CAPITAL AND LABOR.
Two young men from the same flourishing little town, and bosom friends graduate from the same school, each with aspirations lofty as the pinnacle of fame. Each one chooses an art or craft, or profession. Each man has the same chance to succeed. The avenues of trade and commerce are open alike to all. One of these young men well knowing that there is no royal road to wealth and fame, and that his success depends solely upon his economy and industry, wisely adopts a code of laws by which his life is to be regulated and governed, and his future of success or failure determined. He remembers that his preceptor once remarked to him thus: “Raymond, remember this: If you ever expect to become wealthy, spend each day less than you earn,” and he had adopted it. He husbanded each week, and month, and year a portion of his earnings; years pass on and his coffers are filling with that yellow god which sways the destinies of men and empires. He engages in manufacturing enterprises or mercantile pursuits, and his happiness is complete in his palatial home, with a lovely wife and children as a keystone crowning the arch which spans the dark and turbid stream of life.
Let us follow the other young man who started in the race at the same time and under the same auspicious circumstances. He has taken a different course. He has not been idle but a spendthrift, working during the week earning money to spend among his boon companions during Sunday, and is always in debt and trouble as he is spending more than he earns. He has availed himself of the privilege of rejoicing in the days of his youth, walking in the ways of his heart and the sight of his eyes, forgetting that for all these things he will be brought into judgment, as no law of our physical nature or social standing can be violated with impunity, there is no appeal from the self-inflicted punishment of an accusing conscience for extreme prodigality and reckless expenditure in riotous living. To-night he is standing upon the corner of the street shivering under the biting blast which is sifting the early snow of winter amid his prematurely grizzled hair. He is not at peace with himself or the world. He hates himself for being poor and others for being rich. At this juncture the elegantly equipped carriage of his former classmate rolls past. Its owner is now a millionaire by earnest, honest and persevering endeavor. He is a homeless pauper and the self-constituted architect of his own misfortunes, yet he is willing to offer himself as a representative of the terrible contrast between capital and labor.