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About The Wealth makers of the world. (Lincoln, Nebraska) 1894-1896 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 21, 1895)
February 21, 1895. THE WEALTH MAKERS. 3 THE ECONOMIC SITUATION (Continued Irom lit page.) ij owner. How can this be? Let ns Bee? Grant that the state has sanctioned my right to life, then, necessarily, I have a riglit to the use of those conditions which make life possible. Food, clothiug and shelter are essential to my physical life. It 1 cannot produce these I die. I can produce them only by application of my labor to the factors land and capital. But land and capital are private prop erty. Assuming that I own only my la bor power, if landlord and capitalist will not employ me for a wage they separate Die from the factors land and capital, and I starve. Thus it would seem that the right to employment is implied in the right to life. Because society has not recognized this right and made provisions for it, makes it none the less valid. One may be deprived of the right o! marriage by force of economic conditions arising from social injustice. It is oniy of this form of deprivation that I speak. If we conceive of the marriage relation and the family as an institution, the ob ject of which is the development and per fection of the character of those who en ter into this relation, then any obstacle to its consummation is a defeat of the purpose of life, a thwarting of the or ganizing idea which would result in mar riage, the family, the home the institu tion wherein one first learns to find his own true life in the life of others through self-sacrifice for tht good of others. It is in the family the home that one first comes to the consciousness of the brotherhood of man the organization of the race the state. The government that permits the or ganization of "business" enterprises, and fosters them, which in their operation nroduce social injustice is an anarchical government. It destroys the state. "The rights above enumerated are not absolute and unlimited; the government fixes their limitations in the act of creat ing them. But it is "law that gives private and public control to land and capital, and thus gives individual owners, or a na- x: i .w 1 1' wl ii o I numuni iht nnwpp tn determine the distribution of wealth. . I have thus far presented briefly the parts of the industrial system mining, manufacturing, agriculture, commerce and the collateral industries. I have !Bhown that all productive processes are carried on by the functioning of land, la bor and capital; that these factors of production are also factors of distribu tion, and that the sovereign power the state, acting through a government or ganizes property and industry by law, and that it the law and the modes of its 'interpretation ana construction De comes the most powerful factor of distri . tuition. , Thus we have a system in which "the wants, energies aud abilities of men," in their struttKles to achieve the aims of life, "assert themselves within an economic and loyal framework created by the so cial class which controls the policy of the nation." -The functioning of the factors of pro the institution of private property makes necessary tne legal "rights of persons already enumerated, and also certain rights of property not here enumerated. The legal system is the reflex of the in herent laws of the economic system. Or, stated another way, laws relating to property and industry are effects; eco nomic laws of the particular system, the causes. The social irritation and unrest today in all capitalistic countries is the neces sary consequence of the mode of produc tion and distribution of wealth. It is popular with those who know nothing of the historical genesis of the present system, and who stand in an ac cidentally secure economic position to say that those who suffer from their in dustrial condition are only receiving the natural punishment of their economic sins. But the fact is, they are suffering from the consequences natural to this particular system of production aud dis tribution. The laws of the system are "natural to this particular system of production and distribution. They are not natural laws in the sense that grav ity and chemical affinity arenatural laws. Based on this misconception that economic laws of the existing system are God s laws instead of those of an indus trial system which was roan-made, and slowly evolved through centuries of tyranny and oppression it is this mis conception that led theNew York plutO' crat to advise the laboring people of that city and the country at large to exercise Christian submission and forti tude to their industrial condition and to fill meekly and patiently the place which God had assigned them. Such a conception of the will of God is based on the mistake that the will of God is identical with the inherent laws of an industrial man-made system which distributes its wealth products according to the laws enacted by the self-interest and organized greed of the social class that rules the policy of the government at a given tune. If the plutocrat was sin cere, he was ignorant. If he was insincere ho was a hypocrite. But my task is to find the economic condition of the farmer in this system This can be done best by illustrating the process of production and distribu tion in some one form of the great in