 irresponsible and indifferent, by which nations are perpetually armed against each other, to the infinite detriment, loss, and demoralization of all." , One of the general results of unions has been a raise in the payment of wages. Usually, the rela- tions between workingmen and their employers imply a pecuniary bargain, and when differences have arisen, the efficacy of organization has been shown in the securing of better conditions. A gen- eral review of the history of trades unions indicates a gain for them. It is, however, difficult to point out to what extent a raise in wages is due to the di- rect action of a union, because the elements of gen- eral progress and prosperity have much to do with the amount of product, therefore, with the amount of wages paid. Few employers when unasked advance the amount of wages paid, and the workingman in seek- ing to better his condition cannot well strike singly. If a strike fails, it shows that the men have the capacity to combine in such a way that the em- ployer may well fear, and despite failure, strikes are often successes. The loss incident upon a strike renders future demands for just dues a more readily adjusted affair than the first difficulty. An ineffectual strike often proves to be one of general effect, for non-unionists invariably gain, to some ex- tent, the advantages of the unionist. The action of the trades unions in gaining an in-178 THE VOICE CF LABOB. crease in the amount of wages paid, does not affect the purchasing power of their stipends. This stimu- lates trade in a general way, for the workingman and his family are ever willing to spend his hard earned dollars in pecuniary additional comforts for the household. A general rise in wages through- out the United States would increase our exports to an enormous amount, and every department of trade would feel an impetus. There is no doubt in the minds of intelligent and candid thinkers, that trades unions are the source of material profit and a general increase of pro- ducts, and employers have learned that union men are, as a rule, better workmen. Every manufactur- er knows that a good workman, though paid high wages, is of more value to him than a poor work- man at less wages. "It seems strange that in this enlightened age," Trant writes, "there are persons who believe that men can have more wages than is good for them. There is no such thing as being too well paid. The men who think so are, as a rule, those who are plentifully provided with the blessings of this life, and who opposed the movement in favor of univer- sal education, because they objected to working- men being too well educated, as it would make them discontented with their < station,' as if there was such a thing as too much education. . * . All that is maintained here is that, though some evil may creep in with a rise of wages, as it seems to doCOAL UNDER DIFFERENT ASPECTS.THE VOICE OF LABOR. 181 with an increase of wealth, yet that good wages are a great blessing, and ought to be gladly welcomed by those who even have not yet reached that stage of morality of endeavoring to love their neighbors as themselves." The great movement which has agitated every state in America has been the cause of the springing up of scores of newspapers which are wholly de- voted to educating the rank and tile of the work- ingmen. Newspapers are now seen in homes which never before were blessed with them, and public schools are showing a decided increase because of their influence. The men, too, show a general de- sire to improve in their respective trades. The bet- ter the workman, the sooner he leaves incompetent associates and becomes a unionist. All union men are not superior workmen, but very few experts are non-union men. Men outside the unions are gener- ally inferior workmen employed at greatly reduced rates. An iron manufacturer, in writing of the influence of unions on his men, said: " I have had twenty years of pretty close acquaintanceship with artisans and laborers of all kinds, and I know many of them have much sounder views of common-sense political economy than the middle classes in general hold. I look upon trade unions as admirable training schools for the workmen, where they will soon outgrow their heresies on the subject of capital and labor, where- as, if they are brow beaten and scolded in a violent182 THE VOICE OF LABOR. manner, they will begin—as some of them, I fear, have already—to think that masters are to be re- garded as their natural enemies, and treated accord- ingty- "The uneducated workmen are, as a rule, a rath- er violent set of fellows, it must be admitted; but I can see that, under the training and leadership of the foremost men in the unions, these are fast be- coming a very small minority, as they are very plainly and forcibly told that the old way of settling disputes with their employers is about the very worst that could be adopted. This, coming from men of their own class, they are daily becoming more and more ready to listen to with respect, which would not be the case if it emanated from the em- ployers' class, whom they have good grounds for regarding with distrust and suspicion. "I know enough of the unprincipled conduct of the employers, through their agents in our iron in- dustry, to understand and excuse much in the con- duct of the unionists that would be indefensible on any other grounds than those of extreme injustice and most heartless provocation—not that the em- ployers had directly perpetrated such things person- ally, but they must be held responsible, seeing that they have seldom or ever taken the trouble to find out the rights and wrongs of disputed points; but in ninety-nine out of one hundred cases the underlings have been left to take their own course and represent their own case as, of course, decidedly angelic. TheTHE YOICE OF LABOR. 