PAPERS ON LABOR AND CAPITAL.
PAPERS ON LABOR AND CAPITAL.
PAPERS ON LABOR AND CAPITAL.
PAPERS ON LABOR AND CAPITAL.
Perhaps there is a no more suggestive or instructive fact in all the realm of society than that the laboring classes are the liberal classes. It is among them that nearly all social reforms begin, and among them that all governmental reforms first find moving power. The wealthy classes are systematically conservative; and by instinct they are opposed to all movements which tend to equalization. They are to social reform just what bigots are to religious liberalization. They adopt a creed which their practice is never to depart from, and it is only by the force of the large majority of the people combined against them thatthey ever do depart from them. The time was when it was the grossest infidelity to question any of the extravagant assertions contained in the Bible; but nearly all Christian sects now assume the right to place their own construction upon what is found therein. This construction is found to grow more human and liberal every year. Twenty years ago, the more “hell-fire and brimstone” a minister gave forth, the more Gospel it was considered that he taught. The same rule obtains in regard to all social questions, and the same rule of extending liberalization will continue, until the balancing point of equalization is reached, in which there shall be no power to determine for the individual, except himself or herself, what is for his or her individual good, or what to him or her is right.
Wealth, in its present position, is aristocratic; and Labor, in its present position, is democratic. Aristocracy always assumes to control that which is under it, in a material sense. It has always assumed this control, and whenever possible has exercised it. This assumption has been exercised so long that those over whom it has been swayed have come to regard it as something approaching a “divine right.” This condition of servitude was possible so long as ignorance possessed the masses over whom it sought control. When education began its silent yet potent work, the power of assumed “divine right” began to weaken. General education is all that the world requires to emancipate it from the rule of all kinds of aristocracy. Common schools for children, and the public press for adults, have done and are doing the work of emancipation.
It was not until quite recently that the representatives of labor began to know the benefits to be derived from organization. They do not yet know the full benefits which it is possible for them to obtain from it; much that they do obtain from it is, on the whole, deleterious rather than beneficial. They require more general knowledge. They need the aid of science to point out the paths in which they should seek to walk. Science, to the organizations of labor, is what discipline is to the army. Without it, the first is powerless, and the last dangerous to those who command and support it.
It is very much to be regretted that so much of bitter denunciation of the wealthy is heard among laborers. It shows that they, if possessed of the power, would wield it more despotically than it is now wielded by those possessing it. Force, as a regulator, can at best be but a mere temporary makeshift, which, unless quickly followed by justice in organization, degenerates into absolutism. This is the dangerwhich it is to be feared would follow the elevation of labor into the position now occupied by wealth. Hence it is that it takes long years of disappointment to chasten the hearts of those who seek change, before the order of civilization will allow it to come in its fullest extent.
Could changes in society be arranged and managed as changes in other departments are, no danger would ever supervene. New railroad bridges are constructed before the old ones are removed, and throughout the process of change the trains continue their regular movements. So it will be with society, when science shall have so enlightened the people that they shall know just what they are preparing to pass to.
The Labor Party now desires to be elevated into political place and power; but have its advocates any well-defined ideas regarding the results which are to follow such a change in the administration of government? It is much to be feared that the same old story of “Make hay while the sun shines,” would be the ruling element. We would not have it understood from these suggestions that we are opposed to such a change as the success of the Labor Party would imply. Any change cannot be for the worse. Principle could not, in any event, be less the ruling power than now; nor could money buy more politicians than it does now. One has to spend but a “season” in Washington to convince himself that there is a deal more truth than there is vulgarity in the saying, that “money makes the mare go.” Representatives and Senators who prate with loudest mouths of patriotism and devotion, spend all their own money and all they can borrow to get to Congress, and retire to private life, having made a fortune upon “five thousand a year.” The inference is too palpably plain. It is not necessary for us to say that all such fortunes are the results of bribery and corruption, and their possessors public thieves, and utterly unworthy of the confidence of honest devotees to a popular form of government.
It is this species of corruption that is becoming a stench in the nostrils of all those whose patriotism is more than pocket deep. In its growth they see the process of national disintegration begun, which they well know cannot continue indefinitely without bringing destruction to our country. The almost criminal indifference with which the masses of the people regard these examples of the power of money over the consciences of those to whom they have intrusted their most sacred political rights, speaks badly for the safety of republican institutions, as now operated. A saving power is needed. Where shall it be sought?All true reformers are looking to the Labor party for it. Let it unite to itself the principle of equal rights, regardless of sex, and it will succeed. Then, if it fill its mission well, it will prove itself to be what the present demands, to crush corruption which is so rapidly permeating our whole body politic.
New York, November 1, 1870.
New York, November 1, 1870.
New York, November 1, 1870.
New York, November 1, 1870.