Hence by this error, made possible by the false relations of government and industry, the government has not only compelled industry to furnish the men to fight its battles, win its victories, and maintain its integrity, but it also compels it to pay all the expenses of the war, besides to continue adding to the wealth of the rich. The gentlemen in whose interests it was principally fought, who have sat quietly at home in luxury, and drawn the life-blood from the poor, now go out of all the effects of the war with their fortunes trebled by having merely loaned the government the money it needed to maintain itself in the struggle.
This is a true picture, moderately drawn, of the real facts. While I do not desire to stir up the wrongs that industry has suffered in this matter, and drive the weary toilers to seek redress, it is nevertheless time, when thousands of families are suffering the pangs of hunger as a consequence of this wrong, to lay it open before the people who have been its cause and who have profited by it; it is time that the government should be shown the errors that it has committed and be told that the people are coming to an understanding of them; time that the bond-holders should know that the people are aware of the tenure by which they hold these mortgages on the industries. Let the one protest as it may and the other plead innocence under the revelations as they will, I intend to do everything in my power to rouse them to a sense of the danger in which they stand from the still sleeping masses, who, when they shall come to a full realization of the impositions that have been practised upon them, will not hesitate at any means of redress; especially will they not hesitate when the modern Shylocks, having relentlessly demanded not only the last “pound of flesh” but their very life’s blood also, demand likewise the payment of the bonds! The people already begin to learn that the government has no sympathy for their sufferings, and that it declares that it has no power to alleviate them, which they will think is strange enough since it had the power to bring these evils upon them.
WHAT LABOUR WILL SAY.
Under these conditions they will soon come to argue like this:—Was it not enough to demand of industry that it should fight the battles for the government? Was it not enough that the working-classes should lay down their lives by thousands upon a hundred fields of battle? Was it not enough that mothers and wives should give their sons and husbands to fill the soldier’s grave that the wealth of the country might remain inviolate? Was it not enough that we did all this without now being forced to give our toil year after year to return these rich, who did nothing, these loans? Is it too much to ask of wealth that it pay the expenses of the war? Should we not rather demand, in tones of thunder if lesser ones are insufficient to rouse its holders to a sense of their duty, that it shall bear its part of the burden? We have looked on quietly and seen the sufferings to which this people are reduced by the rapacity of the usurers, until we can no longer hold our peace; and if it be in our power, we intend that wealth and not industry shall yet be made to pay what it should have been made to pay at first; that it shall return to the government the bonds which the toiling masses have redeemed by the rivers of blood that they have shed, and that the government shall return the $2,000,000,000 of interest that it has already filched from industry for interest on this most unjust debt. In other words, since we gave the lives that it was necessary to sacrifice to conquer the rebellion from our ranks, we intend that the rich shall give from what they had when the rebellion broke out, to pay all the expenses of the war, and we will never rest until this be done.
These, I say, are the arguments to which the suffering labourers will resort if you permit them to is driven to desperation by hunger from want of employment. If the rich were wise, they would forestall all opportunity for such arguments to be used, by coming forward voluntarily to do them justice. If what I have suggested will be their arguments, is true, as you know that it is, then wealth should pay the expenses of the war without any further delay, because it is a gross injustice, not to say an unwarrantable imposition on good nature, to make the men who did the fighting also pay this debt, while those for whom it was mostly fought have done nothing but to speculate out of it. Perhaps you have never looked at it in this light; but if you have not, then I pray you look at it so now, before your attention shall be called to it in an unpleasant way; for, unless relief come soon to those who are suffering the pangs of hunger, by reason of your blindness, there will be an imperious demand made of you.
THE SILVER QUESTION.