183 unions have done immense service in bringing about a different state of things, and to my certain knowledge, it has been due to the influence of the leaders of the unions that the system of arbitration has been adopted lately in so many industries; and this, bear in mind, in spite of the dogged resistance of many of the employers, who do not like the system as I have heard them say, because it puts a weapon into the men's hands to fight with, when a dispute arises about the rate of wages." It cannot be gainsaid that the unions have a great future before them. The legitimate end of pure un- ionism is to allay the antagonism between labor and capital, and to bring the employer and workingman to a plane of mutual understanding and mutual ben- efit.THE VOICE OF LABOR. CHAPTER XII. AMERICAN LABOR UNIONS. the first american trade union- journeymen shipwrights--new york typographical society ,-first labor party-franklin society of print- ers-national typographical union—the inter- national-hat finishers-iron moulders-me- chanical engineers of america—brotherhood lo- comotive engineers—locomotive firemen-cigar makers-bricklayers and stonemasons-patrons of husbandry—grange-railway conductors- boot and shoemakers - german-american typo- graphical-horse-shoers--iron and steel heat- ers -granite cutters-lake seamen- boiler makers — carpenters and joiners-hat makers -miners and mine laborers-bakers-switch- men — tailors-telegraph men- furniture— coopers-etc.-etc . Organizations and combinations of workingmen have existed in the United States over one hun- dred years. On the Fourth of July ^1788, there was a grand parade in Philadelphia, and all of the trades were represented in the procession. ThoseTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 185 of each trade were appropriately costumed and car- ried an emblematic flag. The following crafts were in line : Carpenters, boat-builders, sail-makers, ship-joiners, rope-makers, cabinet-makers, brickmakers, painters, clock and watchmakers, weavers, bricklayers, tailors, carvers, turners, coopers, plane-makers, blacksmiths, nailers, coachmakers; these were followed by hatters, pot- ters, wheelwrights, tinners, printers, glovers, sad- dlers, stone-cutters, bakers, silversmiths and jewel- ers, goldsmiths, coppersmiths, gunsmiths, foundry- men, tanners, carriers and upholsterers, engravers, plasterers, brushmakers, brewers, etc., etc. The first American trade union was the New York Society of Journeymen Shipwrights, which was in- corporated April 3, 1803. The New York Typo- graphical Society No. C, was formed several years later, of which Horace Greeley was the first presi- dent. The present system of labor unions may be said to have formed in 1825, and during the admin- istration of John Quincy Adams. During this pe- riod the first labor party had birth, and through its organs, " The Workingman's Advocate," Daily "Sentinel/' and " Young America," promulgated the following platform: 1. The right of man to the soil—"Vote yourself a farm." 2. Down with monopolies, especially the United States Bank. 13186 THE VOICE OF LABOK. 3. Freedom of public lands. 4. Homesteads made inalienable. 5. Abolition of all laws for the collection of debts. 6. A general bankrupt law. I. A lien of the laborer upon his own work for his wages. 8. Abolition of imprisonment for debt. 9. Equal rights for women with men in all re- spects. 10. Abolition of chattel slavery, and wages slavery. II. Land limitation to 150 acres: no person af- ter the passage of this law to become possessed of more than that amount of land. But when a land monopolist died, his heirs were to take each his le- gal number of acres, and be compelled to sell the overplus, using the proceeds as they pleased. 12. Mails in the United States to run on the Sab- bath . These radical principles were enthusiastically en- dorsed by the workingmen, and were the basis upon which they founded the " Workingmen's Party," whose convention in 1830 nominated Mr. Ezekiel Williams for governor of New York. From 1830 to 1840 the labor movement was more active than at any time previous to the rebellion. A law which had been enacted in Massachusetts against unions was attacked in 1842, and a complete victory was won by the Journeymen Boatmakers. The Franklin Society of Printers, organized at Cincinnati in 1827, was the earliest of the printers'HONEST TOM MAKES A SPEECH. •. . THE VOICE OF LABOR. 189 unions. After a somewhat checkered career, a na- tional call was made, and the National Typograph- ical Union was formed in 1852. They became the International Typographical Union in 1869. They have over 355 local unions with a membership of over 18,000. In 1854, The National Trade Association of Hat Finishers was organized. The hatters, in their vari- ous divisions, have about 10,000 members. The Iron Molders' Union was formed in 1859: it now has 300 subordinate unions with a member- ship of 20,000. The Machinists and Blacksmiths formed an or- ganization in 1858. In the following year they re- ceived the first union charter granted by the United States government. They took the name of Mechan- ical Engineers of the United States of America in 1877. 10,000 members. Despite serious opposition, the glass-blowers or- ganized at Philadelphia in 1848. In the various divisions of their organization they now have about 30,000 members. The Brotherhood of the Foot-Board was organized in 1863. The locomotive engineers have a mem- bership of over 20,000, and now are known as "The Grand International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers." The locomotive firemen, also, have a brotherhood, with a membership of 17,000, which was formed in 1873, and is now known as "The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen."190 THE "VOICE OF LABOR. The first union of the cigar-makers was formed in 1851, and since have acquired a combined mem7 bership of 30,000. The bricklayers and stone-masons, organized in 1865, has a register of over 16,000 members, and is well organized. In 1866, 46 The Patrons of Husbandry," other- wise known as the National Grange, was formed, and now has over 800,000 members. It is only rivaled by the Knights of Labor in size. The railway conductors perfected their organiza- tion in 1879, and are now called the "Order of Railway Conductors." Membership about 8,000. The boot and shoe men organized in 1869, but failed in the general strike of 1873. The National German-American Typographical Union began in 1873, and now has a roll of about 1,200 members. The union, from which the National Horse-shoers Union was formed, was organized in 1849. The present organization was perfected in 1874, and has 5,784 members. The "Sovereigns of Industry" formed in 1874, and four years later had 180,000 members. The order failed in 1880, and in 1886 was re-organized. Its object is co-operation and to shut out the "middle- man" in all departments of business. The iron workers organized two unions in 1873, called the Associated Brotherhood of Iron and Steel Heaters, and the Iron and Steel Roll-hands' Union.THE VOICE OF LABOR. 