Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1888 — LABOR. [ARTICLE]

LABOR.

It has been written there is a perennial sacreduess about work. The Lord of all the harvests has said, “The laborer is worthy of his hire.” it is not so said of others, as some may receive hire not deserving it. The system of tariff laws now in force imposes a most unjust and needless assessment u'oon the wages of ia v, or. We know in part, in part wo do not know the amount of this exaction. The known amount of this tax laid and collected per day, as shown by the receipt of customs duties for the year 1887, was, fin round numbers, $600,000. It is now no less. For the seventeen millions of workers in all branoliesjof'industry in the United States the rate per capita amounts 30 per of average daily earnings. With the other expenses of living, for these the wages of the day pay, and do hardly pay, the taxes for the day. Ti e tide of tax and time keep equal pace, save that on the seventh day, the day of rest, when wages are not paid, taxes are.

When such a contribution is levied, as it is, upon the kitchen and the cupboard, upon bed and board, upon hanger, thirst, and nakedness vhen evbry living soul within our borders becomes a tax-paver, enormous receipts accrue and the surplus gathers like the snowball in a thaw. In the ordinary household of five persons where there is one wage-earner and five tax-payers they are not encumbered with unused deposits. The collector of this tax keeps no delinquent list; there is no delay, and there can be no default.

If a man eat, drink, or wear, he must pay; if he move, breathe, or live, he must pay; death scarcely brings relief. The tax-gatherer clips wages, be they ever so -mill; no pittance escapes. The amount of this collection is a direct daily charge upon wages fund —that portion of the wealth of the country which is in transit day by day trom those who employ to those who are employed. The moneys due to labor are thus seized m passing. Any reduction of the amount thus exacted, and especially any readjustment thereof as to the list of taxed articles, would shift the burden from this wages fund in transit to wealth in situ, to wealth accumulated—mainly to the wealth accumulated by the beneficiaries of the ptesent law. There is the rub; there is the hitch and hurt; this is where and how the shoe of reform pinches the foot of monopoly. Now, it is not intended to be said hereby that there may be any thing wrong in the general policy of requiring all those who live in United States to contribute somewhat to the support of the Government.

But it is asked, nevertheless, why should a penny be taken from any one beyond what is needed for that support, and why, as to the sum needed,should it be levied so large - ly and exclusively upon those classes of our fellow citizens least able to spare acd pav it? At such tin. e as the Government takes from +he laborer by taxation upon his food and raiment, upon the ordinary comforts and conveniences of life, more than is necessary for the public use, then we say, “The laborer is not worthy of his hire”—we have found those more worthy thereof. Who are* these? The law-made rich, the most worthless and grasping of all Mammon’s sons, misers of that unblessed lucre unjustly wrung from the sweat of other men’s faces.

It would be impossible for these favored classes,although they have succeeded in controlling the policy and organization of a certain political pariy, although they have procured the Government of the United Btetes to aid as salesman in their marts and stores, to stand behind their counters, and fix prices upon their wares—it would be impossible for them to make an open avowal of their purposes. They could not say to labor: “Go

to; let us take for the nonce a portion of your wages without return —without recompense.” They have a saving amount of caution, of complaisance or of cowardice. But they cry, “Pay us this tribute, as for some time past you have been. It will enable us to make our profits large, stiil larger, wherewith we will certainly in some way requite you.” Is it a thing taught or shown by human experience that those classes of men who have, by the mere operation of statute, heaped up for themselves riohes which moth and rust may corrupt, but which the tax-gatherer leaves untouched, have shared such gains with the victims of their injustice? Til's feeble pretense is founded upon the manifest fallacy that such men will, against their own interest, do that they ought or should because they can. |They might afford to pay better and higher wages, because their law has imposed taxes which enable them to fix their own pricos upon their goods. Have they ever done so? Whence comes the shike, that most remarkable social phonome non of tho century? It originates from the circumstance tha. those who might pay fair wuges will not do so; will resorc to any means to avoid doing so. It springs from tiie fact that the incorporated and tariff-clad shareholder refuses to divide his profits current or long since ac rued with his workmen.

