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Show The. Wage Earners' Wrongs. Here, then, is the wage earners' indictment indict-ment of tho wages system: Every man has a right, because he lias a duty, to earn his daily bread by the sweat of his brow. The wage system denies this right to myriads of willing workers. In America, the workingman's Eldorado, nearly 1,000,000 willing workers work-ers were thrown out of employment in 18So. "Enforced idleness," says Carlyle, "is the Englishman's hell." That system cannot be right which turns 1,000,000 of willing workers in rich America into this bell and locks the door against them. Every man has a right to the product of his own industry; under the Wage system the greater part of the products of industry indus-try goes into the hands of the few tool owners. The wealth of this country has increased during the past quarter century from fourteen billion to forty-four forty-four billion. A carefnl statistician estimates that the wages of 5,200,-000 5,200,-000 unskilled laborers were in 1884 less than $200 a year, while the average wages of workmen engaged in manufactures, including skilled laborers, la-borers, was but $346 a year. That system sys-tem cannot be right whirh gives the profits of industry to tho fow and compels com-pels the many to live always praying, Give us this day our daily bread. Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott in Forum. |