191 They combined with the Sons of Vulcan in 1876, and are now known as the Amalgamated Associa- tion of Iron and Steel Workers. They number in all, 60,000. The Granite-cutters National Union was formed in 1877. In 1878, the organization named the Lake Sea- men's Union was organized, and now has a mem- bership of 8,000. The LastersV Protective Union of New England was organized in 1879, has fifty-eight branches and 7,860 members. The members of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, and Iron Shipbuilders and Help- ers, have a membership of 20,000. These work- men first organized in 1880. The Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America is the outgrowth of previous organizations, the first of which was formed in 1854. The pres- ent name was taken in 1881. It has about 42,500 members. There is also an United Order of Car- penters. In 1883, the National Hatmakers' Union was or- ganized. The railroad brakemen formed their National Brotherhood in 1884, and now have 18,000 members. The National Federation of Miners and Mine La- borers is a combination of various coal and mining organizations, and has a roll of 90,000 members. The present order adopted its name in 1885.192 THE VOICE OF LABOR. In 1886 the Journeymen Bakers'National Union was formed, and has a present membership of 25,000. The Switchmen's Mutual Aid Association was or- ganized in 1886. Its membership is 5,000. The Custom Tailors' National Union has 18,000 members; the Telegraph Operators and Linemen have 10,000 members; the House Painters, 10,000; the Coopers' Union, 10,000; the Furniture Work- ers, 10,000; and the Mule Spinners (in the cotton factories), number 5,000. There are, perhaps, a score of other organizations whose membership is less than 5,000. The most powerful organization of workmgmen extant, isthe Knights of Labor.the voice of labor. 193 CHAPTER XIII. THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR the cause of their organization-the great pow- er of the order--uriah stevens, the founder -early history-struggles-attacked by pul- pit and press-its growth-character of its members-who they are-present number-a semi-secret order -their preamble and plat- form of principles-manner of joining-who are eligible--laws and regulations of the knights-local, district and general assemblies -—pass-words, signs and grips--women as mem- bers-interesting information--biography of mr. powderly-the officers—the executive com- mittee-a description of the management. The exigencies of the workingmen in the United States have been the cause of creating the largest and most powerful organization, wholly devoted to the interests of labor, that the world has ever known. The history of the Knights of Labor, until the last few years, has not been sufficiently eventful to at- tract general attention, but the events of 1886194 THE VOICE OF LABOR. proved conclusively that organization of the work- ingmen throughout the land had been perfected up- on an unparalleled scale, and that it had grown in- to the position of being one of the most potent factors of this decade as a social and industrial force. The growth of the order has been phenomenal, both in number and for reaching strength. Its history, and its influence upon industry, have become matters for the historian. The originator of this vast organization was Uriah Stephens, a tailor by trade, of Philadelphia, who was born in Cape May County, New Jersey, in 1821. In October, 1869, the <1 Garment-Cutters' Society" of that city grew discouraged, and its members de- termined to dissolve their society. Immediately after the close of their last meeting, Uriah Stephens consulted with James L. Wright, I. M. Hilser, 11. C. McCauley, William Cook, R. M. Keen, and James L. Kennedy, upon the advisability of form- ing a new union. All of them were clothing cutters. The plan proposed by Mr. Stephens was discussed and met with hearty approval. After several informal meetings, the men above named, with several others, met at Mr. Stephens' house on Thanksgiving day, 1869, and the associa- ation now known as the Knights of Labor was formed. The chief idea of their organization was a national union of wage earners of all classes.THE VOICE OF LABOR. 195 The members were bound to secrecy, and the existence of their society was unknown out- side of their own number for several years. Like all great enterprises, the order developed slowly at first, but it grew in strength and gradually gained a foothold in the estimation of workingmen. The method adopted for calling a meeting was the marking of five stars upon the front of Inde- pendence Hall. This singular and mysterious sign never failed to bring together thousands of the working class, and it was the cause of much adverse comment, both from the press and the pulpit. Be- cause the object and principles of the order were unknown and miscomprehended, the organization was bitterly condemned on all sides, and the Catho- lic church added its denunciation to the general deluge of adverse criticism. At this time the order had 80,000 members, but during the succeeding five years their number ma- terially decreased, and in 1883 the roll fell to 52,000 members. In 1871 their present name was adopted. Previous to the publishing of the objects of the order, its simple plan and general utility every- where met with favor, and workingmen in all of the eastern and middle states were rapidly enrolled. Amid this clamor of defamation the leaders de- cided to make public their aims and the ultimate object of the society. In June, 1878, Mr. Stephens, G. M. W., signed a special call for a meeting, at which he said they had met " to consider the ex-106 the voice of labor., pediency of making the name of the order public, for the purpose of defending it from the fierce as- saults and defamation made upon it by press, cler- gy and corporate capital, and to take such further action as shall effectually meet the grave emer- gency." There is a widespread opinion that the Knights of Labor are solely recruited from the ranks of la- borers and mechanics, but this is not the case. Among their number may be found men and wo- men of all producing occupations. The growth of the order has been such that over three hundred new assemblies have been formed in a single month. The total number of Knights, in the United States and Canada, is estimated to be over one million. There is not a branch of labor, trade or profes- sion that exists, that cannot furnish material for a Knights of Labor assembly, and the occupations as are not organized are joined together in separate assemblies. This order is not only because of its numerical strength, but more especially on account of its almost certain future, the most important la- bor combination ever conceived. The