it is believed, shoot down the working men when ordered to do so. Pinkerton's thugs did the work for a time till the public attention was attracted to their unlawful deeds at Homestead. Regulars will be stationed in all the great labor centers. By whose dictation is it being done? By that of the mining and railroad kings. This is a very important step in the solution of the problem of "cheap labor." But what effect has cheap labor on the home? It is the cause of its decadence, of all the squalor and misery we see. Why is it impossible for at least one-third of the willing workers to find employment? It is made so on purpose by the employers of labor as a great factor in the solution of the problem of cheap labor. Few people think about this. When I say that the millions are kept out of employment by design and conspiracy of the employers of labor, reader, you do not believe it. But it is true. They are kept out of employment that they may be ready to become "strike breakers"-to take the strikers' places. The idleness of the many is no accident. The tramp and the prostitute are no accident. Chattel slavery was the solution of the problem of "cheap labor" in the past. What must be the condition of labor in the future, under our present social system? A worse condition for the workers than chattel slavery. The tramp and the prostitute are its concommitants. These are made so by the efforts of the capitalists to have cheap labor. Cheap labor in America, as in Europe "pauper labor"-the capitalists want and will have, no matter if half the toilers become tramps and the young women all prostitutes, and society be broken up. greed of gain knows no bounds. YE 204TH LESSON. Would It Be Right? This is the final test. The Would it be right? Right and wrong are placed in the balance. If the right bears down the scale it is safe to accept what is offered, but if wrong, then stand aloof. Would it be right to "deal justly and love mercy?" to "give to him that asketh?" Would it be right to re-establish the primitive Apostolic Church as an universal Christian commonwealth? Would it be right to establish a common storehouse of food and clothing so that distribution shall be made to all men according as every man has need? Common lodging houses in the cities so that no man shall be compelled to sleep out of doors like the wild beasts? Common workshops, inviting all to remunerative industry, occupations so many that each may choose his profession and find work congenial to his taste? Work and paying work at that? Would it be right to "do unto others as we would wish might be done unto us" if we were similarly placed? Would it be right to treat our fellowmen as brothers? To presume that men are innocent of crime till proven guilty? To punish no man simply for being destitute; to lock no man up in jail that has not committed a higher "crime" than that of being without money, that is to say, about as well off as were Jesus and the twelve? The time will come when the barbarities committed against the poor of today, by authority of (so-called) "law," will be looked back to with the same horror as we now contemplate witch-burning, or the "blue laws" of Connecticut. The crimes every day committed by policemen and the police judges against "vagrants" are more heinous than by all the burglars that ever infested a city. And the policemen and judges are only "carrying out the law" they say-enforcing the edicts of not the people; for the people, today, are kind and humane, are hospitable as were their fathers-but of the speculative, corporation-sheltered money-makers, magnates of monopoly, men that, if they dared, would willingly buy and sell slaves, that care nothing for humanity, but who prate continually about the "rights of prop THE RIGHTS OF THE MANY MENACED. 275 erty" and tramp ruthlessly upon the rights of man-men controlled by one passion alone-avarice. There is no way to humanize society, except by abolishing the speculative order. This is the foremost reform to be brought about. When men can no longer make money by any means but honest toil of hand and brain, and the toilers work co-operatively, each eceiving an equal share of the joint product who has done an equal share of the work and no capitalist connected with the busi ness, the workshop or factory or mine belonging to the commonwealth, the toilers having leased the plant from the state for a tax paid by them on its cost not higher than that paid by national banks to-day on their circulation (one-half of one per cent) and so many factories, workshops and mines built and operated that all labor be employed and no man hunting a job with valid excuse that he "can find work," then may tramp laws be in order. Tramps would not ve. But with opportunities monopolized by a few speculative capitalists, with the right to shut down the mill to produce an artificial scarcity and so depriving the unemployed of his weekly income and raising the price of the commodity produced that the people must purchase, the lands held as "bonanza farms," conditions as they now are, life is not worth living to him doomed to daily toil. Is it right that kings exist? The many subject to the arbitrary will of one-a railroad magnate or a Frick or the Pana king-petty despots, heartless as was Lo Bengula? Ought not the workers rule the factory as the people are presumed to rule the state? Is not one-man power in the workshop more oppressive than in the state? We want a democratic system of industry as well as of government-co-operation-to take the place of wage slavery. But how may co-operative industry be established and wage industry abolished? By law. The whole power of the state has been directed toward the building up of private fortunes. Let the whole power of the state be directed toward building up co-operative production and co-operative distribution of products. There is no protection of industry in building up by law the wealth of capitalists now since the trust has destroyed competition. The money that builds and operates railroads, manufactories, mines, etc. all productive and necessary enterprises-must be public money. We ask only that the government do for all what now it does for some. Has not