dustries, as manufacturers; and then comparing and contrasting this process with that of farming when the economic condition of the farmer, in relation to the economic condition of the other in dustrial classes will become clear. A MANUFACTURING PLANT. First we need a "Captain of Industry" a Frick or a Pullman. He is a product of modern industrial conditions. His qualifications are the following, among others. He must be a master of the details of manufacturing in some line able to take raw material and go through every process to the finished product. He must have wide and exact commercial knowledge. His knowledge must cover the sources of all raw mate rial entering into his product, and the demands and consuming capacity of his market. He must have the capacity to organize men in an industrial society so they shall be as perfect an industrial in a chine as the German army is a military machine. He may or may not havemuch capital Let ub suppose he has $100,000; a small sum. But one captain has wealthy friends who desire to live off the earnings r of their capital without joining their own I labor to it, and taking the pains and J- riiks attending productive industry. In fuct they have no knowledge, and need none, of the details of the business, 1 ney nave connnence mine aoiiuy of "capital." Each of the four capitalists put up $100,000 which with that of the captain's makes f ,M),000. A small sum now-a-dnys, out Mitneient to illustrate. The captain is the maaager. He buys twenty acres of land at a favorable loca tion on which to establish the plant. Remember now, this is the factor land. The firm or corporation is the landlord. The captain then erects the shops and factories and puts into them the most improved tools and machines iu the world; many of them protected by pat ents, thus giving him an advantage over competitive producers. He has examin ed the modes of production in all the details at homeaud abroad. He employs one or more mechau'eal engineers men educated at our polytechnio schools men who can invent and construct labor saving tools and machines to displace laborers and thereby save wages and thus cheapen cost of production. He then buys raw material out of which to make his product. Buildings, tools and machines, and raw material are capital. Now the captain has two factors of production brought together land and capital. Of them selves they produce nothing. They can not function. Where is the third factor labor? The captain owns neither slave nor serf. There are only free men to deal with. He goes into the labor market to purchase labor power in his line of pro duction. He agrees to pay one man $ 5. a day; one f i.; one $3.; one f 2.; one f 1. according to skill and efficiency. Captain and laborerconfronteach other in the labor market as free men the one the buyer, the other ihe seller of labor power. Each is legally free to contract or not to contract for a wage. But it must be noticed particularly; that the freedom and equality of the contracting parties is only a legal freedom and a legal equality. It is not economic free dom and economic equality on the part of the laborer. The laborer's wage is de termined by his skill and efficiency and by the intensity of competition with other laborers of equal skill and efficiency His wage is not determined by a tariff, protection. Bahl He is coerced to ac cept a wage thus determined irom tne fact that he owns neither land norcapital and can produce nothing to support life except he sell bis labor power for a wage so determined, nis ireeaom cousisis really in the choice between work and starvation. His objeet in accepting tne wage as determined is to support life. The object of tne captain win appear further on. Captain and laborer contract. Laborers enter the shops and factories. Now the three factors are united and production begins. Raw material enters the begin ning of the manufacturing process. It comes out the finished product. Suppose the finished product be my pocket knife. Land, labor and capital have been brougnttogetnerana organized with much foresight and skill. They rep resent a vast amount of property, and an organized industrial community, all for the pnrpose of making jackknives. Is this the final end of all this organiza tion and therefore the real cause of it? The plant turns out millions of jack knives. Are they made for the consump tion of the laborers? One apiece will do them. But what is to be done with the restf Why, each unit of the product is sold for fl.00. That's what is done with them. This anwwer only shifts the question. YY hat is to be done with the fL.OU; Whose $1.00 is it? The answer comes as quickly as the question. Land (landlord) de- iiinnds rent; capital (capitalist) de mands interest; raw material demands cont; wear and tear of buildings, tools, and machines their increment of replace ment; insurance its cost; taxes the gov ernment's share their cost, and finally labor its wage. All these demands are inexorable. Under the system, they are the legitimatecost of production. We proceed to divide the dollar in answer to these demands. There are laws which determine these rates of dis tribution, but they can not be discussed here. The parts of the $1 may not be relatively correct, as distributed, but that will not destroy the value of the illustration. We take out five cents for rent; five cents for interest, because