As if they were not yet satisfied with the oppressions already in operation, some of those whom you have sent to Washington to conduct your business, and who have got you into all this difficulty, think that silver is not good enough money in which to pay interest, because it is not now worth proportionally quite so much as gold. Where has the wisdom and prudence of this people fled? Have they no care for what may come upon their families, that they sit by and see indignity after indignity piled mountain-high upon the people? The lives, the labour, the all of the poor may be taken for the public good; but your bonds, your money, your usury must not be touched. They are considered to be of more consequence than life and toil and everything else that the poor have got to be taken!—your revenue must be sacred, and the Shylocks must take their “pound of flesh” from the daily labourer, let it cost whatever blood it may in the cutting of it; and no wise Portia comes to stay the hand already dripping with the life of the toilers, for is not the interest wrenched from their toil, their life! Look at the poor of the country; millions of them without work and their families either starving or else on the verge of starvation. Let me read you extracts from two articles from the New York Sun of the 20th of July, so that you may see that I am not overdrawing the picture: “Starvation in New York. The sufferings among the poor are fearful. The sufferers are chiefly widows and young children, who, for lack of nourishment, are unable to withstand the intense heat. Instances of actual starvation are mentioned. A widow and her young daughter and son, who are unable to find work, had been for some time living on $2 a week. In a garret, without any other furniture than an old dry goods box for a table and a broken chair, live a widow and her five young children. In a closet are a mattress and a blanket, which at night make a bed for the whole family. An aged woman, who was once in affluent circumstances, was some time ago found nearly dead with hunger; it was only by careful nursing that she was saved. A young man, whose family were gradually starving, was driven to despair and intent on suicide. The child of another died, and not only was the father unable to bury it, but he was unable to provide food for the living.” These are only a few of the cases that come under the observation of a single church relief society. What shall we say of the great city? The other was entitled “Widespread Destitution in Brooklyn. At the meeting of the King’s County Charity Commissioners yesterday, Mr. Bogan said that there was almost as much destitution in the city now as at midwinter. The families of unemployed men who up to this time have never asked for a cent of charity, were daily besieging his office. The system of outdoor relief had been abandoned, and there was no way to provide for the needy except out of his private purse. The heads of families were forced into idleness by the hard times, and, having exhausted all their means were face to face with starvation.” Is not this a fearful picture of those who have helped to make the wealth with which the storehouses of the country are loaded? African slavery was a blessing compared with the condition of thousands of the poor. Let its evils have been as great as we know that they were, the negroes never suffered for food; the women and children never died of starvation; never suffered from cold or went naked. Oh, that some master mind, some master spirit, might be sent of God to show you the way out of this desolation and the necessity of deliverance. But I fear you will not be wise enough to avoid the penalty for neglecting to keep your industrial institutions on the same plane with your political organization, which is the only possible remedy for the present evils. The people must be made as much one industrially as they are politically. Then there would be harmony and consequent peace and prosperity.
IS CASTE A NECESSITY?
But to this the common objection is raised, that it is impossible to make industrial interests common, on account of the necessary differences in labour: that there must be caste in industry. This was the reply that the king made to the people who wanted a political republic; of course it will be the reply that the privileged classes will make to those who want an industrial republic. You know how fallacious the objection has been politically. The king deprived of his crown has not been compelled to sleep with the scavenger. It will prove equally as fallacious industrially. The money and railroad kings will not have to live with the men who do the rough work of the industrial public, unless they choose to do so, any more than they do now. The foundation stones of a house always remain at the bottom, covered up in the dirt; nevertheless, they are even more important to the safety of the house than any upper part. So it will be in the industrial structure when it shall be erected. There will always be Vanderbilts, Stewarts, Fields and Fultons—the agents of the people industrially, as there are now presidents, governors and mayors—agents of the people politically. And do you not see how perfectly this corresponds to the teachings of Jesus when He said: “Let him who would be greatest among you be the servant of all,” and with this falls the objection of the aristocrat to the industrial republic, as utterly untenable.
The real inspiration of this objection, however, springs from quite another source. Those who make it know that with the coming of industrial organisation, the power which money has to increase will fall, and make it impossible for anybody to live without labour. Money has no rightful power to increase. Its origin and sphere distinctly forbid the power, as can be clearly shown. The theory that money is wealth is false. It came to be accepted from the fact that valuable things have been used as money.