Show r THE LAWS SOT TO BLAMK A Bob Ingersoll is correct in many things whatever may be whist position r in regard to Deity He says he would like to see the workingmen have a majority ma-jority in Congress with a President of their own so that they would satisfy themselves how little after all can be accomplished by legislation He says the moment responsibility should touch their shoulders they would become be-come conservative because they would i discover that making a living > n this world is an individual affair his one of the vain ideas of men that their own sorrows may be assuaged by legislation and the various ills of life cured bylaws by-laws it is another vain idea that if laws were as they should be this woud be an easy world in which tpiget a living liv-ing As a matter of fact legislation is of very little concern tto workingmen working-men the laborer has comparatively compara-tively little to do with any laws save those which are made for the protection of individuals teach t-each other in a physical sense The demagogue will go upon the platform I and tell the toiler that if it were not for laws enacted in the interest of the ri hand h-and the monopolists his lot would bean be-an easy one that hours of labor would be shorter and wages higher that dry goods and groceries would be cheaper taxes lighter and life would be a perpetual per-petual holiday Unfortunately II the laboring man too often believes the demagogue and rails against laws and lawmakers officials and governments As illustrating how little effect laws have upon the lot of laboring men it may be stated that for years Congress has thrown its weight in favor of the eighthours aday system there is a Concessional law which makeseight hours a days work in the navy yar sand s-and other government works where men are employed for wages jet the i ie throughout the country ten hours a day If Congress and all + the + i7 State legislatures were to declare eight hours shall constitute a days work and that no more shall be required re-quired of a laborer the lot of the workingman would not be in the least improved indeed it would be made harder for wages would immediately be reduced to correspond with the I shorter hours So also if laws were made to fix or regulate the iFricesof commodities they would not ienefktthe toiler for the owners would not sell if the prices were too low The t commercial Com-mercial laws are those which apply to the workingmen and these cannot te changed ormaterially affected by legislative legis-lative enactments Thse commercial laws provide that value must be given for whatever is received that you cannot get something for w nothing These laws regulate wages and fix f Ke prices of commodities basing wages upon the value of the labor performed and prices upon the cost of production Legislation cannot enable a man to do more in a given time nor can it increase in-crease the product of his toil If it were not for the disasters which would be apt to result from their inexperience in-experience and blunders it would be well to let the impractical men who are eternally charging that all evils are due to bad legislation or to a lack of good legislation have absolute control of the lawmaking and executive branches of government for a time just long enough to open their eyes to the fact that success in life depends largely upon the individual and that laws have very little to do in his own case or affairs |