SOME INTERROGATION POINTS.
A NEW party is struggling for recognition—a party with leaders who are not politicians, with followers who are not seekers after place. Some of those who suffer and some of those who sympathize, have combined. Those who feel that they are oppressed are organized for the purpose of redressing their wrongs. The workers for wages, and the seekers for work have uttered a protest. This party is an instrumentality for the accomplishment of certain things that are very near and very dear to the hearts of many millions.
The object to be attained is a fairer division of profits between employers and employed. There is a feeling that in some way the workers should not want—that the industrious should not be the indigent. There is a hope that men and women and children are not forever to be the victims of ignorance and want—that the tenement house is not always to be the home of the poor, or the gutter the nursery of their babes.
As yet, the methods for the accomplishment of these aims have not been agreed upon. Many theories have been advanced and none has been adopted. The question is so vast, so complex, touching human interests in so many ways, that no one has yet been great enough to furnish a solution, or, if any one has furnished a solution, no one else has been wise enough to understand it.
'The hope of the future is that this question will finally be understood. It must not be discussed in anger. If a broad and comprehensive view is to be taken, there is no place for hatred or for prejudice. Capital is not to blame. Labor is not to blame. Both have been caught in the net of circumstances. The rich are as generous as the poor would be if they should change places. Men acquire through the noblest and the tenderest instincts. They work and save not only for themselves, but for their wives and for their children. There is but little confidence in the charity of the world. The prudent man in his youth makes preparation for his age. The loving father, having struggled himself, hopes to save his children from drudgery and toil.
In every country there are classes—that is to say, the spirit of caste, and this spirit will exist until the world is truly civilized. Persons in most communities are judged not as individuals, but as members of a class. Nothing is more natural, and nothing more heartless. These lines that divide hearts on account of clothes or titles, are growing more and more indistinct, and the philanthropists, the lovers of the human race, believe that the time is coming when they will be obliterated. We may do away with kings and peasants, and yet there may still be the rich and poor, the intelligent and foolish, the beautiful and deformed, the industrious and idle, and it may be, the honest and vicious. These classifications are in the nature of things. They are produced for the most part by forces that are now beyond the control of man—but the old rule, that men are disreputable in the proportion that they are useful, will certainly be reversed. The idle lord was always held to be the superior of the industrious peasant, the devourer better than the producer, and the waster superior to the worker.
While in this country we have no titles of nobility, we have the rich and the poor—no princes, no peasants, but millionaires and mendicants. The individuals composing these classes are continually changing. The rich of to-day may be the poor of to-morrow, and the children of the poor may take their places. In this country, the children of the poor are educated substantially in the same schools with those of the rich. All read the same papers, many of the same books, and all for many years hear the same questions discussed. They are continually being educated, not only at schools, but by the press, by political campaigns, by perpetual discussions on public questions, and the result is that those who are rich in gold are often poor in thought, and many who have not whereon to lay their heads have within those heads a part of the intellectual wealth of the world.
Years ago the men of wealth were forced to contribute toward the education of the children of the poor. The support of schools by general taxation was defended on the ground that it was a means of providing for the public welfare, of perpetuating the institutions of a free country by making better men and women. This policy has been pursued until at last the schoolhouse is larger than the church, and the common people through education have become uncommon. They now know how little is really known by what are called the upper classes—how little after all is understood by kings, presidents, legislators, and men of culture. They are capable not only of understanding a few questions, but they have acquired the art of discussing those that no one understands. With the facility of politicians they can hide behind phrases, make barricades of statistics, and chevaux-de-frise of inferences and assertions. They understand the sophistries of those who have governed.