no landlord or capitalist allows the use of his private property without exacting rent or interest, if he can enforce it; five cents for wear and tear; five cents for in surance and taxes; twenty cents for cost of raw material, and finally twenty cents for wages. These items amount to sixty cents. $1 60cts40cts. The cap tain is the organizer and superintendent. His "salary" is counted in as a part of the labor cost in the twenty cents given to labor. . Total cost of a unit of the product 60cts, 40cts left. What is this 40cts? Whose ia it? Two important questions. IT IS SURPLUS VALUE; I, E. what is gained over and above all cost of production. This surplus value is profit is what the plant was organized for what the knives were made for what the knives were sold for what the captain and his capitalist friends put their money into the plant for is the final end the real cause of organizing the factors of production and conducting the process of production. Orthodox economists call surplus value "reward of enterprise." In legitimate productive industries wealth is piled up by the accumulation of surplus value. Surplus value is converted into capital by investing it to increase original cap ital. This is what it is. But equitably whose it? A laborer, educated in a labor organization, comes forward and says, "It belongs to us, the laborers." A colloquy ensues. Captain. Why so? Laborer. "Wealth belongs to him who produces it, and every cent taken from industry without an equivalent is rob bery." Is that proposition true? Captain. Abstractly, yes. But con cretely, it depends on the legal system under which production is organized. Did not your laborers enter into a con tract to work for a wage which you have received according to the contract Laborer. Yes. to be continued. every woman to be thoroughly educated must understand all about good house keeping. To establish a noble government we must devise some plan that will break the monopoly of men in cities, also the monopoly of land in the country. Co operative corporations seem today to b the nearest cut across the country's mis rule to give mankind an object lesson of what the earth may do for man when hs obey's God's command, "Go dress and keep the earth." Bring our money problem to a full so lution by finding a factor that will save a nation's credit by developing its people and resources to their highest point of excellence. These two questions must beanswered. And what throes of mental anguish have been and are yet to be suffered because mankind has evaded truth's exactions. the exact truth about all things. And the world cannot receive the "kiss of God's peace upon its forehead" until self dies and God reigns instead over every heart and home. R. Aoneb C Land and Money "Moreover, the profit of the earth Is tor all; the king blmscltla served by the field " Eco. 6:8. Which is the greater, the land or finance question? Of the two problems we think the land lies deeper in the actual needs and independence of mankind, for if a willing worker could have five, ten, or as maiiy acres of land as he could fully de velop it would be to him a bank with God oh its president, never closed when he waited to use his proceeds. Nor would God's tenant ever be evicted. Wre deem it just k essential to true manhood to underslmd the tillage of the soil as that The Doom of Our People. I voice the plaint of millions of my class who till the soil, for everywhere our woes are one, and we bring the same in dictment airainst the present order of things in the great American republic. Our ills are the same wherever you may iro. whether it be anions: the fields that abut against an unbroken wall of pines far down in Maine, In narrow gorges ridged in by the Alleghany or Rocky Mountains, where the crop must be wrenched from the soil by main strength. or in that vast zone of fertility, the Mississippi valley, which is the grandest agricultural region of all God s creation. In all these localities, so diverse aud dis tant from each other, the farmer's lot remains the same, and it is a universally unsatisfactory one. It matters not what crop he may raise, whether ft be cotton, corn, wheat, potatoes or rice. It does not affect his general state, whether rail ways and great marketing centers be near or far away, for favoring environ ments fail to rescue him from the onward sweep of a malign current that bears him ever nearer and nearer to bankruptcy From the older states bordering the Alleghanies to the new ones, at the base of the Rockies, all are alike blanketed with mortgages. The valuation of Ohio farms decreased au hundred milliou dol lars between 1880 and 1890. Iu the great prairie state of Illinois, the most productive region In the whole world, the rural population is sieauuy uumuisuiug, and yet Illinois has hundreds of thous ands of rich acres that have never felt the plow. Nine millions of mortgages, aggregat ing billions of dollars, on the homes of the men who toil the hardest and most hours of any class of workers! There has been a shrinkage in the price of farm products in the past twenty-two years aggregating more than fifty per cent. The loss by reason of this shrink age to the farmersof the West and South upon wheat and cotton alone has been more than tnree pinions oi oonars, although the change in the per capita production during that time has not been of itself sufficient