name may or may not be well chosen. Many of the Knights have expressed themselves to the effect that the term is too much like those of orders with which the Knights are distinctly at war. It was this feeling which prompted them to change the official name of their chief executive from u Grand" to that of u General Master Workman." ContraryTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 197 to current belief, the Knights of Labor is only a semi-secret order. Members are not now oath- bound, but are simply obligated upon word of hon- or to keep silent as to the workings and proceedings of the organization. On the other hand, one Knight is not permitted to reveal another's connection with the order without the latter's consent. As a general rule, the work done by local general assemblies is done secretly, as expediency demands. The preamble and platform of principles of the order, as narrated in their various organs, is briefly summarized as follows: The alarming development and aggressiveness of great capitalists and corporations, unless checked, will inevitably lead to the pauperization and hope- less degradation of the toiling masses. It is imperative, if we desire to enjoy the full bless- ings of life, that a check be placed upon unjust accumulation, and the power for evil of aggregated wealth. This much desired object can be accomplished only by the united efforts of those who obey the di- vine injunction, " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." Therefore we have formed the Order of Knights of Labor, for the purpose of organizing and direct- ing the power of the industrial masses, not as a po- litical party, for it is more—in it are crystalized sen- timents and measures for the benefit of the whole people, but it should be borne in mind, when exer-198 THE VOICE OF LABOR. cising the right of suffrage, that most of the objects herein set forth can only be obtained through legis- lation, and that it is the duty of all to assist in nom- inating and supporting with their votes only such candidates as will pledge their support to these measures, regardless of party. But no one shall, however, be compelled to vote with the majority, and calling upon all who believe in securing "the greatest good to the greatest number," to join and assist us, we declare to the world that our aims are: I. To make industrial and moral worth, not wealth, the true standard of individual and Nation- al greatness. II. To secure to the workers the full enjoyment of the wealth they create, sufficient leisure in which to develop their intellectual, moral and social facul- ties; all of the benefits, recreation and pleasures of associations; in a word, to enable them to share in the gains and honors of advancing civilization. In order to secure these results, we demand at the hands of the State: III. The establishment of Bureaus of Labor Sta- tistics, that we may arrive at a correct knowledge of the educational, moral and financial condition of the laboring masses. IV. That the public lands, the heritage of the people, be reserved for actual settlers; not another acre for railroads or speculators, and that all landsthe voice of labor. 199 dow held for speculative purposes be taxed to tlieir full value. Y. The abrogation of all laws that do not bear equally upon capital and labor, and the removal of unjust technicalities, delays and discriminations in the administration of justice. VI. The adoption of measures providing for the health and safety of those engaged in mining, man- ufacturing and building industries, and for indem- nification to those engaged therein for injuries re- ceived through lack of necessary safeguards. YII. The recognition by incorporation, of trades, unions, orders, and such other associations as may be organized by the working masses to improve their condition and protect their rights. YIII. The enactment of laws to compel corpora- tions to pay their employes weekly, in lawful mon- ey, for the labor of the preceding week, and giv- ing mechanics and laborers a first lien upon the products of their labor to the extent of their full wages. IX. The abolition of the contract system on Na- tional, State and Municipal works. X. The enactment of laws providing for arbitra- tion between employers and employed, and to en- force the decision of the arbitrators. XI. The prohibition by law of the employment of children under fifteen years of age in workshops, mines and factories.200 THE VOICE OF LABOR. XII. To prohibit the hiring out of convict labor. XIII. That a graduated income tax be levied. And we demand at the hands of Congress: XIY. The establishment of a National monetary system, in which a circulating medium in necessary quantity shall issue direct to the people, without the intervention of banks; that all the National issue shall be full legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private; and that the Government shall not guarantee or recognize any private banks, or create any banking corporations. XV. That interest bearing bonds, bills of credit or notes shall never be issued by the Government, but that, when need arises, the emergency shall be met by issue of legal tender, non-interest bear- ing money. XYI. The importation of foreign labor under contract be prohibited. XVII. That in connection with the postoffice, the Government shall organize financial exchanges, safe deposits and facilities for deposit of the savings of the people in small sums. XVIII. That the Government shall obtain pos- session, by purchase, under the rights of eminent domain, of all telegraphs, telephones and railroads, and that hereafter no charter or license be is- sued to any corporation for construction or opera- tion of any means of transporting intelligence, pas- sengers or freight. And while making the foregoing demands uponTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 201 the State and National Government, we will endeav- or to associate our own labors. XIX. To establish co-operative institutions, such as will tend to supercede the wage system, by the introduction of a co-operative industrial system. XX. To secure for both sexes equal pay for equal work. XXI. To shorten the hours of labor by a general refusal to work for more than eight hours. XXII. To persuade all employers to agree to ar- bitrate all differences which may arise between them and their employes, in order that the bonds of sym- pathy between them may be strengthened, and that strikes may be rendered unnecessary. The manner of joining the order and the forming of local assemblies is of interest, and the following comments are given for the benefit of the uniniti- ated: Any female of the age of sixteen, or any male of the age of eighteen, whether manufacturer, em- ployer of any kind, wage-worker or farmer, is eligi- ble to become a member, except lawyers, bankers, professional gamblers, stock brokers, and any per- son who makes, or sells, or derives any of his support from the sale of intoxicating drink; but at least three-fourths of every local assembly must be com- posed of wage-workers or farmers. No local assembly can be organized with less than ten members. 