“Thus fares the land, by luxury betray’d;
In nature’s simplest charms at first array’d,
But verging to decline, its splendors rise,
Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise;
While, scourged by famine from the smiling land,
The mournful toiler leads his humble band;
And while he sinks, without one arm to save,
The country blooms—a garden, and a grave.”
Not long ago the millionaires and labor leaders had a feast in New York; they met as one, and declared that henceforth they were “one and inseparable, now and forever.” President Roosevelt ratified the compact by dining the leaders at the White House. But where are labor’s representatives to the Prince Henry banquets and receptions? Have they been lost in the shuffle? Can it be that they are not fit to meet a prince? Absurd! This is a Republic; labor here is royal and wears the imperial crown. So, at least, Mr. Hanna and other poor and oppressed capitalists tell us, and surely they should know the working kings who rule them.
But again, where are the representatives of labor at these courtly social functions? Why is no American workingman allowed near the prince except as menial and spaniel, to guard his noble majesty and do slavish obeisance to his every whim?