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The Commoner.
VOLUME 7, NUMBEll 31
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A Striking Picture From the Workingman's Viewpoint
In a recent number of The Public, Louis
F. Post's paper, a striking article written by
Thornton West was published. The Commoner
reproduces this article in full: It follows:
AS W0RKIN$1EN MUST SEE IT
Are there two kinds of law in the United
States one for the rich man and ono for the
poor man? Are the potty thief and the poor
criminal to be promptly' and adequately pun
ished, while the rich thief and the powerful
criminal go unpunished, savo for an occasional
ilno during the stress of aroused public opinion?
Are members of organized labor to bo prosecuted
for capital crimes on dubious testimony, while
rich and powerful mino-owners can bribe legis
latures, can appoint governors and state supreme
court judges, can openly, defiantly, and violently
tramplo under foot stato and federal laws, and
With the aid of governor and militia the latter
confessedly in the pay of the mine owners sus
pend the writ of habeas corpus, nullify all civil
law, depose civil officers, deport citizens, sup
press newspapers, destroy property, and creato
"lawful" anarchy with absolute impunity and
without oven a pretense of prosecution by state
or, federal authority?
From the viewpoint of organized labor and
its sympathizers, those questions constituted the
real issue in the Boise trial. This fact explains
the deep and widespread suspicion and. the ex
pressed bitterness against "the state" that is,
the prosecution in the Boise trial, and the de
nunciation of President Roosevelt for his un
timely and unfortunate classification of the
three accused men as "undesirable citizens."
.i It is "dangerous" and "unpatriotic" to min
imize tho revelations of the trial at Boise. Yet
the labor, troubles, in Colorado and in Idaho are
differont only in degree from what happened in r
the street railway strike at San' Francisco, from
what happened in the Homestead tragedy, in
the anthracite coal mining strikes, inthe raJH
way union strike at Chicago, and in a hundred
other stiikes of less impression on the public
tnemory. " '
vtnOon the part of organized labor, what is the
irffcartthe of this unmistakable lack of faith. in
law ahd government, of this too ready resort to
primitive and barbaric methods to obtain justice
- laag its members see it? On the part of organ
ized capital, what is the meaning of this gener
ally insidious, but when necessary, flagrant and
defiant violation and usurpation of law and gov
ernment? Surely, it is not merely a contention
between employers and employes as to whether
. of not 'wages shall be temporarily increased or
reduced?
J& hot the present attitiide. of organized
capital and of organized labor the outgrowth
of a 'different method of doing business on a
-,. lSVgq' 'scale, of a differont spirit in industrial
.- iandr in commercial enterprises the different
method and the different spirit beirfg , the pro
duct of the marvelous growth of corporations,
especially of trusts?
Professedly, a trust is formed to reduce
the cost of production and to establish and to
maintain prices that will be just and' fair to
, consumer and to producer alike. In reality,
a trust is formed to crush out competition, to
control the supply of the raw material and of
tlje finjshed product, to reduce wages, to make
the. price of the product as high as the public
Will stand, and to limit the disbursement of
profits to as few persons as is practicable in
short, to prey on tho necessities of the people,
to subordinate humanity to money.
Are not tho violence of labor troubles in
the last twenty-five years, and tho almost uni
versal and unanimous condemnation of tho
high-handed methods of railroads and all other
monopolistic corporations are not these an ex
pression of a profound popular discontent
caused by the glaring injustice of special privi
lege on tho one side, and of constantly lessening
industrial opportunity on the other?
Is not President Roosevelt's wonderful pop
ularity due to the fact that he has called a halt
oh the abuse of corporate power, and has de
manded at least the regulation of a few special
privileges?
Are not tho bitterness of organized labor
. and tho strong popular feeling against monopol
istic corporations potent proof that the world
old struggle is now being waged in his country
more openly and moro, fiercely than ever before
tho struggle between those who earn without
getting and those who get without earning?
Do not tho masses of the American people
plainly see that now, as never before in our
history, all men fcre not equal before the law?
It is universal knowledge that the officers
of three of the largest insurancecompanies in
tho world used trust-funds for speculative pur
poses, opened their treasuries to the devotees
of "high finance," to the Wall Street sheep
shearers all for greed, for private gain. Not
even one offender has been punished.
The few men that autocratically control
the railroads of the country have brazenly vio
lated law and equity, have treated the public
with defiant insolence, and have maintained
lobbies to corrupt state legislatures and con
gress. Yet the railroads owe their very exist
ence to special privileges granted by the people;
and every dollar used to build, to equip, and to
operate the roads has been furnished by tho
people, directly or indirectly.
These same railroad autocrats have "won"
hundreds of millions of dollars by juggling rail
road stock in Wall Street, while the service and
the equipment of the roads were not capable
of handling tho freight offered them. There' is
no record of any. stock manipulator pr railroad
president being punished.
"Watering stock" is a favorite pa'stime of
"high finance." Watering stock is but another
name for stealing; it is taking money and giving
nothing for it. Yet it places a heavy secret tax
on the American people and their posterity. All
of these hundreds of millions of fiat stock must
pay dividends, and the American people will do
the paying in the name of legitimate earnings
but in fact for extortionate charges. A small
group of men, dealing in public utilities and
dohiestlc, necessaries, have' made hundreds of
millions by watering stock. No stock-waterer,
no dealer in fictitious property, has yet seen the
inside of a prison, by operation of law.
The prices of nearly all the necessaries and
the' commodities of life are arbitrarily fixed by
trusts. As a trust means no competition abso
lute control of the supply the American people
have no other course open to them than to sub
mit to being "lawfully" robbed. Notwithstand
ing his hold-up methods of money making, the
trust magnate continues to be an eminently re
spectable and exemplary citizen.