14202 THE VOICE OF LABOR. Assemblies mav be formed of any particular trade or calling, or they may be composed of all trades. The latter are termed u mixed" assemblies. Assemblies can only be instituted by regularly commissioned organizers. The charter fee is $16, which must be paid to the organizer, and for which will be sent a charter, seal and supplies. The expenses of the organizer are not included in the charter fee, but vary according to the distance traveled. Under the laws of the Order the initiation fee cannot be less than one dollar for men and fifty cents for women. The amount of local dues is regulated by each local assembly, but cannot be less than ten cents per month. The Order also has a Benefit Insurance Associa- tion, on the co-operative plan, which went into op- eration November 1, 1883. The membership fee is $1.25, and on the death or total disability of a mem- ber, an assessment of only twenty-five cents is made. Until the membership is sufficient to pay $500, the amount of benefits will be regulated by the receipts from assessments. After a local assembly is formed, a candidate must be proposed by a member in good standing, who has an acquaintance with the applicant. The Order of the Knights of Labor is not a mere trade union, or benefit society; neither is it a polit- ical party. Some of the specific aims and objectsTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 203 of the Order are set forth in the preamble and de- claration of principles published from week to week, but any and every measure calculated to advance the interests of the wage-workers, morally, socially or financially, comes within the scope of the Order, To abolish as rapidly as possible, the wage system, substituting co-operation therefor; the settlement of all difficulties between employer and employe by arbitration; to educate the members to an intelligent use of the ballot, for their own bene- fit and protection, free from restraint of party or the undue influence of employers or monopolies; opposition to land, transportation, currency and all other monopolies that affect the interests of the masses, and the protection of all its members in the exercise of all their rights as citizens, are some of the principal objects of the Order. Believing that these objects can be best secured through a thorough organization of all branches of honorable toil, those who are not already members are cordially invited, and if they approve of the Or- der, to secure the requisite number of persons to form a local assembly in their locality, an organiz- er will proceed to arrange a date for founding the assembly. Five or more local assemblies in any locality, within a reasonable distance of each other, may form a district assembly, for the better protection and re- gulation of trade matters. Local assemblies, located at any distance from204 THE VOICE OF LABOR, a district assembly, are attached directly to the gen- eral assembly. The general assembly meets annually on the first Monday in October at such place as may be selected at each session, and is the highest tribunal of the Order. The general assembly is composed of gen- eral officers and representatives from the district assemblies and local assemblies attached to the general assembly. The revenue of the general assembly is derived from the sale of supplies and a per capita tax of six cents per quarter for every member in good standing. Each local assembly has control of its own funds, and local co-operative enterprises are encouraged. The Order has a secret work, consisting of pass- words, signs and a grip, for the protection of the meetings against those not members, and against expelled or suspended members. Each member is required to take a pledge of honor, upon joining, to obey all the laws of the Order, and not to reveal any of the business or secret work of the Order. No oath is taken. There is nothing in the laws or workings of the Order to interfere wiih the religious views of any in ember. Each local assembly is known by a number, as- signed by the general secretary. Each local will also choose a suitable name upon organization. Local assemblies attached to the districts have toURIAH STEPHENS, Founder of the K L.THE VOICE OF LABOR. 207 pay an additional per capita tax, of such amount as may be fixed by each district assembly, for the sup- port of the same. Women may become members of the Knights of Labor under the same laws and regulations as men, and may form local and district assemblies; but the charter fee of a local assembly, composed wholly of women, is $11. The initiation fee for women is fifty cents. The Order has an official paper known as the " Journal of United Labor," published semi-month- ly by the general secretary, and each local assembly is required to subscribe for at least one copy each year, as it is the organ of official communications from the general master workman and general sec- retary of the Order. At the death of Uriah Stephens in 1879, the man- tle of General Master W orkman fell upon Mr. T. Y. Powderly, of Scranton, Pa. Terrence Yincent Powderly is of Irish parentage, and was born at Carbondale, Pa., January 24, 1849, and was the youngest son in a family of twelve children. Before reaching his majority he went to Scranton and entered a railroad machine shop, where he received $2.50 a day. While there he took a commercial course of study, became a member of a literary and debating society, and laid the foundation of his success as a public speaker and a convincing writer. He soon joined the Knights of Labor, and became208 THE VOICE OF LABOR. a leader in the local labor committee of Scranton. Shortly afterwards he formed the personal acquaint- ance of Uriah Stephens : and was elected as the head of the organization at Scranton. He urged pacific measures and moderation dur- ing the strikes of 1877, and his advice was the means by which much property was saved from de- struction. He is an eloquent speaker, and his suc- cess as a leader