to make any mate rial difference in values. The conditions of the wage earning class . are still more appalling. Look where we may, we find want and destitution increasing in an alarming ratio. All this, too, in a country unequaled by none in fertility, mineral resources and manufacturing and commercial advantages by any country in all the world. There must be something sadly out of joint, somewhere, or theseevil conditions could not be. There is a great and sub tle enemy somewhere. An enemy that is not only bringing temporary hardships and privations upon us as a people; but our liberties are jeopardized, and the life of the republic is hanging in the balance. These are facts that no one whose God is not gold, and whose patriotism rises higher than his partisanship can doubt, after digesting President Cleveland's late message. That message was de signed to be the climax the consumma tion of all the conspiracies of the past thirty years the last link in the fetters of American industrial slavery. My brothers, what is to be done? Are we so blinded by partisanship that we cannot learn wisdom from the cold and and sordid acts of our enslavers? When we see them break away from all party affiliations and make common cause with the enemies of our race, can we not then, I ask, see the great demand of the hour? see that that demand is to get to gether? which can be accomplished only by every American citizen laying his partizanship upon the altar of his coun try. While there are millions of our peo ple who already see this imperative ne cessity, there are othermillions who have not awakeued to the perils of the situa tion, but are still trusting to those who brought the present scourge upon the couutry. These people will, when divest ed of their partisan blindness, be fouud in the front ranks fighting for our com mon rights. The present is the most dangerous or deal which our country has ever been called upon to pass through. Our free institutions are in the throes of dissolu tion. The immortal Lincoln once said: "We cannot long exist half slave and half free." Neither can we long exist half industrial slave aud half monied pluto crat. Slavery and freedom are not more antagonistic than that of a monied plu tocracy and free institutions. Neither of the two conditions have ever long existed in any country side by side. Mv countrymen, we are fast approach ing a climax! We, as a republic, are stand ing upon the brink of an awful abyss that no nmii can fathom, uur tree instim lions are suspended as by a thread above TAKE NOTICE I Book and Job Printin County Printing and Supplies Easy to Take And Perfect in Their Action, AYER'S PILLS Never fail to relieve Dyspepsia, Constipation, and Headache. "I have proved the value oi oi Ayer's Pills in relieving dyspep- o, sia and headache, with which J compiaiiiia x vs u uuik uwiw that neither the doctor nor my self snnnoseil I should ever be well again. Through the use of the above medicine I am better than I have been for years." A. Gaskill, Versailles, 111. "I have used Ayer's Tills for 15 years as a cathartic in liver complaint, and always with ex tremely beneficial effect, never having had need of other medi cine. I also give Ayer's Pills to my children, when they require an aperient, and the result is al ways most satisfactory." A. A. Eaton, Centre Conway, N. II. "Having been severely afflicted with costiveness, I was induced to try Ayer's Pills. Their use has effected a complete cure, and I can confidently recommend them to all similarly afflicted." C. A. WniTMAX, Nipomo, Cal. AYER'S PILLS Received Highest Awards AT THE WORLD'S FAIR oooooo 000000000000000000 Lithographing Book Binding Engraving Of all kinds. Blank Books o o! o oi o o O! o o o o OI o OH o oi o o o o ol 1 OI ol ol o Legal Blanks its dark vortex. Shall we be equal to the emergency f Will we meet tne peril of the situation like brave men, or will we skulk like cowards? Men with the bal lot should never think of bullets. But with the one or the other these conditions will be met. If done with the ballot there is no time to be frittered away upon bobbies and isms. Once we are in the embrace of the serpent coils of the gold basis, gold standard, gold bond, green back-destroying oligarchy; once the poisonous fangs of this devil-fish are thoroughly embedded in the vitals of the republic: once our national currency is cremated at a cost to posterity of 41 250,000,000 as per President Cleveland' plan, and the ballot will avail little. Rev lution or perpetual servitude is our cer tain doom. Leagues and clubs not Pop ulist party but non-partisan, patriotic leagues, should be organized in every city, village and township, trora Maine to California and from the lakes to the to the gulf, ihe deserving doom of re creant senators and congressmen should be sounded in tones of thunder, and the vivid lightning of the wrath of an out raged people should strike terror to their bribery-debauched souls. Jonathan Wiggins, Cambridge, Neb. Of In all iu branches. From the simplest style to the most elaborate. Ia every style. tv,. v.a T in. SMfoa. tlie handsomest Bleak fca 4ha country, printed on Bond Paper at less expeass tksm other houses furnish them on ordinary flat paper. Stereotyping From superior hard metal. Printers' Rollers an expert from the beet and most dure Made by material. Country Printers The Work of Reform It will