_The Metal Worker, May, 1904_
The prime consideration in the present industrial system is profit. All
other things are secondary. Profit is the life blood of capital—the
vital current of the capitalist system, and when it shall cease to flow
the system will be dead.
The capitalist is the owner of the worker’s tools. Before the latter can
work he must have access to the capitalist’s toolhouse and permission to
use the master’s tools. What he produces with these tools belongs to the
master, to whom he must sell his labor power at the market price. The
owner of the tools is therefore master of the man.
Only when the capitalist can exact a satisfactory profit from his labor
power is the worker given a job, or allowed to work at all.
Profit first; labor, life, love, liberty—all these must take second
place.
In such a system labor is in chains, and the standard of living, if such
it may be called, is corner-stoned in crusts and rags.
Under such conditions ideas and ideals are not prolific among the sons
and daughters of toil.
Slavery does not excite lofty aspirations nor inspire noble ideals.
The tendency is to sodden irresolution and brutish inertia.
But this very tendency nourishes the germ of resistance that ripens into
the spirit of revolt.
The labor movement is the child of slavery—the offspring of
oppression—in revolt against the misery and suffering that gave it
birth.
Its splendid growth is the marvel of our time, the forerunner of
freedom, the hope of mankind.
Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and fallen and
bruised itself, and risen again; been seized by the throat and choked
and clubbed into insensibility; enjoined by courts, assaulted by thugs,
charged by the militia, shot down by regulars, traduced by the press,
frowned upon by public opinion, deceived by politicians, threatened by
priests, repudiated by renegades, preyed upon by grafters, infested by
spies, deserted by cowards, betrayed by traitors, bled by leeches, and
sold out by leaders, but, notwithstanding all this, and all these, it is
today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and
its historic mission of emancipating the workers of the world from the
thraldom of the ages is as certain of ultimate realization as the
setting of the sun.
The most vital thing about this world movement is its educational
propaganda—its capacity and power to shed light in the brain of the
working class, arouse them from their torpor, develop their faculties
for thinking, teach them their economic class interests, effect their
solidarity, and imbue them with the spirit of the impending social
revolution.
In this propaganda the life-breath of the movement, the press, is
paramount to all other agencies and influences, and the progress of the
press is a sure index of the progress of the movement.
Unfortunately, the workers lack intelligent appreciation of the
importance of the press; they also lack judgment and discrimination in
dealing with the subject, and utterly neglect some good papers, and
permit them to perish, while others that are anything but helpful or
beneficial to the cause they are supposed to represent are liberally
patronized and flourish in the ignorance and stupidity which support
them.
The material prosperity of a labor paper of today is no guarantee of its
moral or intellectual value. Indeed, some of the most worthless labor
publications have the finest mechanical appearance, and are supported by
the largest circulations.
Such a press is not only not a help to labor but a millstone about its
neck, that only the awakening intelligence of the working class can
remove.
How thoroughly alive the capitalists are to the power of the press! And
how assiduously they develop and support it that it may in turn buttress
their class interests!
The press is one of their most valuable assets, and, as an investment,
pays the highest dividends.
When there is trouble between capital and labor the press volleys and
thunders against labor and its unions and leaders and all other things
that dare to breathe against the sacred rights of capital. In such a
contest labor is dumb, speechless; it has no press that reaches the
public, and must submit to the vilest calumny, the most outrageous
misrepresentation.
The lesson has been taught in all the languages of labor and written in
the blood of its countless martyred victims.
Labor must have a press as formidable as the great movement of the
working class requires, to worthily represent its dignity and fearlessly
and uncompromisingly advocate its principles.
Every member of a trade union should feel himself obligated to do his
full share in the important work of building up the press of the labor
movement; he should at least support the paper of his union, and one or
more of the papers of his party, and, above all, he should read them and
school himself in the art of intelligent criticism, and let the editor
hear from him when he has a criticism to offer or a suggestion to make.
The expense of supporting the labor press is but a trifle to the
individual member—less than the daily outlay for other trifles that are
of no benefit, and can easily be dispensed with.
The editor of a labor paper is of far more importance to the union and
the movement than the president or any other officer of the union. He
ought to be chosen with special reference to his knowledge upon the
labor question and his fitness to advocate and defend the economic
interests of the class he represents.
The vast amount of capitalist advertising some labor publications carry
certifies unerringly to the worthlessness of their literary contents.
Capitalists do not, as a rule, advertise in labor papers that are loyal
to working class interests. It is only on condition that the advertising
colors and controls the editorial that the capitalist generously allows
his patronage to go to the labor paper.
The workingman who wants to read a labor paper with the true ring, one
that ably, honestly and fearlessly speaks for the working class, will
find it safe to steer clear of those that are loaded with capitalist
advertising and make his selection from those that are nearly or quite
boycotted by the class that live and thrive upon the slavery and
degradation of the working class.
The labor press of today is not ideal, but it is improving steadily, and
the time will come when the ideal labor press will be realized; when the
labor movement will command editors, writers, journalists, artists of
the first class; when hundreds of papers, including dailies in the large
cities, will gather the news and discuss it from the labor standpoint;
when illustrated magazines and periodicals will illuminate the
literature of labor and all will combine to realize our ideal labor
press and blaze the way to victory.
[8]Childhood
_Appeal to Reason_
What sweet emotions the recollections of childhood inspires, and how
priceless its treasured memories in our advancing and declining years!
Laughing eyes and curly hair, little brown hands and bare feet, innocent
and care-free, trusting and loving, tender and pure, what an elevating
and satisfying influence these little gods have upon our maturer years!
Childhood! What a holy theme! Flowers they are, with souls in them, and
if on this earth man has a sacred charge, a holy obligation, it is to
these tender buds and blossoms of humanity.
Yet how many of them are prematurely plucked, fade and die and are
trampled in the mire. Many millions of them have been snatched from the
cradle and stolen from their play to be fed to the forces that turn a
workingman’s blood into a capitalist’s gold, and many millions of others
have been crushed and perverted into filth for the slums and food for
the potter’s field.
Childhood is at the parting of the ways which lead to success or
failure, honor or disgrace, life or death. Society is, or ought to be,
profoundly concerned in the nature of the environment that is to mold
the character and determine the career of its children, and any
remissness in such duty is rebuked by the most painful of penalties, and
these are inflicted with increasing severity upon the people of the
United States.
Childhood is the most precious charge of the family and the community,
but our capitalist civilization sacrifices it ruthlessly to gratify its
brutal lust for pelf and power, and the march of its conquest is stained
with the blood of infants and paved with the puny bones of children.
What shall the harvest be?
The millions of children crushed and slain in the conquest of capitalism
have not died in vain. From their little martyr graves all over this
fair land their avenging images are springing up, as it were, against
the system that murdered them and pronouncing upon it, in the name of
God and humanity, the condemnation of death.