of men is due to his broad and lib- eral ideas, combined with sincere purpose and clear judgment. Under Mr. Powderly's control, the Knights of Labor has attained its present strength and import- ance. His mettle and aims are fully expressed in the preamble and declaration of principles of the order, which has been scattered broadcast through- out the land. He has served as Mayor of Scranton, but has in- variably declined to accept various political nomin- ations which have been tendered him, among which was that for Governor. Richard Griffiths, of Chicago, was elected Gener- al Worthy Foreman in 1879, and after serving as General Treasurer two terms, was elected to his present office October 13, 1886. Charles H. Litchman was elected General Secre- tary in 1878, and has since held the same office. He has been a member of the Massachusetts legislature. He lives in Philadelphia. Frederick Turner is General Treasurer, and hasTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 209 held the office of Secretary and Treasurer since 1883. The Executive Board of the organization is made up by the following gentlemen: Thomas B. Barry, East Saginaw, Michigan; John W. Hays, New Brunswick, New Jersey; William EL Bailey, Shawnee, Ohio; Albert A. Carlton, Somerville, Massachusetts ; Thomas B. McGuire, New York City ; Ira B. Aylesworth, Baltimore, Maryland. The officers of a local assembly are Master Work- man, Worthy Foreman, Venerable Sage (retired Master Workman), Recording and Financial Secre- tary, Treasurer, Worthy Inspector, Almoner, Un- known Knight, Inside and Outside Esquires, Insur- ance Solicitor and three Trustees. The officers of state assemblies correspond to those of the local assembly, and the general office term is two years.210 the voice of labor. CHAPTER XIY. STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS. A. cause of recent strikes -why workingmen strike-statistics of strikes in 1880-successes and failures—complete review of their effect -amount of loss incurred - aggregate losses in april and may, 1886 — public sympathy for strikers—powderly on strikes-great thoughts -the power of wealth giving way to justice and right - a new power dawning upon the world-a bright future at hand-ideas for workingmen to think and act upon. One of the effects resulting from the rapid organ- ization of the unions during the last decade, is an epidemic of strikes. It is needless to say, that so- ber and intelligent workingmen throughout the coun- try do not throw down their tools and leave their benches without provocation. A week's wages is more to a workingman than it is to his employer, for the simple reason that it means a week's provis- ion for himself and family, while his employer only suffers a diminution of his capita). The workingmanTHE TOICE OF LABOR. 211 strikes because he feels the weight of manifest in- justice, and seeks thereby to secure redress for his grievances. There is no doubt but strikes have been precipitat- ed from causes that could have been removed by more pacific measures ; often better results could have been secured. Instances can be cited where petty reasons and personal animosity have been the cause of strikes, but such cases are few. These movements, as a rule, have been efforts to fetter the condition of labor, and great good has resulted, not- withstanding the fact they have been generally un- successful. Mr. Joseph D. Weeks, of the census bureau, says in a report on the strikes and lockouts of 1880, that it is evident that these labor disturbances are grow- ing less frequent. The number of strikes in certain of the prominent trades, as given in the report, is as follows: Iron and steel industries, 236; coal mining, 158; textile trades, 46; cigar-making, 42; building trades, 36; transportation, 36; printing trades, 28; glass industries, 27 ; piano-making, 14; boot and shoe making, 11. Much the greater proportion (71-J- per cent) of the strikes and lockouts reported upon, were caused by differences as to rates of wages. A total of 503, or about 86 per cent of those relating to wages, or 62 per cent of all, were for an advance, and 77, or 14 per cent, of those relating to rates of wages, or 9-| per cent of all, were against a reduction.212 THE VOICE OF LABOB. Of 481 strikes—59 per cent of the whole—169, or 35 per cent, were successful; 85, or 13 per cent, were compromised, and 227, or 47 per cent, were un- successful. Of 307 strikes for an advance, 127, or 41 per cent, were successful; 62, or 20 per cent, were compromised, and 118, or 39 per cent, were un- successful. Of 45 strikes or lockouts against or for a reduction, 3 only were successful, 8 were compro- mised, and 34 were unsuccessful. Of 20 strikes in connection with payment of wages, 11, or 35 per cent, were successful, 6 were compromised, and three were unsuccessful. Every strike in connection with hours of labor, of which the result is given, was unsuccessful. In questions rela- ting to administration and methods of work, the strikes were, as a rule, unsuccessful. Of 813 stop- pages by causes reported upon, 610,* or 88 per cent, were strikes; 85, or 12 per cent, were lockouts. Of 610 classified as strikes, the results of 369 are given. Of these, 143, or 39 per cent, were success- ful; 156, or 42 per cent, were unsuccessful, and 70, or 19 percent, were compromised. Of 85 lockouts, the results of 52 are given. Of these 10, or 19 per cent, were successful; 34, or about 65 per cent, were unsuccessful, while 8, or about 15 per cent, were compromised. In 414 strikes, the number of men idle were 128,- 262, making an average of about 310 men to each strike. Of these, 64,779 lost $3,711,097, or $57 each. The total loss in wages is estimated at $13,003,866.THE VOICE OF LABOB. *" 213 When the strikes were successful, the additional wages compensated for a portion of this loss. The theory and practice of strikes is greatly differ- ent to-day from that of the past. Intelligent leaders have perfected organization, and the working- man has never been better prepared to combat his wrongs and secure his just dues. Labor is now aware that in organization lies the true channel to a high- er plane and a better condition, and with due regard for the law of the land, it is destined to accomplish a righteous advancement. • The following is a statement of the aggregate of losses incident upon the strikes in April and May, 1886. Current New Business Wages. Business. Stopped. New York City. . .$300,000 $300,000 $2,000,000 Philadelphia..........60,000 50,000 5,000,000 Smaller Pa. cities . 70,000 50,000 ........ Detroit, Mich..........97,000 25,000 850,000 Cincinnati................375,000 300,000 1,000,000 Milwaukee..............466,000 200,000 4,000,000 New England cities 275,000 ........ 6,000,000 St. Louis................75,000 ................ Troy, N. Y..............75,000 ........ 150,000 Washington, D. C.. 54,000 ......... 2,000,000 Indianapolis..............2,000 ........ ........ Pittsburgh.:............30,000 75,000 300,000 Louisville, Ky.. .. 23.000 5,000 500,000 Coal strikes............200,000 500,000 Indeterm'e Chicago..................700,000 700,000 3,000,000 Totals......$2,802,000 2,105,000 24,800,000 Grand total.....................129.707.000214: THE VOICE OF LABOR. In commenting upon this statement, the "Loco- motive Firemen's Magazine" says: "We presume the foregoing figures are largely guess work, mere approximations, and that there are those who would probably place sum totals much higher, and this could be done, we apprehend, while a strict regard for facts would be maintained. It will be admitted, we think, that the larger the sum total of losses oc- casioned by strikes, the more aggravating must be the causes which produce them. The trouble is that men contemplate the losses and lose sight of the wrongs which provoke them. The losses to such people obscure the wrongs. Fortunately there are those who, though the losses by strikes are enor- mous, maintain that the wrongs which produce strikes and occasion the losses demand first consideration, and they are right in their conclusions. Take any of the industrial enterprises that have suffered losses by the recent strikes, and employers select the most expressive terms in speaking of their losses and to magnify the rectitude of their treat- ment of employes, as also the base ingratitude of those who struck. They are in positions to obtain the public ear—they have money and influence, and are the first to command audience. They never did say the employe was right—always wrong. The strik- ers come in later, and often after the verdict of the public has been rendered. If the strike touches the transportation interests of the country, railroads or water transportation, or,THE VOICE OF LABOK. 215 if as in the case of the telegraph strike, it interferes with the transmission of intelligence, the strikers find at once that overwhelming opposition confronts them, for though the great public may not believe the strikers in the wrong, or may believe that their griev- ances are aggravating, still, as the method of redress involves the public in embarrassments and inconve- niences, it demands that the strikers shall resume work or that others shall be employed in their places, regardless of the wrongs complained of, and as a consequence the wrongs which led to the strike are obscured. Take as an illustration the telegraph strike which occurred some years ago. The real investment made by the owners of the telegraph lines amounted to about $40,000- 000. The stock of the corporation had been water- ed until it swelled to $80,000,000. Now to de- clare dividends on $80,000,000, it became neces- sary to reduce the wages of employes. But when the employes struck it was difficult for them to get before the public the stupendous iniquity which pro- voked the wrong.. The public demanded service without regard to wages, this demand strength- ened the corporation, and as a consequence, when the strike ended, the wrong existed as when the strike began. The strikers suffered. The corporation came off with flying colors. Final- ly the great public condemned the corporation, but the condemnation resulted in no harm to the cor- poration nor benefit to the wronged employes.216 THE VOICE OF LABOR. It is not to be presumed that there will never be another telegraph strike. On the contrary, the probabilities are there will be another strike one of these days. Why ? Simply because the flagrant wrong exists. It has not been removed. It has not been modified. Wrongs are like cancer. They eat their way to the surface. You must remove the roots or they will come again; hence, we observe, that the man who discusses the wrongs which produce strikes is a better statesman, a better citizen, and more of a philanthropist, than he who is eternally deploring the losses which strikes occasion,without giving a thought to their cause. It is quite probable that men generally do not re- gard successful revolutions worth what they cost. Strikes are revolutions and rebellions combined. We read and speak of the American revolution— the British call it a rebellion. Rebellion or revolu- tion, it was dear to England, because she provoked it and lost. It was costly and bloody to the colo- nies, but they won, and yet they were colonists who were opposed to the revolution. They did not be- lieve that the tea tax and the stamp tax were of suf- ficient importance to warrant rebellion and revolu- tion. It is not to be presumed that the colonies would have rebelled because of the amount of mon- ey involved in the taxation imposed, but the impo- sition of the tax brought into prominence the insuf- ferable wrong of taxation without representation. It was taxation and chains, taxation and serfdom,THE VOICE OF LABOR. 217 and hence the colonies struck for freedom and in- dependence, and had they been defeated in the war of '76 they would still have been striking for the recognition of their rights. It goes for nothing to say that strikes are always expensive. The fact is universally admitted, but it is not true that strikes ought not to occur because they are costly. There is a way to prevent strikes, as there was a way in 1776 to have prevented the w^ar of the re- volution. Had England acted justly, there would have been no war, and if employers would act just- ly towards their employes there would be fewer strikes, or strikes would forever disappear from the industrial records of the country. Arbitration, com- promise, reasoning together, should always precede a strike, but as certainly as rivers flow to the sea, when injustice is continued in spite of such things, strikes will come, and the more wide-spread the in- justice the more terrible will be the consequences of strikes. Manifestly, thinking men, who have the welfare of society at heart, are becoming profoundly inter- ested in the labor problems of the day. They see distinctly that there must be less injustice or more strikes. If more strikes, then more turbulence, more losses, more mobs, more collisions, more blood, more demoralization. As a consequence, congress is discussing remedies, and the same is true of leg- islatures