Before the passage of the law forbidding the importation of workmen under passage contracts, and even since, in violation thereof, these classes brought the low prieed laborers of Europo, of Asia, hither to take the plnoes of their own countrymen, Americans whom they had discharged. Foiled in this, they have invented and or ganized the J'trust,” a syndicate of coruorations, which, like the Hix Companies of China, checks pro duction, foreshortens tho wagetime of labor, by this means do stroying both external and internal competition and securing the un limited and absolute control of tho prices of both labor and commodities. Such is their aim and end. The Dynasty of Pelf, a costly rub founued upon craft, cant, and cunning. An impartial htstory of this highly privileged order will show their course and conduct to have been uniformly the Srtme —to reduce wages to the lowest figure, to maintain taxes at the highest to retain their employes as dependants, upon the line of bare subsistence. I do very well recollect how last April when the honorable Senattr from Texas was speaking upon this subject he caused to be read at tho Secretary’s desk, in this presence, the testimony of one Thomas O’Donnell, from evidence taken by the Senate Comm’ ttu; upon Labor, as to the condition of the operatives in the factories at Fall liiver, Mass., in the year 18*’5. Mr. O’Donnell was a skilled, laborer, in an establishment whose wares have been protected for many years up to the point of the prohibitory line. His case is in no wise peculiar; ke testifies that one thousand of his fellow workmen live as he does, not any better. He was a cotton-spin-ner—a very good one, a peac able man, had no trouble with the company or their men. There had been a strke three years before; he had no been in it. He was healthy, industrious, temperate, frugal to the last degree. Here, then, is an American laborer, pro tected, secured, guarded, and inclosed by the plenary providence of the prohibitory tariff. His gross earnings were 8133 per year. With this he must pay rents and procure the daily necessaries of life for himself, his vise, two children—a family of four He could not get worn: more than half the time. The company, with fear of glut of goods in the markets, laid its hand upon the wheel and piston. They stopped from time to time; with them wages ceased.

What an extravagant practice the people of this country had twoutyfive or thirty years ago of eating meats - beef pork, mutton served every meal, three times a day. O’Donnell was protected from this dangerous excess, he could only afford mi at three u; four times .* year on Sundays. lie dug and gathered clams from the saints to eke out his Scanty su> ply. His fuel he|got mostly from the sums source,coal he eo’d not buy; one-quarter ton for the win ter must serve Th'- wife was poorly clad, the children worse. The little lines went barefoot in summer—of course this would bo differeut in the cold weather of a New England win ter—yes, in s miner the children went barefoot, in winter tbeyhad no shoes The father had not the money to buy them. On the day he was examined as a witness he had no money in the house—the sane supply of bread, but the mother had gone out somewher-> in tire morning and had gotten a loaf for the children, who wer crying with buoger. Would ho move, away?— Would he go West? Willingly, but he had no means of doing so. He remu'ned, bound like Ixio i to his wheel, without hope, without help, a skiilrd artisan, with his thousand $ rmrades, waging a doubtful contest between living and starvation. As tor the multitude of unskilled laborers, the corporators or the prohibitory tariff trust do not employ them. But let us bo candid, they do not overlook or ueglect’Jthem—with impartial greed they tax them as they do all others, Not anything is less creditable to our race than the impunity with which privilege has always imposed upon labor the fiscal burdens of Government. These modern defenders or exclusive privilege are only copyists They scorn because thsy have injured the whole order of unskilled labor. This order is the oldest in the world. It is one of the most venerable, one or the mo t honorable, and It is the mos numerous, of human societies. There is no ceremony of imtiatian, neither sign nor password; anyone may enter it at auy time; only those do who must. Occasionally persons are demitted from this,order, but Its numbers are never diminished, aceessione are onstant, and those who join remain for the most part life* members. This order, ages ago, builded the stately tower of Babol, unskilled, usincr brick for stone, slime for tnor tar. They worked at the founding of the Pyramids, and may yet look upon their ruins The can rl of Suez, the dikes of Holand, the tree-grown mounds in the valley of the Great River of the West are theirs. The character of tne society is that o? its work, durability. Moreover, Itis a alass more generous, ess self seeking than any other, not unintelligent, but not wary, not suspicious Here, upon these,the inquisitors of the tariff tithes have fal en devouring their subs ar.ee wiihout even the paltry pretense that they are to receive either increase of work or wages thereby.