Uncle Sam really built all the manufactories? If not, why do we say, "If you repeal the tariff laws all the factories will have to close?" Then Uncle Sam made the factories by making tariff laws. How could tariff laws build up the factories if they did not either directly or indirectly place money in the hands of the capitalists to pay for the building of them? Now, candidly, would not Uncle Sam as well build the factories directly as indirectly? How? Deal with Trades Unions as now he does with Wall Street banks. To be sure, I mean that the Unions shall not be exclusive, but inclusive and comprehend all laborers, white and black. The national banking institutions are merely co-operative associations of money-lenders built up and supported by the government. By changing a few sentences in the currency laws the "National Banking Act"-co-operative production and co-operative distribution of products may be instituted by the national government. YE 205TH LESSON. The Rights of the Many Menaced. James Bryce, in his history of the "Holy Roman Empire" says: "As well might one hope to stop the earth's course in her orbit as to arrest that ceaseless change and movement in human affairs which forbids an old institution suddenly transplanted into a new order of things from filling its ancient place." That "a new order of things" is upon us is clear to any observing mind. Combination of interests into trusts and the monopolizing of all production and distribution by large capitalists is not just "approaching," but it is now here. Soon will this include farming. In an early number of the Review of Reviews was shown the profits arising from an Iowa corn farm of 6,000 acres in the year 1898. The farm cost $30 an acre, $180,000; buildings, machinery and running expenses $70,000; total outlay, $250,000. The profits for 1898, $50.000, which equals 20 per cent, a greater profit than may be realized on investments in most other lines of production. What then, must result in the near future in Iowa and in all the West? The small farms all bought up by millionaires and bonanza farming become the rule. Now, in reference to this nation's grasping the islands of the sea and falling into line with England, Russia and the other greatpowers: Is this not inevitable? Is it not simply a part of the "new order?" Can this "change and movement in human affairs" be arrested? Is it not as futile to resist this tendency as it was for Jefferson Davis and his followers to resist the march of events in 1860? The shoemaker no longer has his little shop, the groceryman will soon not have his little grocery, the storekeeper his little store, the butcher his little shop and the farmer his little farm. So with the nation, America will be a stockholder in a great trust of powers. The "English speaking race" will be "our countrymen," for "our country" will be the world. Patriotism has been ever my religion. But what does a man born in South Africa, like Kipling, or in Australia, or India, or New Zealand, or Canada, or Britsh Columbia-know of patriotism as an Englishman? Kipling sings of the "White Man's Burden," but what does he know or feel of the burden that weighed on the heart of Robert Burns? Nothing at all. Must patriotism then be lost in cosmopolitanism? Must we cheer for the flag of the united English-speaking race? Must we cease to celebrate the 4th of July? There is a phase of this condition that sadly afflicts me. I ask what is to become of the multitude who toil? All is gloom and uncertainty here. Go to New York and visit the Italian quarter where men and women work from five in the morning to eleven at night for less than forty cents a day. What is to become of the American laborer? The ignorant and the drunken will be enslaved. But will the graduates of our free schools submit to the industrial yoke of bondage of greedy capitalists? They will not? What, then, will they do? They will have a fair field. They will be assured a competence so that they can marry, support in comfort their families and educate their children. This they will have. How will they secure it? In the words of the patriots of 1776: "Peacefully if they can, forcefully if they must." That is as far as I can see. All is "organization" now on the part of speculators. Capitalists organize. They form unions, with articles of incorporation and officers elected and lawyer's feed to look after their interests. If the farming and laboring classes have got above childhood, have reached the plane manhood, they will do the same. They will take advantage of every right guaranteed them by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitutions of the states and the Union, especially. "The right of every freeman to keep and bear arms." This right must be preserved. But with the courts and the legislators and the executives the mere tools of incorporate trusts, and the brigades of regulars stationed permanently near every state capital-bloodhounds of incorporate tyranny-ready to be unchained, as at Chicago in time of the railroad strike will not our liberties be at an end? The metropolitan daily press is silent in reference to these wrongs. Why? Because, like the officials of state and nation, it is largelly the obedient tool of incorporate wealth. No warning voice is raised by it. The people are told that it is a great blessing to have regulars stationed in DARKNESS AND LIGHT. their midst. Our fathers of 1776 did not think so. 277 The framers of the constitution of the state of Iowa did not think so; for that instrument declares: "No standing army shall be kept up (in Iowa) in time of peace." Have we forgotten the teachings of the fathers? But a new era is upon us. It is an era of concentrated wealth and power. It is an era of corruption. It is an era of drunkenness and debauchery of the many. It is an era when marriage is almost obsolete and homes are becoming rare. It is an era of demoralization. What will follow? Action. The righting of wrongs will follow. The rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness will be reasserted. We will come back to first principles. We will come back to nature. The natural and inalienable rights of man will be conserved-everlastingly preserved