throughout the country; the supreme idea being to remove causes for strikes, enthrone justice IS218 THE VOICE OF LABOR. and right and overcome wrong. We regard the signs of the times as cheering. We believe that strikes in the future will be less frequent, because we believe the working men will see that the great public heart is throbbing responsive to their de- mands for justice. The press of the country is evincing deep solicitude in the welfare of working- men. The pulpit is taking a hand in the discussion, but above all, and better than all, workingmen them- selves have resolved that they will master the pro- blems, and by logic and law, and by the intelligent use of the ballot, remedy many of the evils of which they justly complain." GENERAL MASTER WORKMAN POWDERLY ON STRIKES I u The prospect for the future of the laboring man in America, is brighter to day than it ever was, notwithstanding the seemingly £ strained rela- tions ' at present existing between employer and employe. 4' That we are passing through an epidemic of strikes, lockouts, and boycotts, is true, but the fact must not be lost sight of that were it not for the growing power of organization, we should have a great many more strikes to contend with than we have had. 'k The growth of organization for the last ten years has been steady and healthy. It is only where orga- nization is in its infancy, that serious troubles suchTHE VOICE OF LABOR. 219 as strikes and lockouts exist. The causes from which strikes and lockouts spring, are to be found in all parts of the country, but the methods of dealing with the troubles as they arise are different. In places where no organizations of labor exist, or where the seeds of organization have just been planted, dis- puting parties are apt to become involved in strikes. The reasons advanced in support of that proposition are as follows: Until recently very few working- men dared to express their opinion in public on the subject of labor, for the reason that they were al- most certain of an immediate dismissal from the ser- vice of the man or company they worked for, if it became known that they in any way favored the association of workingmen for mutual protec- tion. u With such a sentiment existing m the breasts of workingmen, they could not be expected to feel very kindly toward the employer, who so jealously watched their every movement, and who, by his actions, made them feel that they were regarded rather as serfs than freemen. While the real bone and sinew of the land remained in enforced silence, ex- cept where it could be heard through the medium of the press and rostrum, through chosen leaders, anoth- er class of men who seldom worked, would insist on 'representing labor,' and in making glowing speeches on the rights and wrongs of man, would urge the c abolition of property' or the < equal divis- ion of wealth;' such speakers very often suggest-220 THE VOICE OF LABOR. ing that a good thing to do would be to 4 hang cap- italists to lamp-posts^ "The employer of labor who listened to such speeches, felt that in suppressing organization among his workmen he was performing a laudable act. Yet he was, by that means, proving himself to be the most powerful ally the anarchist could wish for. He caused his employes to feel that he took no in- terest in them, other than to get as many hours of toil out of them for as few shillings as possible. The consequence was that the employer, who was himself responsible for the smothering of the hon- est expression of opinion on the part of labor, be- came possessed of the idea that the raw-head and bloody-bones curbstone orator was the real repre- sentative of labor, and determined to exercise more vigilance and precaution than ever in keeping his 4 help ' out of the labor society. " The speaker who hinted at, or advocated, the destruction of property or the hanging of capi- talists to lamp-posts, was shrewd enough to speak very kindly and in a knowing manner of labor as- sociations, giving out the impression that he held membership in one or more of them. Workingmen, who were denied the right to organize, very fre- quently went to hear Mr. Scientific lecture on the best means of handling dynamite. And when the speaker portrayed the wrongs of labor, the thought' ful workman could readily trace a resemblance be-BETWEEN STRTKE AND FAMILY.THE VOICE OF LABOR. 223 tween the employer painted by the lecturer and the man he himself worked for. u Workmen employed by those who frowned on labor organizations became sullen and morose; they saw in every action of the superintendent another innovation on their rights, and they finally deter- mined to throw off the yoke of oppression, organize, and assert their manhood. The actions of the su- perintendent, or boss, very often tended to widen the breach between employer and employe. When the organization did come, it found a very bitter feeling existing on both sides, and, before studying the laws of the society, they joined, or becoming conversant with its rules or regulations regarding the settlement of disputes or grievances, the work- men determined to wipe out of existence the whole system of petty tyrannies that had been practiced on them for years. Not being drilled in organiza- tion, and feeling that the employer would not treat with them, the only remedy suggesting itself was the strike. And, on the other hand, the employer, who felt that every move of his workmen in organ- ization would be directed against his interests, de- termined to take time by the forelock and turn them all out on the street. Thus we find the or- ganization in its infancy face to face with a strike or lockout. " Absorbed in the task of getting large dividends, the employer seldom inquired of his superintendent how he managed the business intrusted to his keep-224 THE VOICE OF LABOB. ing, or how he treated the employes. In thousands of places throughout the United States, many super- intendents, foremen, or petty bosses, are interested in stores, corner groceries, or saloons. In many places the employe is told plainly that he must deal at the store, or get his liquor from the saloon in which his boss has an interest; mothers, he is given to understand that he must deai in these stores or saloons, or forfeit his situation. Laws have been passed in some states against the keeping of com- pany stores, but the stores are kept nevertheless, and workmen are made to feel that they must pa- tronize them. u In many cases, the owners of mills, factories or mines are not aware of the existence of such insti- tutions as the