The American people have been plucked
of hundreds of millions of dollars by means of
the "Dingley bill," a protective tariff law passed
by a pre-election bribed congress, in considera
tion of the munificent contributions in the first
McKinley-Bryan campaign a bargain and sale
that has no parallel in history for its audacity
in deliberately taxing all the people for the bene
fit of the few. -
After "swollen fortunes" had been taken
from the pockets of the people, the "Dingley
bill" promoters and beneficiaries formed trusts,
created monopolies, and wound up by issuing
hundreds of millions of stock without adding a
dollar to, the actual value of the plants.
By the judicious UBe of a small percentage
of this special privilege tax, the"protective"
tariff beneficiaries have been successful, up to
date, in keeping congress in a "stand pat" atti
tude, and the special taxation of all the people
for the benefit of the few still goes industriously
and merrily on. "
There is no more bitter sarcasm nor mock
ing humor than the tariff beneficiaries' plea that
-the "protective" tariff is for the protection of
the American workingman. It 'is true that the
American workingman has wrested from em
ployers higher wages than ever before; but this
is through the efforts and tho sacrifices of or
ganized labor. It is true that he is better fed,
better clothed, and better housed than those of
his own class and occupation in other countries;
but he is a much more competent and valuable
workman than the foreign wage laborer.
Nevertheless the American workingman is
worried, and he has been led to do some think
ing and Investigating; first, because 14,000,000
girls and women in the United States find it
necessary to labor; second, because his share of
"unprecedented prosperity" does not abide with
him, but is taken from him by the greatly in
creased cost of living the tariff-protected trusts
being tho largest beneficiaries of this increased
cost.
He sees that there are two distinct classes
of .citizens; the producing class and the exploit
ing class.. He sees the shining lights of "high
finance," of stock-watering, of public franchise
huckstering, of special privilege, and of graft
of all kinds and degrees, lined up in the front
ranks of the exploiting class the class that has
added nothing to the nation's happiness or to
its material welfare, but that has debauched
private and public morals at home and has dis
graced the nation abroad.
He sees the stock-jugglers, the stock-wator-ers,
the trust magnates, the tariff-tax beneficiar
ies, the special privilege recipients, parading
their evidence of unlimited wealth. He sees
them contributing with princely liberality to
churches, to libraries, to colleges to popularize
and to perpetuate the present system of protec
tive tariff, trusts, and "high finance." He sm-s
them with their villas and their castles at homo
and abroad, their public postoflices within tluir
private grounds, their private cars, their yachts,
their banks, their railroads, their newspapers'
their lobbies in and out of the legislatures and
of congress. He sees them on intimate terms
with law makers and federal judges, even hob
nobbing with royalty. He sees all this, and ho
feels that he pays a large part of the toll, very
much against his will.
He is not envious of the so-called plutocrats
because they have "lots of money;" but he is
convinced that lots of their money is other peo
ple's money, for which they gave -no value and
,to which they have no moral right.
He has learned that if he steals $50, ho
goes to the penitentiary; but that the man who
steals millions is admitted into "high finance''
and is heralded as p. foremost American. Ho
has found that if he violates the injunction of
a court, he goes to jail, and his home is sold
to pay the court's costs; but that when
the corporation magnate violates an injunction,
he gives bond and goes free.
He' has learned that when a corporation is
the complainant, federal judges are not only
pxompt to assume jurisdiction, but only too often
they assume also the spirit of the prosecutor.
He sees the leading business men of tho
country placing pride of pelf above pride of self.
He sees them proclaiming and exemplifying tho
heresy that the dollar is tho standard of suc
cess, and that this success is the standard of
character, of worth.
He hears himself patronizingly asked to ac
cept a "full dinner .pail" in lieu of a full share
of civic rights and full opportunities in life.
He has, discovered that the devotees of
"high finance" have two systems of arithmetic.
When they buy, they estimate the cost of labor,
material, and machinery, by the formula of 2
and 2 make 4; but when they capitalize to sell
stocks and bonds, it is 2 and 2 make 22.
He is told by the railroads that the rails
made and sold by the steel trust at exorbitant,
protective tariff prices are defective, and are
continually breaking, thus causing railroad
wrecks, and daily and hourly endangering the
lives of thousands of people;. and he is told by
tho railroads that the tariff-protected steel trust
monopoly turns out these defective rails so as to
save money the money going to pay dividends
on hundreds of millions of watered stock. But
no one in authority has even suggested that
the steel trust rail makers are criminally re
sponsible. The government itself tells him the rail
roads, congressmen, senators, and men of largo
wealth have conspired to defraud the people of
thousands of acres of valuable mining and tim
ber lands, but he sees one of these very senators
at the hea,d of the prosecution of the mine union
leaders of Colorado.
He seqs corporation lawyers appointed to
federal judgeships. Ho sees corporation law
yers in the federal cabinet. He sees cabinet
officers go direct from the administration to be
- como intimately associated with Wall Street
leaders of "high finance."
He has been given ample evidence that
even the United States senate, the highest law
making body of the nation and the body that
confirms the appointments of all federal judges
is controlled, when nocessary, by senators
elected to represent railroad trusts, tariff-beneficiaries,
and other special privilege recipients.
Then, too, he has learned that newspapers
are selling their columns, even their editorial
columns, to those who fatten: on spQcial privi
leges, and who rob and oppress the people
"lawfully." f
Seeing and knowing these things, he feels
that there is something radically wrong in the
system of economy thatbrings forth, and in tho
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