not be accomplished in a day, but by years of earnest patient labor. "The summer soldiers and the sun shine patriot" will grow faint-hearted and lay down their weapons in despair before they have passed the borders of the skirmish line. The work the Populist party has un dertaken transcends all former efforts to wards the amelioration of mankind. . The foe they have to contend with is the most formidable enemy of public peace and prosperity; its name is Ignor ance, its Ieaders.Avarice and Solf-aggran-dizement. Education is the only weapon that can reach the foe aud subdue it. Patience is the good right hand that must wield it. The sum of human misery is contained and perpetuated within its ranks, each individual is a martyr to false convic tions, and while correction is imperative, it should be tempered with charitable forbearance from the fact that "they know not what they do." Labor, the mighty force that has trans formed the crude materiuls of nature in to the perfected instruments required for the comforts of the race, lies prone in dust, struggling for existence, conscious of wrong, but ignorant of the way of de liverance. Here is your field of labor and mfne, fellow-worker, a labor of love and mercy with this captive host of false system of government. Not the work of a day or year, but the work of a lifetime il need be. If repulsed try again, and yet again, and keep trying. All education is the fruit of repeated lessons, the product of persevering instruction. Therefore let ub speak often to our neighbor, spare not the truth, but temper it with charity and kindness. u. II. KING, Sherman Co., Neb. Ayer's Hair Vigor is the best prepara tion which can be obtained for removing dandruff and curing humors of the scalp. Creamery Package Mn'fg Company, DEPT. E, KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI. We Carry the Largest 8 took ia the West of Engines and Boilers, from 2 to 75 hone-power. Feed Cookers, of any desired capacity. Creamery Supplies, Etc of erery description. ITT Vprlalit Engine A Boiler. NEW ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE and Sneclal Quotation Free of durara upon application I i rrr- i Having county or other work, waleb. they themselves handle, weald make money by ' as for terms. ' WEALTH MAKERS PUD. GO. Lincoln,' NeU GET A HOME 111 LINCOLN! A CHOICE RESIDENCE three miles from postofflce for sale. It is juet ontsldi the city limits of Lincoln, in the shadow of two colleges, between them and . the city: tiro blocks from street car line, and in splendid neighborhood which enjoys all the luxuries of a city without its taxes, noise and dust. It is a good gar den farm, new bouse, barn, windmill, beet well of water, with water connections in bath room and kitchen. A complete Bystem of irrigation. Fifty cherry, twenty, five apple and other frnit trees, also 10,000 strawberry plants, planted jn 1894, enough native firewood for cooking stove. Here is the prettiest and moat valuable holding in real estate about the Capitol. If yon desire to invest where large re turns cannot fail to come your way, iiiF(;ato tAw oTer. The colleges afford an excellent market for garden, poultry or dairy products. The owner wants to sell and change occupation. No mortgages. If yon want tkii offer address, J. II. DOBSOlf, -11X0 ffl St, Lincoln, Nek. I . S. This tract consists of ten acres. ,' J. W. Cxitob, Pres. J. P. Bocsn, Ylca-rres. W. B. Lracn, Sae'y. A. Gbiummtii, Trees. O. L. LlNOaT, State Agent. , - ,,. t He Farmers' Mutual lnsorapce Company of Nebraska. The Largest, Beat and Cheapest Farm Mutual Insurance Company in the State. VbeaWrltiiis to tia AdrerUaur, f leawt ar jou uw their AdrU la lUU fapvr. "Bar" Fod Cooker Over S X, 17,000 HOOO.000 " X. oahand. Insurance ' Thirtywo Now in I ,V LM" ( wi? f Paid Effect . . . in 1894 lamraa acalnat lUe ad Ushtnlnit, Wind and Tornado, at One Par Cast. Baa ran Tana jreare wltboat am I mum in t Faralihai Inaaranca to tea rarajara at Aerial ceem. j Paid la rail aad ao dabte ataadlaf atiut the Coapeay. Paid Mora Promptly than Aay Old Lima Oeapaay Dotag Bnali Home Office: 245 So. 11th Si, LINCOLN. NEB. PURELY MUTUAL I -3 li y 1 sin ( mi e hi if fia y Ig li ?? S "3 XTEBBASK MUTUAL FIRE, LIGHTNING CYCLONE IN8UBANC1 0OHFAXT. Over i.1 half million inanrea. nave paia oyer owi.w in loosea. nave aaa pan oaa 10c per 1100.00. J. Y. M. BwiSAax, Secretary, Lincoln, Meb. laTAfanu waited. --- .VH LIBER7 LEADERSHIP! The Wealth Makers (Af alnat the Waalth Takara.) Published Weekly Six Years Old No Other Paper like It Send 25c. for three month's trial subscription, -sa. Addreaa, THE WEALTH MAKERS, Liaoola, Heb. TINGLEY & BURKETT, Attorneys-at-Law, 1026 0 St., Lincoln, Neb. OoUaetloai nada and moaay remitted same das aa eouaetad. CALIFORNIA Dr. Davis, dlaeaaea ol teeth and month. Ia onr Sleeping Car Rata on the Philips-Rock Island Tourlut Excursions from Council BluSs, Omaha or Lincoln to Los Angeles or San Fran cisco, via the Hcenlo Route and Ogden. Car leaves Omaha every Frlila. You have through sleeper, and the Phillips manaeement tins a special Agent accompany tba excursion each week, and yon will save the money and hare excellent accommodation, as tba ears have upholstered spring seals,are Pnllmaa build, and appointments perfect. Address tor reservation and full partlculara, CHAS. K.ENNEDT, Q. V. W. P. A., Omaha, Neb. JOHN SEBASTAIN, G. P. A., Chicago.