or the majority of mankind will "know the reason why!" YE 206TH LESSON. Darkness and Light. No man should be permitted to carry on any business deleterious to the public interest any more than to steal. The business of selling strong drink is worse than theft, because more harmful. And gambling, tobacco raising or tobacco selling or the manufacture of cigars, cigarettes, etc., ought to be inhibited by public opinion, which is the only positive prohibition. Laws not upheld by public opinion are futile, and public opinion fully ripened renders statute law superfluous. What then is needful? The schoolmaster. No man can brave enlightened public opinion. "Enlightened," I say. The figure of light is most expressive. In the sunlight all is seen. Men do not dispute about appearances at midday beneath a clear sky. We see an heroic action and clap approval. The theater goes wild at the brave fireman carrying the aged mother from the flames down the ladder from a lofty height to safety. Right doing is approved of all. Yet all do not know the right. Why is it so? Because many are in the dark. Hence the need of the schoolmaster. Admit the truth by our actions that the true purpose of all human effort is to make the world in which we live and move and have our being the better, the wiser and the happier and we are enlightened. Then it becomes self-evident that we should pursue no course of life harmful to the common weal. But who does not know this to be true? Is the purpose of life with the King of Belgium to make the world the "better, the wiser and the happier?" Is he carrying that out in the Congo Free State? And who, of the millions of the white race live with the purpose of doing only good?-not to enhance their own private fortunes, but other's good? Very few have any higher purpose in life than that of the Belgian King. Now a higher motive has been presented to the world by all teachers of Christianity since the day that Jesus began to preach by precept and practice. If one, to be a Christian, must be devoted solely to healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, casting out devils and raising the dead (figuratively speaking)-literally "going about doing good"what per cent of the so-called Christian world are in fact Christians? Reader, are you a Christian of this type? To say "I am a Christian" is not to be one unless one have in him the mind that was the Master's, and "he dwell in us and we in him.” But the fact is that man, emerging from a savage state, is what he is at a given period of human history. He is as is the Kosmos. What has been the state of sentient life at the different geological periods? What, in the Primary? In the Secondary? In the Tertiary and in the Post Tertiary? All dissimilar-advancing to higher and higher planes increasing in brain development. Now man, individ ually, begins life at the foot of the ladder and goes up many steps of development till he reaches the topmost round. And so of the race. We know that before the glacial epoch man existed. He was not in mind as now. He is not now what he was even three centuries ago. Think of Cotton Mather advising the seizing of William Penn and his co-religionists on the high seas and the selling of them, in the Barbadoes as slaves, for rum and sugar! So I contend that even our Puritan fore-parents were savage-like the King of the Belgians to-day. Many savages we have in our midst even yet. They are far behind the advance of public opinion which marks the high tide of enlightenment. The world is horrified now at such sentiments-such heartlessness as was common, yea, universal three hundred years ago, at the time when the slave ships were unloading their cargoes on our shores and on the islands of the West Indies. But the manufacturing and selling of ardent spirits, the raising of tobacco and opium for the markets are the same, in fact, as the slave trade out of harmony with true civilization. YE 207TH LESSON. Social Anarchy. Martha complains that Emanuel is becoming negligent. He doesn't dress the children in the mornings of late, lets the little ones run about in their bare feet and "nighties" to be looked after by mamma who is so busy getting breakfast. And he neglects to bring in water and coal and even forgets to milk "bossy" and feed the chickens. What ails Emanuel? He has become of late exceedingly religious. He says that God is his only care now. "I give my whole attention to Him and I care for nothing else," he is heard to remark. Well, dear sir, God is surely quite able to get along pretty well without your help, and Martha and the children have need of your loving care and assistance. "As ye have done it unto one of the least of these ye had done it unto me," said the Master. There is, in the same town, a hard-working little woman named Mary. John, her husband, was always very attentive to his home affairs until about three years ago when, for the first time in his life, he came home one evening "full." Sad to say, it is his every-day custom now. Before he has washed for breakfast he hurries to the doggery to take his morning "swig." He comes home when breakfast is cold singing hilariously: "Our fathers they, like silly goats, First wet their eyes and then their throats; Mary was once a very happy wife and mother. John a good husband and father-hard working and providing well for all the needs of wife and babies. He is out of work now most of the time. Really he does not seem to want to work at all any more. What he does earn he spends for beer and cigars. Mary takes in washing. John has become cross and his children are afraid of him. They are so poorly clothed the mother is ashamed to send them to school and she is not able to buy books for them. She is worked down; for she has to support John as well as the children and herself. He even pawned the clock the other day for money, and spent it for beer and tobacco. And not long ago Mary gave him six dollars to pay rent. He lost the money betting on the wheel and for drink. Helen lives in the same town. Her husband is named James. She is a happy wife and mother. Mary does their washing. James gives his wife the long end of the handspike to lift. There is nothing about their |