People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1895 — IMPENDING SLAVERY. [ARTICLE]

IMPENDING SLAVERY.

WE ARE DRIFTING INTO SUCH A CONDITION. The Progress Whirh Has Been and the Progress Which Still Must Be, Bring Us Pace to Face With a New Peril to Liberty. The New York Voice came out last week w ith editorials that have in'them ihe true Populistic ring. Lord! how this Brooklyn strike has stirred up the eastern editors against corporate greed. They are punching around to discover the “cat under the meal.” and oft times hit close to bruise the hide. If the editors will keep at the good work success will crown their efforts. The editor of the Voice came near hitting the right spot when he said last week:

In ail the progressive nations of the world, civilization is to-day rocking amid the throes of industrial revolution. Wliat is the matter? In merica, in England, in Germany, m France, and in other countries the story is the same—a persistent, unceasing, tumultuous grapple between labor and capital. The nineteenth century, which was ushered in amid the tumult and storm of political revolution, seems iikfly to go out as it came in, except that it is social and industrial rather than political revolution that the world has now to confront. The Anglo Saxon race is one that has achieved its world-wide dominance by fear! ssly looking issues in the face, and r. v by shutting its eyes and speaking ' - .y and pretending that the issu- - o not exist or are not serious or wil; soon pass away.

Lore •; the stern and solemn truth at conf.-or.ts the world to-day. We a. ' arc t a.illy and swiftly into a con hdon c: industrial slavery. • • " ?tr.t the • •in a few words. ~h a •. at of steam and eleetrithe lest If century has revolut . :.;:-! nearly every form of industry. T - bay. th ? f ast requisite of success in n; : ranch cf industrial activity is a costly outfit of machinery. It takes crp.tal to buy it. In Massachusetts » alone machinery is doing the work of 1'.0.u00/.'OO men. It is fast ‘becoming impossible for men without extensive capital to remain their own masters. The little tradesman becomes swallowed up in the mammoth store, and exchanges his independence for the position of an employe. The artison of skill and intelligence who miglv. have hoped in former years by the aeon nition of a few tools to become his own “boss,” now must confront himself with being a factory “hand” or a mill “hand,” with the prospect of never attaining any other relation to his work. The concentration of capital goes on in a geometric ratio, capitalists unite 5n corporations, corporations unite in trusts, and anything like close

personal relations between employer l a.id employe becomes impossible. The employer class becomes more and n ore contracted; the employe class be- | comes more a d more extensive. The ; hope of independence becomes a vain : hope for a larger and larger proportion 1 of people, and the inspiration that goes 1 with that hope is lost. The sense of individual responsibility is lost also \ in large measure both by the capitalist ! employer and the wage-earning rna- ! chine that calls itself an employe. Now. what does all this moan? It ■ means just this: Tin t swiftly and surely we are coming to the pass that ail the avenues through which men can earn a living and beep body and soul together hero upon earth are to be controlled by capital. Those who cwu the capital can alone purchase the machinery; and those who own the machinery control the labor which is applied to it. Herein lies the secret of the struggle going on ail over the world—a struggle on the part o; labor against the absolute control by capital of all the opportunities of earning a livelihood. What is labor contending for? For better food, for better clothing and better shelter? No! the fight is not primarily for these things. The laborer of to-day is better housed, better fed and better clothed on the average than ever before, and it is where he is the best fed and tlie best clothed that this struggle is the fiercest. Why, then, this intense, deepening feeling of resentment? The answer brings us to the very core and center of the whole struggle. The fight is not one for higher wages or shorter hours or better material conditions, but it is for liberty, industrial liberty— emancipation from the absolute dominion of aggregated capital. The negroes of the south were, we dare say, betted fed, better clothed, and better housed on an average in the dayb of slavery than they are to-day.tA But their craving for themselves was deeper and diviner than the desire for these things; it was a It is so of the wage earners of to-day. Raising their wages and shortening their hours will not alone cure or even diminish their restlessness or discontent. . The craving which is rocking civilization is deeper than is sometimes 'expected even by th? workingmen themselves. It is an instinct planted by God in man’s very heart of hearts, the love of liberty. Men and women of America, we must face the situation that we have been brought into by the progress of civilization. We must look beyond the turmoil and confusion of the immediate conflict, beyond the strikes and the lockouts, beyond the vexations, the blunders and even the wickedness of the combatants on both sides, and realize the ultimate purpose of labor’3 conflict and the spirit that siptains it. That ultimate purpose is emancipation from the impending despotism of capi-

tnl. That spirit is the same spirit of liberty that has in times hurled political despotism from all the thrones of Europe and has planted republics and constitutional monarchies in their place. The despotism of kings i 3 no more to be feared than the despotism of capital. What, then, is the best way to avert this impending despotism? What is the solution? What is the remedy? The first thing to be done is to secure a popular understanding of the nature of the conflict and of the real issues involved, and to that end the Voice proposes to address itself in the future more assiduously than it has ever done in the past. The rights of opportunity must be made as sacred as the rights of property. We cannot then back the hands upon the dial of time. We cannot arrest the progress of science and invention, and begin a backward march toward barbarism. But we can recognize the fact that the progress which has been, and the progress which still must be, bring us face to face with a new peril to liberty.