The Crime of Caste in Our Country

by Benjamin Rush Davenport

HENRY C. FRICK,

Manager Carnegie Works, Homestead, Pa.

While Mr. Walker has taken Homestead for his text, the application of his article to the condition of the people of the Union generally is so apparent that each man for himself may shift the scene and make it applicable to his own little community. In every village, town, city, or county in the Union, is some one man, or some set of men, who arrogate to themselves a certain superiority resulting from the accumulation of wealth in their hands; this accumulation, having arisen from the inequality in the distribution of the increased wealth of the nation, being in many cases purely accidental, and in others the result of the phenomenal development of the resources of this country, coupled with the wonderful spirit of invention shown in the land in the last thirty years. Mr. Walker takes Carnegie and Frick as types of the class to which the people object so strenuously. The building of a church, or the founding of a library, is but a small price to pay, in the opinion of the American people, for the right to assume privileges detrimental to the growth and continuance of that doctrine so dear to the hearts of the masses—the equality of man. Mr. Walker entitles his article, “The Homestead Object Lesson,” and begins by saying:—

“An affair like that at Homestead educates the public mind rapidly; more rapidly in a month than ten years of books and pamphlets. In the face of death, men stop to think. What led to this? What does it mean? What is the remedy? And when the daily journal gives in one column the picture of Cluny Castle, or the magnificent pile from which the Lyttons have gone out to admit partner Phipps from the Homestead mills, and in another sketches showing the dead and dying upon the banks of the Monongahela, the contrast is so sharp that one draws a quick breath of discomfort, and even the most conservative, whose manhood is stronger than his love of dollars, admits that something is wrong.”

If a man in the walk of life of Mr. Walker shall “draw a quick breath of discomfort” at the scene he pictures, because his “manhood is stronger than his love of dollars,” how utterly obvious it ought to have appeared, and should now appear, to those possessed of wealth, that an appeal for the support of that class who, as American citizens, not only possess an abundance of manhood, but, in addition thereto, are sufferers by the wrongs or conditions written of by Mr. Walker, was and is useless.

“Lovers of the Republic may well tremble at this exhibition, so closely resembling the evil days when rich Romans surrounded themselves by hired bands of fighting bullies. True, our modern rich man does not parade the streets, surrounded by his gladiators. He sits in a secret office, removed from danger, and, in communication with the telegraph wires, orders his army concentrated from many States by rapid transit, and moves it unexpectedly upon his private foes. There is lacking that personal courage which gave a half-way excuse to the Roman who, sword in hand, shared the dangers of the fight. But the risk to the Republic is all the greater from these modern methods. For, if a man may hire 300 poor devils ready to shoot down their brothers in misery, there is no reason why he may not hire 10,000.”

There are not a few of us who will recall the natural indignation aroused in our bosoms while witnessing that noble impersonator of Virginius, John B. McCullough; the idea of the degradation to which we were drifting, by the possibility of the existence of an aristocracy, whose hired bullies and parasitical clients acted as panders to the worst passions of man. If it be possible to adopt the old Roman method of hiring bullies and assassins, and maintaining paid private armies, how very possible to come to a condition similar to that so powerfully portrayed in Virginius! Lovers of the Republic, of honor, and virtue, may well tremble, at the bare possibility, vaguely imagined, but evidently more vivid to the minds of the masses, than was contemplated by those autocratic gentlemen who ordered their mercenaries to Homestead.

“There is another side to this matter. Raised up under the system which declares that any man has a right to control, without limit, the earth’s surface and its productions, or the labor of his fellow-men, Mr. Frick, doubtless, feels that he is performing a sacred duty in protecting his property at Homestead, by any means that the law permits. Thousands of good men held the same thought regarding their slaves, before and during the war. It really seemed to them a divine right of property, and all classes of the community to-day—learned ministers and professors, intelligent merchants, and high-minded men of all professions—hold that our system of distribution is not only legal, but fair, and authorized by the teachings of the Gospel.”

In the most lucid manner, Mr. Walker continues to give the causes of the existence of conditions conducive to the results which have been produced by the accumulation of wealth, and, in consequence, assumption of a superior social position by the possessors thereof:—